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Anthropic’s run rate nears $45B: Anthropic’s (final?) pre-IPO round could push $50 billion into the AI lab at a valuation that could reach $950 billion on a pre-money valuation. That’s spitting distance from $1 trillion, the new unicorn threshold for a tech company. Underpinning the lab’s new price? The FT reports that Anthropic is expected to reach a $45 billion run rate “imminently,” up five times from its end-of-year tally.
DeepSeeks’ mega-round comes into focus: It seems that every day DeepSeek’s upcoming venture round gets bigger. Now pipped at up to $7.3 billion at a valuation of more than $50 billion, it appears that Chinese AI labs that choose to stay private will not suffer for a lack of capital. This is critical news if you are a fan of open-source and open-weight AI models.
Cerebras’ IPO set to step higher: AI chip company Cerebras is having a whale of a time going public. The second time ‘round. After kicking off its second run at an IPO, and telling investors it expects to sell shares at $115 to $125 apiece, Bloomberg reports that the G42-backed company may raise its IPO target range to $125 to $135 per share, after seeing 20x more demand for its shares than it intends to sell in its debut.

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Mythos: Myth or reality? We’re getting a clearer picture.

When TWiST500 Golaith Anthropic announced its new Mythos model, saying it would not release it due to concerns that its bug-finding ability would undermine global cybersecurity. Reaction to the pronouncement was mixed. Some argued that Anthropic was being prudent by holding the model back and providing access only to certain critical technology companies. Others accused Anthropic of an elaborate marketing ploy, or even a bit of scaremongering; aren’t OpenAI’s models also pushing the cybersecurity envelope further out?

Critics of Anthropic and Mythos are losing the argument. Recently, Mozilla announced that after enduring a period when “AI-generated security bug reports to open source projects were mostly known for being unwanted slop,” the “dynamic changed for us over a few short months.” What precisely shifted? Per the Firefox-maker:

"First, the models got a lot more capable. Second, we dramatically improved our techniques for harnessing these models — steering them, scaling them, and stacking them to generate large amounts of signal and filter out the noise.”

Mozilla

Thanks to Mythos and improvements to model harnesses, Mozilla fixed 423 Firefox bugs in April. Its March tally? 76. How about February? 61. Every month from there back to January of 2025 saw just 15-30.

In simple numerical data, then, we can see the impact of new AI models on bug-finding work. Here’s hoping that the world’s tech companies can get their bug houses in order before Mythos-level performance becomes commoditized. — Alex

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This Week in Startups

E2285: Aleph's Michael Eisenberg argues we may be witnessing the end of a 60-year run for venture capital as a craft business. Maniv's Mike Granoff and Oxcart's Larry Covert push back, arguing it's merely splitting into two asset classes: "Consensus VC" and traditional VC. Either way, the implications for founders, LPs, and the next decade of innovation are enormous. Tune in for the IPO drought, "bullshit ARR" in the AI era, AI gross margins, the U.S.-China chip war, the Iran conflict's impact on defense tech, the death of NATO and the rise of allied supply chains, why Tel Aviv's stock exchange could become the next NASDAQ, and more.

E2284: Have you wanted to invest in venture capital alongside your 401k contributions, but struggled to find a way to place a bet? Search no more: The AngelList team has created USVC, a new fund that will accept investments from folks who lack accreditation. USVC’s Ankur Napgal swung by to chat about investment strategies, access, fees, and just how illiquid the venture-like vehicle will prove to be. Jason and Alex were next joined by Jon Durbin, core contributor at Chutes, and Yash Goenka, co-founder and CEO of Humwork. Chutes is the most valuable Bittensor subnet, focused on aggregating GPUs to offer trustless AI compute. Humwork wants to help bring a human into your agentic workflow to unstick your agent when it runs into a hitch.

E2283: An AI agent named Valerie is running a real vending machine in San Francisco — setting prices, ordering inventory, managing a bank account, and posting to Instagram. And it's not just a stunt. We’re getting an early look at the future of one-agent companies. Robert Myers, CEO of Manifold Labs, breaks down Targon, a confidential GPU compute marketplace running on Bittensor Subnet 4; Jason calls Bitcoin "played out;" Alex is impressed by Anthropic's stunning $900 billion upcoming valuation; and the guys discuss Big Tech's accelerating CapEx spend, Chinese AI models in Congress crosshairs, and the NBA Playoffs.

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