Menlo raises $3 billion to back AI startups after Anthropic bet

Menlo Ventures turned a single early Anthropic bet into a fundraising calling card. The Silicon Valley firm said it raised $3 billion across two new funds, the largest capital raise in its 50-year history, after leaning hard into artificial intelligence and into one startup that became one of the sector’s defining names.

The new capital is split between Menlo Ventures XVII, which will back seed through Series A rounds, and Menlo Inflection IV, which will focus on Series B and growth. Menlo said the money will go into AI companies across infrastructure, frontier models, enterprise, healthcare and consumer products. The firm, founded in 1976 by H. DuBose Montgomery on Sand Hill Road, said the raise comes as it marks its 50th anniversary and reflects a deliberate reorganization around AI more than three years ago, after ChatGPT’s launch.

Anthropic sits at the center of that strategy. Menlo first invested in the company in 2023, when Anthropic was still pre-product and pre-revenue, then led its Series D in 2024. That round was reported at $750 million and valued Anthropic at $18.4 billion, with about $500 million structured through a special purpose vehicle and Menlo contributing $250 million from its own fund and insider capital. By then, Anthropic had also landed a $4 billion deal from Amazon, underscoring how quickly the company had become a major AI contender.

Menlo later said it had invested in every Anthropic round since and, in July 2024, launched the $100 million Menlo Anthology Fund with Anthropic to back early-stage AI startups. Menlo said that fund has backed more than 60 companies and produced three exits. The firm’s portfolio now stretches well beyond Anthropic, including Axiom, Chai Discovery, Goodfire, Neon, OpenRouter, Skild AI, Eve, Higgsfield, Legora, Lovable, Manifest OS, OpenEvidence, Semgrep, Suno and Wispr Flow.

The broader lesson is how concentrated AI returns have become. One breakout investment can lift a venture franchise, reshape its sourcing network and change how limited partners read skill versus luck. Menlo’s Anthropic win has become proof of concept for Matt Murphy’s view that AI is creating “one of the largest technology platform shifts of this lifetime,” and for Venky Ganesan’s argument that strong portfolios attract strong founders. In this market, exposure to a handful of winners may matter as much as the label on the fund.