The Anthropic Effect: AI Capital Reopens the Exit Market

The startup market is entering a new phase. Anthropic’s $50 billion raise—the second-largest startup funding deal on record—pushed global startup investment to one of the highest monthly totals of all time, according to the Crunchbase monthly VC funding recap.

Global venture funding reached $92 billion in May, marking the second-largest monthly total on record, trailing only February. Anthropic alone accounted for $50 billion of that total, representing 54% of the month’s funding. This surge drove startup funding up 284% year over . This influx of capital is occurring alongside a reopening of the exit market, signaled by Cerebras Systems’ successful IPO.

The Cerebras IPO provides a preview of the liquidity that could fuel the next wave of private market investment. The chip company, which benefits from growing demand for AI inference, went public at the upper end of its range at $185 per share and opened at $350. The stock is currently trading around $225, valuing the company at just over $49 billion.

The implications for valuations are profound. Anthropic has moved ahead of OpenAI on The Crunchbase Unicorn Board, becoming the second-most highly valued private company at $965 billion, positioned just behind SpaceX at $1.25 trillion. This follows a significant jump from February, when Anthropic was valued at $380 billion. The broader board has grown to include 1,780 companies altogether, valued at $9.9 trillion as of the end of May.

The AI sector is the primary engine of this movement. Funding to the AI sector totaled $72 billion, or 79% of total funding, last month. This momentum is supported by heavy capital concentration in a small number of players. A further $17 billion was raised by 10 companies in rounds of $500 million and above. Notable rounds include:

• Anduril Industries raised $5 billion.
• StepFun and Moonshot AI each raised more than $2 billion.
• Cognition raised $1 billion.
• Sierra raised $950 million in a single round.

The boom is beginning to fund itself through massive equity raises and impending public listings. SpaceX publicly filed its prospectus in May, stating its intention to raise $80 billion via its IPO. The space tech giant has raised $9.4 billion in equity funding to date. Meanwhile, Anthropic has raised $125 billion in equity funding thus far and has filed confidential IPO paperwork.

The market is no longer just waiting for liquidity; it is actively creating it. As large-scale AI winners move toward public markets, the precedent for massive, multi-billion dollar exits is being set.

Watch the trajectory of the Cerebras stock price; it will serve as the primary indicator for whether the broader AI-driven liquidity wave can sustain this level of valuation expansion.