AI startup Anthropic, funded by Amazon and Google, has planned its first-ever share buyback for employees, according to reports.
Claude AI maker Anthropic seeks to repurchase shares from current and former employees valued at $61.5 billion. In March, the company announced that it raised $3.5 billion at the same valuation for the Series E round.
The share buyback plan intends to allow employees to liquidate their equity while allowing the company to retain its top performers amid an aggressive hiring environment. According to the Economic Times, the company’s valuation has skyrocketed in the past year. In March 2024, it was valued at $15 billion, and by the end of the same year, it reached over $60 billion after back-to-back funding rounds from investors such as Google, Amazon and Salesforce Ventures.
Employee liquidity programmes such as these have become more common across AI companies. AIM reported in May 2024 that Apple initiated a programme after its Q2 profit, which resulted in a stock surge of 12% in after-hours trading as the CEO predicted sales growth with upcoming AI-driven features.
Similarly, in November last, OpenAI allowed its employees to sell about $1.5 billion of shares to SoftBank.
Broadcom, a tech company, also launched a share buyback programme of up to $10 billion on 7 April, reflecting its semiconductor and infrastructure software franchises, especially in its AI-related investments.