Anthropic's one trillion and DeepSeek's 10 billion

Author: Lin Wanwan

On April 17, 2026, the AI financing circle once again became excited.

A screenshot was spreading wildly among investors, implying that Anthropic’s implied valuation, on platforms like Caplight, Ventuals, and other secondary markets and derivatives platforms, quietly crossed a line: one trillion dollars.

Brief, but real — surpassing OpenAI.

No official announcement, no press release, no CEO Dario Amodei stepping out to say anything — just the market voting itself in the pre-IPO phase.

Investors looked at the revenue curve with excitement: Anthropic’s annualized revenue rose from $9 billion at the end of 2025 to $30 billion, a 233% increase in four months, then they started spreading the word: AI’s leader has changed.

Let’s clarify one thing. Anthropic’s latest official post-investment valuation was $380 billion after completing Series G in February 2026. Several venture capital firms later bid $800 billion or more, but Anthropic has not accepted these offers.

That $1 trillion is an implied figure on secondary market platforms.

Almost on the same day, another piece of news came from Hangzhou.

DeepSeek is planning its first external financing since its founding, aiming for a valuation exceeding $10 billion, with plans to raise at least $300 million. The first time in three years.

One is being chased by capital, reaching the trillion-dollar threshold. The other has kept capital at bay for three years, then chose what they believe is the right timing to crack open the door a little.

Reading these two pieces of news together reveals the same story: this spring, two of the most important AI companies in two countries have both reached the edge of their respective paths.

Anthropic’s List of Allies

First, let’s talk about Anthropic.

On February 13, 2026, Anthropic completed its Series G financing, raising a total of $30 billion, with a post-money valuation of $380 billion. The lead investors were Singapore’s GIC and hedge fund Coatue, with co-investors including Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Qatar Investment Authority, Temasek. Nvidia pledged up to $10 billion, and Microsoft up to $5 billion.

Recite this list: Singapore sovereign fund, Qatar sovereign fund, the largest American investment bank, Nvidia, Microsoft.

This is a list of alliances. Global capital is voting with real money: the voice of AI should stay in the United States, in the hands of this company.

Two months later, the results came.

According to data from Ramp, an enterprise expense management platform, in March 2026, among new funds allocated to AI services purchased by enterprises for the first time, as much as 73% flowed into Anthropic, while OpenAI’s share dropped to 27%. Just ten weeks earlier, the two were evenly split at 50:50.

The core weapon is Claude Code, with annualized revenue exceeding $2.5 billion, more than doubling since early 2026, and enterprise subscription users quadrupled.

This reversal can be understood as follows: OpenAI is building a consumer-facing Disney, relying on foot traffic to sell tickets. Anthropic is building a toll road to core enterprise systems, with tolls much higher than tickets, and once on the road, it’s not easy to switch lanes.

Just a few days after Anthropic announced it had overtaken, an internal memo written by OpenAI’s Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser was leaked, accusing Anthropic of using the “total amount method” to inflate revenue by about $8 billion.

When customers buy services via AWS, Google Cloud, and other platforms, Anthropic counts the entire amount paid by the customer as revenue, including the portion that needs to be paid to cloud providers. Excluding this part, Anthropic’s true revenue is about $22 billion, not exceeding OpenAI’s $25 billion.

The tone of this document resembles two former colleagues exposing each other’s shortcomings.

Understanding this memo requires some background. Anthropic’s private market valuation is about $600 billion, a significant premium over the previous round, while OpenAI’s secondary market valuation is about $765 billion, roughly 10% below its last funding round. The old boss is starting to feel pressure in the capital market; releasing this document is both a move against competitors and a way to stabilize their own position.

Then there’s that number that seems out of place amid the celebration. Anthropic expects to turn a profit only by 2027. With an annualized revenue of $30 billion and a valuation of $380 billion, each funding round sets new records, but profitability is still in the future. The higher the valuation, the greater investors’ expectations, the faster the burn rate, and the more urgent the next round of financing.

Anthropic cannot actively break this cycle; it can only run fast enough to maintain it. That’s the invisible wall it faces.

And DeepSeek, leaving the entire investment circle in the dark for three years

Next, let’s talk about Liang Wenfeng.

After the explosive R1 round, the entire Chinese investment scene was in chaos. Zhu Xiaohu, who just said “not optimistic about startups building large models,” publicly stated that price was no longer the main concern — participation mattered more. Tencent executives went, Alibaba executives went, various VCs visited one after another.

Rumors of Alibaba investing $10k, C-round raising $700 million, and others surfaced one after another, only to be denied repeatedly.

Liang Wenfeng kept the entire investment circle waiting outside, for three years.

His reason was a simple sentence: “No plans for fundraising in the short term. Our problem has never been money, but the embargo on high-end chips.”

