Anthropic Buys AI Startup Vercept After Founder’s Exit to Meta
▼ Summary
– Anthropic has acquired the AI startup Vercept, which specialized in tools for complex agentic tasks like its cloud-based computer-use agent Vy, and will shut down Vercept’s product on March 25.
– Vercept was a high-profile Seattle startup, a graduate of the AI incubator A12, and had raised a total of $50 million from investors including notable figures like Eric Schmidt and Jeff Dean.
– Key Vercept co-founders Kiana Ehsani, Luca Weihs, and Ross Girshick are joining Anthropic as part of the deal, but co-founders Matt Deitke and Oren Etzioni are not.
– Investor Oren Etzioni publicly expressed disappointment with the acquisition, leading to a public dispute with lead investor Seth Bannon over the startup’s direction and outcome.
– The acquisition reflects the high-stakes competition in AI, with Anthropic integrating Vercept’s talent to accelerate its vision, while the deal provided a financial return for investors like Etzioni.
Anthropic has expanded its portfolio with the acquisition of Vercept, a Seattle-based AI startup specializing in advanced agentic systems. This move follows Anthropic’s purchase of the coding agent engine Bun late last year, further scaling the capabilities of its Claude AI assistant. The deal involves shuttering Vercept’s primary product, a cloud-based computer-use agent named Vy, which was designed to operate remote Apple Macbooks. This acquisition represents a strategic effort to integrate specialized talent and technology, focusing on redefining personal computing for an era dominated by AI agents.
Vercept emerged from Seattle’s influential AI incubator A12, which has ties to the Allen Institute for AI. The startup had secured a total of $50 million in funding, including a notable $16 million seed round announced last January. Its investor list featured prominent figures such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Google DeepMind’s chief scientist Jeff Dean, Cruise founder Kyle Vogt, and Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi. Lead investor Seth Bannon of A12 played a pivotal role in backing the company.
As part of the acquisition, several Vercept co-founders will join Anthropic, including CEO Kiana Ehsani, Luca Weihs, and Ross Girshick. However, the transition does not include all original founders. Notably, co-founder Matt Deitke departed last year to join Meta’s Superintelligence Lab, reportedly negotiating a compensation package worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Deitke publicly congratulated his former team following the acquisition news.
Another significant figure not joining Anthropic is Oren Etzioni, a founding leader of the Allen Institute for AI, who was previously listed as a co-founder and investor in Vercept. Etzioni expressed disappointment about the outcome, stating on LinkedIn that the startup was “throwing in the towel” after just over a year of operation. He confirmed receiving a positive financial return but lamented the short lifespan of a venture with strong traction and a talented team.
Etzioni’s public comments sparked a heated exchange with lead investor Seth Bannon. In a LinkedIn thread, Etzioni suggested Bannon was partly responsible for Vercept’s failure to hire adequate business leadership. Bannon fired back, defending the founders’ achievements and criticizing Etzioni’s remarks as disparaging. The argument escalated with accusations of dishonesty and legal threats, highlighting the intense pressures and high stakes within the competitive AI startup ecosystem.
Despite the internal discord, the founders moving to Anthropic appear optimistic. In her LinkedIn announcement, CEO Kiana Ehsani described the decision to join forces as clear and straightforward. She emphasized that collaborating with Anthropic’s team would accelerate their shared vision more effectively than pursuing independent development. The financial terms of the acquisition remain undisclosed, but the transaction underscores Anthropic’s aggressive strategy to onboard top AI research talent, especially as competition for experts intensifies with giants like Meta.
(Source: TechCrunch)
