Anthropic acquires computer-use AI startup Vercept after Meta poached one of its founders

Anthropic acquires computer-use AI startup Vercept after Meta poached one of its founders

Anthropic on Wednesday announced that it has acquired Vercept, an AI startup with deep roots to some of the greatest names in Seattle’s tech scene. The acquisition marks the latest after Anthropic acquired coding agent engine Bun in December to assist scale Claude Code.

Vercept had created instruments for more complicated agentic duties, including its product Vy, a computer-use agent in the cloud that might function a distant Apple MacBook. Vercept is one of the many startups engaged on re-imagining the private pc for the age of AI brokers. As half of the deal, Anthropic is shuttering Vercept’s product on March 25.

The startup was a grad of Seattle’s AI-focused incubator A12, which spawned from the longstanding Allen Institute for AI. Vercept’s co-founders had roots with the Allen Institute, as properly, and had been beforehand researchers there. One co-founder, Matt Deitke, made news last 12 months as one of the AI researchers who negotiated a monster $250 million wage from Meta to affix its Superintelligence Lab. On Wednesday, Deitke congratulated his former colleagues in a submit on X.

Vercept was a comparatively high-profile AI startup in the area. In a LinkedIn submit asserting the acquisition by Anthropic, Vercept CEO Kiana Ehsani said the startup had raised a complete of $50 million. She called out A12’s Seth Bannon, a board member, as the lead investor. Vercept beforehand announced it had raised a $16 million seed round last January.

The record of angel buyers was spectacular, too, and included former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean, Cruise founder Kyle Vogt, and Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi, GeekWire reported.

In Anthropic’s announcement of the acquisition, the company named co-founders Ehsani, Luca Weihs, and Ross Girshick as some of the team introduced on to affix Anthropic in the acquisition. However, not all of Vercept’s co-founders are becoming a member of the Claude maker.

Oren Etzioni, who has beforehand been named as a co-founder of Vercept and investor in the startup, is well-known in Seattle as the founding chief of the Allen Institute for AI. Along with Deitke, he’s also not becoming a member of Anthropic, and was vocally less happy about the acqui-hire. He posted on LinkedIn: “After a little bit more than a year, Vercept is throwing in the towel and giving their customers 30 days to get off the platform. Sad. A fantastic team is joining Anthropic. I wish them the very best!”

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Etzioni is also a professor at the University of Washington and recognized for other startups he’s based and backed as a VC. He didn’t reply to a request for remark.

On Etzioni’s LinkedIn submit, he accused Bannon, the Vercept lead investor, of being “partly responsible” for Vercept not hiring the appropriate enterprise people. A backwards and forwards ensued between the buyers, with Bannon condemning Etzioni’s remarks: “… you disparaged the heroic work of the founders for achieving an outcome most could only dream of,” Bannon replied in the LinkedIn string. They also accused each other of other less savory issues like mendacity and authorized threats.

While public spats between buyers are entertaining, and primarily meaningless, the underlying motivation is notable. The stakes are high to build the next big AI winner, and now a promising startup that raised a decently sized struggle chest might be tucked into Anthropic.

While the phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed, Etzioni says he acquired a return on his cash. Anthropic clearly needed these researchers (maybe — particularly — with another of them at Meta).

Still, Etzioni told GeekWire that he stays bummed. “I’m pleased to have gotten a positive return but obviously disappointed that after just a little over a year with so much traction, and such a fantastic team, we’re basically throwing in the towel,” he said.

The founders becoming a member of Anthropic, however, seem blissful, according to CEO’s Ehsani’s LinkedIn submit. “The choices were clear: we could build independently and work toward the same vision as two separate versions of it, or join forces with an incredible team and accelerate that vision into reality. The decision became an easy choice,” she said of becoming a member of Anthropic.

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