OpenAI-rival Anthropic sets limits on how investors can participate in upcoming $5 billion fundraise

Claude-maker

Anthropic

has told investors that the AI company does not want money coming through special purpose vehicles (SPVs) in its latest fundraising. Citing two people familiar with the matter, a Business Insider report said that one of Anthropic’s largest backers, Menlo Ventures, was specifically told it must invest using its own capital and not through an SPV, as it did in a past round. The company, as per the report, is raising about $5 billion at a valuation of $170 billion.

A special purpose vehicle, or SPV, is a legal entity that is created for a specific financial purpose, usually to make a single investment. In the world of venture capital and private markets, investors often pool their money into an SPV, and that entity then invests in a company on their behalf. This structure makes it easier for smaller investors to gain access to deals that are normally reserved for large funds.

But companies generally prefer direct investor relationships. Recently, investors have complained that some SPVs targeting AI startups are charging unusually high fees.The BI report quotes Michelle Lim, a founder and angel investor, who posted on X “Many friends including myself have been offered allocation into OpenAI or Anthropic SPVs this week. Minimum check sizes are $100k-$1M, with fees as high as 16%. From what I understand, folks are creating SPVs on top of SPVs and making management fees on top of them. It's like a pyramid.”Venture capitalist Sarah Guo wrote on X: “The feeding frenzy for ownership in the AI labs has spawned a set of bottom feeding multi layered SPV brokers that have no relationship with the company, and straight up grifters," "Careful of that nonsense.”