Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s early bet on artificial intelligence startup Anthropic could be worth as much as $20 billion when the company goes public, according to a report.
The 71-year-old tech billionaire owns roughly 1% of the company behind the Claude chatbot after investing tens of millions of dollars in its 2021 Series A funding round, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Investors recently pegged Anthropic’s potential valuation at between $1.8 trillion and $2 trillion ahead of its highly anticipated initial public offering, according to Bloomberg.
Even at Anthropic’s most recent valuation of $965 billion, Schmidt’s reported stake would be worth nearly $10 billion on paper.
Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index puts Schmidt’s existing fortune at $57.5 billion. A $2 trillion valuation for Anthropic would push his estimated wealth to nearly $80 billion on paper, based on his reported stake.
Schmidt participated in Anthropic’s initial major fundraising round in 2021, when the startup was valued at $461 million, according to PitchBook data cited by Bloomberg.
A $2 trillion valuation would represent a more than 4,300-fold increase from that early benchmark.
Schmidt and Anthropic declined to comment to Bloomberg, which said it could not determine whether the billionaire had sold any of his shares since his initial investment.
Anthropic could begin marketing its IPO to investors as soon as the week of Nov. 9, potentially paving the way for shares to begin trading before Thanksgiving, Bloomberg reported.
Anthropic’s seven co-founders, meanwhile, are each worth an estimated $8 billion on paper, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
Schmidt has also built a sprawling portfolio of technology investments through firms including TomorrowVentures and Innovation Endeavors, as well as his family office, Hillspire.
More recently, Schmidt has poured money into AI startups including Mistral AI, Reflection AI and World Labs, according to Bloomberg.
At a $2 trillion valuation, his Anthropic investment would outperform Innovation Endeavors’ early bet on Uber, whose valuation surged roughly 1,400-fold to $82 billion by the time it went public in 2019, Bloomberg reported.
Anthropic leapfrogged rival OpenAI in valuation after raising $65 billion in May, with venture capital firms Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital each investing more than $2 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Other major backers of the Claude chatbot maker include tech giants Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia and Microsoft.
Anthropic’s stock market debut could match or eclipse the $1.77 trillion valuation achieved by SpaceX in its record-setting June IPO, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Schmidt’s personal life has also attracted plenty of headlines.
The billionaire has been married to philanthropist Wendy Schmidt since 1980, even as his relationships with other women have drawn public scrutiny.
He previously dated entrepreneur Michelle Ritter, with whom he launched the technology venture Steel Perlot, according to Forbes.
Their romance eventually unraveled, and the former couple became embroiled in a legal dispute. In June, the Los Angeles Times reported that Ritter had been ordered to pay Schmidt $10 million.
Schmidt was also romantically linked to Alexandra Duisberg, with Page Six reporting that the pair split in 2019 before reconnecting the following year.
More recently, the former Google chief fueled speculation about his love life after appearing at events alongside Gloria-Sophie Burkandt, the daughter of a German politician, earlier this year.
A source close to Schmidt, however, characterized their relationship as a friendship rather than a romance, according to published reports.
A rep for Schmidt declined to comment when reached by The Post.