Huanfang Quantitative invested 3 billion RMB in DeepSeek’s initial R&D, entirely supported by profits from quantitative private funds. They are not short of money; what they lack is chips, and financing cannot solve the chip issue.

As for why they refuse external investment, he has another concern: external investors might interfere with company decisions.

Reading Liang Wenfeng’s background reveals a consistent thread. Born in 1985 in Zhanjiang, Guangdong, graduated from Zhejiang University’s School of Information and Electronic Engineering, he went straight into quantitative investing without looking for a job. In 2015, he founded Huanfang Quantitative, and in 2019, invested nearly 200 million RMB to build a computing cluster “Firefly One,” equipped with 1,100 GPUs.

When the A100 launched, he was among the first in Asia-Pacific to acquire the chips, becoming one of the earliest in the region. In 2021, he invested another 1 billion RMB to build “Firefly Two,” with about 10k A100s. By 2023, he shifted focus to large models, founding DeepSeek.

Every step he takes is guided by an engineer’s pre-judgment: prepare the tools first, then do the work. Refusing external funding is one of his tools.

But now, this tool is starting to fail.

DeepSeek’s absolute salary levels are not low, but they cannot match the equity incentives and valuation premiums of market giants like ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent. Liang Wenfeng has begun to push for company valuation work, clarifying option pricing, giving the team more certainty.

Without external funding, there’s no market-based valuation, and no option value. For a top engineer, working at DeepSeek might mean changing the world, but they can’t produce a tangible equity certificate to measure wealth.

In January 2026, Zhipu listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, followed by MiniMax’s listing. The options of peers are being realized, and talent pressure at DeepSeek is becoming more real.

Another issue is being forced out: DeepSeek and Huanfang’s senior management are discussing whether the company should shift from “mainly focused on research” to “building a profitable business that generates substantial income.” This very discussion is a crack in the door.

The first financing target exceeds $1 billion valuation, while the company’s valuation in 2025 was about $10k. If the financing succeeds, the valuation will multiply several times.

$300 million for a valuation of $10 billion represents less than 3% dilution. This is a very cautious figure — like someone feeling the temperature at the door handle before gently pushing it open.

Liang Wenfeng’s three years of independence have earned him the greatest bargaining chip. He opened the door when he was most confident.

Two Civilizations at the AI Card Table

Putting these two stories together reveals a hidden thread.

Anthropic’s Series G investors include GIC, Qatar Investment Authority, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Nvidia, and Microsoft.

Behind this list lies a complete logic: AI discourse power should stay in the U.S., “safe and trustworthy” AI is the next infrastructure, and every dollar invested is a bet on this judgment.

DeepSeek’s initial funding potential investors include Alibaba, state funds, and other top domestic institutions — this is China’s capital first openly pricing a top-tier AI research institution. They are betting on a different logic: technological independence, open-source ecosystems, and domestic computing power.

These two lists, placed at the same table, represent two civilizations betting on different futures.

Closed source and open source are also two power structures in this game.

Anthropic remains fully closed, relying on enterprise trust premiums. Its monthly active users generate $211 in revenue, and what it sells is not just model capability but a sense of reassurance backed by experts. You don’t need to understand it — just trust it.

Liang Wenfeng says open source “is more a culture than a business strategy; contributing to open source earns us respect.” The former concentrates the definition of “good AI” in a few people, while the latter leaves it to global developers to discuss.

These are two political stances on the future of AI.

But both companies face the same fundamental question: when you grow large enough, what do you use to prove your worth?

Anthropic’s answer is revenue growth and enterprise clients, but profitability is only expected in 2027. The old boss is still watching closely. DeepSeek’s answer is still taking shape.

Epilogue

This race has no referee yet.

Anthropic’s valuation surges toward a trillion, but profitability might only come in 2027. How long are the world’s most astute sovereign funds and top investment banks willing to wait? The history of AI is short; no one has seen how such a company lands softly, nor how it crashes hard. Everyone is groping in the dark, each with their own approach.

DeepSeek’s problem is the cost of choice. After fundraising, external shareholders come in, and the independence Liang Wenfeng has guarded so fiercely might not last long. Once the door opens, no founder can fully control what comes in afterward.

Dario Amodei describes himself as “an explorer seeking a third way between the narrow paths of rushing to paradise or falling into hell.” People around Liang Wenfeng say that AGI is his ultimate goal, and that money and commercialization are not top priorities.

Both believe they are doing something more important than fundraising.

The capital market does not believe in faith — only in profit and loss statements.

Three or five years from now, when we revisit this ledger: will the company whose valuation once soared to a trillion prove its worth? Will the company that exchanged three years of independence for respect and then took its first step stay true to its original intention?

Neither path has been fully traveled.