Matt Murphy saw something others missed. The Menlo Ventures partner led the firm’s early bet on Anthropic. He backed the startup when it carried no revenue and no launched product. Today that call looks prescient. Anthropic hit a $47 billion revenue run rate by May. It climbed from $9 billion in 2025. TechCrunch reported the figures. Murphy calls it unmatched. Not in the internet boom. Not in mobile. Not in early cloud. He shared his view on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast.
The numbers stun. From $4 billion in July 2025 to $9 billion late that year. Then the jump to $30 billion in early 2026. And $47 billion weeks later. Growth this steep rarely appears in venture portfolios. Murphy, with 25 years investing, says he has never witnessed its equal.
But here’s the twist. Murphy insists the model itself does not explain the lead. Claude performs well. Yet so do rivals from OpenAI and Google. Something else drives the ascent. Distribution channels. Enterprise trust. Safety focus. Partnerships that open doors.
Anthropic forged ties with Amazon and Google. Those alliances delivered cloud credits and market access at scale. They eased the path for companies wary of single-supplier risk. Meanwhile OpenAI leaned heavily on Microsoft. That bond brought power yet also constraints.
Enterprise buyers responded. They wanted reliable systems less prone to hallucination. They sought clear policies on data use and intellectual property. Anthropic positioned itself there. Its constitutional AI approach promised guardrails baked in from the start. Customers noticed. They paid.
Enterprise Adoption Outpaces Consumer Hype
Paid consumer metrics tell part of the story too. Claude gained ground on ChatGPT in that segment through mid-2026. Paying users and revenue for Claude rose 75 percent from January to May. DataCamp data showed Claude as the most-searched AI term. Demand for Claude-related courses ran three times higher than for ChatGPT offerings. TechCrunch covered those shifts. ChatGPT still led overall consumer usage. No question. Yet the gap narrowed in dollars and mindshare.
App store rankings flipped at points. Claude claimed the top free app spot on Apple’s U.S. store in March. It passed both ChatGPT and Gemini in downloads during that window. A public disagreement with the Pentagon over usage restrictions for defense applications appeared to boost rather than hurt interest. Users saw principle. They downloaded more.
Recent developments add layers. A federal judge approved Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement with authors. The deal addresses claims the company used pirated books to train Claude. Reuters called it the largest known copyright payout in a U.S. case. Only 350 authors opted out of the class action. Reuters detailed the ruling on July 20. Ars Technica noted it ends the biggest certified copyright class-action in the sector. That outlet reported the final approval.
The payment totals about $3,000 per book for thousands of authors. ABC News highlighted the per-book figure. The resolution removes a cloud. It signals willingness to address training data concerns head-on. Other labs face similar suits. Anthropic’s move may set a template.
Analysts point to several factors behind the momentum. First, focus on coding and software engineering tasks. Claude Code gained praise for frontend work and live web browsing features. Developers shared results on X in recent days. One post asked who uses Claude Code daily and invited prompt examples. Another user declared Claude wins the frontend game outright.
Second, the company ended free access to its top model, Claude Fable 5. The decision, noted in recent YouTube roundups, pushed more users toward paid tiers. Revenue acceleration followed. Third, partnerships expanded reach. Amazon’s infrastructure helped. So did Google’s investments. These ties created distribution muscle the model alone could not supply.
OpenAI still commands attention. GPT-5.6 reached general availability recently. Microsoft quietly shifted some internal work toward its own MAI models, according to tech observers. Yet Anthropic’s enterprise concentration stands out. Reports suggest hundreds of thousands of business customers. Revenue skews heavily commercial rather than consumer.
Murphy’s early conviction stemmed from the founders. Dario Amodei and team left OpenAI over safety differences. They built with alignment in mind. That story resonated with buyers who prioritize governance. It also appealed to investors tired of headline risks.
But questions linger. Can the pace hold? Valuation estimates for Anthropic reached $380 billion earlier this year in some reports. Others place it lower. Competition intensifies. Google improves Gemini. OpenAI ships updates fast. New entrants chase niches.
Still. The growth curve defies easy comparison. Murphy watched internet companies scale. He saw mobile apps explode. Cloud infrastructure deals multiplied. None matched this velocity. So he points to execution beyond benchmarks. To sales teams that close large contracts. To product decisions that favor long-term trust over short-term virality.
Recent X chatter reflects the shift. Users ask openly if Anthropic has won. Some miss OpenAI’s earlier dominance. Others celebrate Claude’s coding edge. The debate itself shows the race tightened.
Anthropic’s leaders avoid victory declarations. They talk of responsible development. They settle legal claims. They ship features that solve real workplace problems. Cowork, a tool built on Claude Code, went viral for helping non-coders. Axios noted its workplace impact back in January.
The AI sector now measures success in revenue run rates that once seemed impossible. Anthropic cleared $47 billion. Observers wonder what comes next. Murphy’s podcast appearance offers clues. He stresses factors outside raw model performance. Listen closely. The reasons he cites explain more than any benchmark score.
Industry insiders track every quarterly update. They parse app store data. They watch legal outcomes. And they listen when a veteran investor like Murphy says the model was never the point. Because in this contest, distribution, trust and execution decide the winner.
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