Menlo Ventures raised $3 billion, the largest in its 50-year history. It’s actually funded by a bet on Anthropic, which is now worth about $14 billion.
Most venture capital funds are sold on a promise basis. Menlo Ventures’ new $3 billion in receipts. Company announced the increase on Tuesday, it’s the largest in 50 years, and its work is contained in one line item. Menlo’s stake in Anthropic is now worth about $14 billion. This was reported to Bloomberg by people familiar with the matter.
Menlo first backed Anthropic in 2023, when the company had no product and no revenue. Since then, he has invested nearly $1 billion in the model maker. Anthropic is currently valued at over $900 billion. This is a type of income that allows the firm to raise whatever it wants.
The obvious story is the numbers. More interesting is what growth says about venture capital itself. The AI ​​boom is changing how these firms operate, and Menlo is a prime example of the change.
Two funds, one strategy
💜 of EU technology
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise founder Boris and some questionable AI art. Free in your inbox every week. Register now!
3 billion dollars is divided into two parts. Menlo Ventures XVII is writing early checks from seed to Series A. Menlo Inflection IV is a growth fund in Series B and beyond. Together, the firm says, they let one founder back in the beginning and continue to write checks as the company scales.
This second fund reports. For three years, Menlo has sold itself as an early-stage contrarian, a firm that supports companies until the market settles. The growth vehicle puts him in the same rooms as the world’s biggest funds, chasing the same late-stage deals.
The pitch must be a Goldilocks firm participating in each round. The risk is that it becomes what it used to bring down.
Menlo is not alone in the pull. AI startups are now staying private longer, with Anthropic and Databricks raising Series H and L instead of going public. This locks up the biggest gains in the late stages, so early backers turn to growth funds to continue capturing them. Even popular early-stage company Benchmark recently raised its first growth fund in three decades.
Menlo’s move is part of a pattern, not a one-off.
A bet that pays everything
The anthropic position did not come cheaply, or quietly. In 2024, Menlo led a $750 million Series D, the largest check Anthropic has ever written. Is it round? quadrupled the value of the startup at that time it had reached 18.4 billion dollars.
The structure was unusual. Menlo put up about $500 million through a special purpose vehicle, a one-time venture set up to raise money for a deal. He added $250 million from his own fund and firm insiders. Managing partner Shawn Carolan called it “a compelling moment.” It worked and has since become a template.
AI-powered special purpose vehicles are now everywhere, so common that Anthropic recently warned that many unauthorized vehicles are simply scams.
Menlo didn’t stop at the cap table. In July 2024, it launched the $100 million Anthology Fund with Anthropic to support startups based on the company’s technology. That fund has since invested nearly $250 million in more than 60 companies.
Some have already exited, including Graphite, which was acquired by Cursor, and Astrix Security, which was acquired by Cisco. In practice, Anthology works as an early warning system, showing Menlo where AI applications are involved before the rest of the market notices.
The firm is now writing its own checks with confidence.
Over the past year, Menlo has invested $100 million each in Swedish coding startup Lovable, music generator Suno, and voice dictation company Wispr, valued at $6.6 billion. It also committed $50 million to bets on new research labs, including Flapping Airplanes, which was initially valued at $1.5 billion.
Managing partner Matt Murphy, who led the Anthropic deal, summed up the change in a clear way. “Now we are only violent,” he said. “Let’s go after it.”
Climbing into a crowded room
The market Menlo is attracting is not like 2023. Kleiner Perkins closed 3.5 billion dollars between the two AI funds in March. Andreessen Horowitz raised more than $15 billion in early 2026, which is equivalent to 18% of all US venture capital raised a year ago. Sequoia has raised nearly $7 billion for its expansion fund. At $3 billion, Menlo isn’t trying to get big.
He tries to win his position. “Strong portfolios attract strong founders,” says partner Venky Ganesan. The argument is that proximity to category-defining companies is an advantage that capital alone cannot buy. Each founder supports Menlo, which the firm claims makes the network a little smarter.
The team is the other half of the field. Menlo hired engineers and operators with real technical depth, including an early Glean engineer, a former head of product at Atlassian, and a co-founder of a security firm that Palo Alto Networks bought. The founders, the firm claims, want partners who can read the architecture as well as sign the check.
History helps the story. Menlo cut a $20 million check for Uber in 2011, when the company was valued at $322 million. It supported Siri, Roku, and Hotmail until each became clear. The firm currently manages more than $8.5 billion and has more than 170 exits behind it.
The question under the hood
Menlo raises obvious nerves about an AI bubble at once. Ganesan did not shy away from this. “It’s a natural part of any technology era,” he said. The firm’s defense, he added, is discipline about the fund’s size and concentration on the best companies it can find.
This is the real test hidden under the $3 billion hood. Menlo’s last period was defined by an outlier that repeatedly returned to the firm. The next one poses a more difficult question.
Should Menlo find another Anthropic, or can he consolidate the stake he already has? The answer will decide whether this growth looks like a visionary or a market peak, and no one, including Menlo, knows yet.
