Anthropic Walks Away From Decart as $6 Billion AI Deal Unravels

Caroline Ryan

Tue, September 8, 2026 at 10:57 PM GMT+3 3 min read

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Anthropic has reportedly abandoned talks to acquire AI startup Decart in a deal that would have bolstered the Claude maker meet rising demand for AI computing.

The artificial intelligence company had been in talks about a potential $6 billion acquisition but ultimately decided against it, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

The potential acquisition was first announced in August, although it was noted at the time that the deal was in early stages and plans were subject to change.

The two companies could still collaborate on future projects, sources noted.

Had the Deal Been Finalized…

Deart would have been Anthropic's largest acquisition to date.

The San Francisco-based startup — co-founded in 2023 by Dean Leitersdorf, Moshe Shalev, and Orian Leitersdorf — specializes in real-time, low-latency generative video and interactive world models like Oasis and Lucy, alongside the Decart Optimization Stack (DOS).

In May, the company raised $300 million in its Series B funding round, led by Radical Ventures and Jordan Jacobs, bringing its total funding to more than $450 million. Nvidia Corp, Valor Equity Partners, Adobe Ventures, and Atreides Management joined the funding round. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and Zeev Ventures were also involved.

The funding round pushed Decart's valuation to nearly $4 billion, up from $3.1 billion in August 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Bloomberg added that Israeli media outlet Calcalistech reported that Decart was allegedly in discussions with SpaceX about an acquisition; however, Elon Musk refuted the claim on X, calling it "fake news."

IPO Plans

So far, Anthropic has made six acquisitions to date. The AI company acqui-hired the team behind Humanloop, an evaluation and observability platform, and bought Fractional AI, which specializes in AI consulting and automation.

It paid roughly $400 million for Coefficient Bio, a startup focused on AI-driven drug discovery, and acquired Stainless, which builds SDK infrastructure for API libraries.

Anthropic also picked up Vercept, a computer-use agent startup whose technology has been folded into Claude's ability to operate software, and Bun, a JavaScript runtime maker, to support development of Claude Code.

It now appears that Anthropic prefers the IPO route, with a reportedly predicted valuation of $2 trillion.

Supporters of Anthropic say strong demand for its advanced AI models and tools warrants the lofty expectations, forecasting that the company's annual revenue could reach $100 billion to $120 billion by the end of 2026, more than a tenfold increase over the year.

Anthropic could see overwhelming demand when it goes public in October, according to Connor Group founding executive Jim Neesen.

"I expect Anthropic to be heavily oversubscribed at the time of IPO and well positioned to achieve a valuation close to the $2 trillion range," Neesen said in a recent interview with Benzinga.

Photo: Shutterstock

This article Anthropic Walks Away From Decart as $6 Billion AI Deal Unravels originally appeared on Benzinga.com

Anthropic Walks Away From Decart as $6 Billion AI Deal Unravels

Had the Deal Been Finalized…

IPO Plans

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