Amazon's $18 Billion Anthropic Stake Set to Top VC Returns

Amazon is positioned to collect the largest payout from Anthropic's planned initial public offering, outpacing the venture firms that backed the AI developer, TechCrunch reported on October 27, 2026, citing Anthropic's S-1 filing.

Amazon began investing in 2023 with a pledge of as much as $4 billion and later added more, largely through convertible notes rather than common equity. The filing lists $6.2 billion in principal outstanding on those notes as of June 30, the company's full debt load. Amazon's own disclosures put the market value of that position at $97.9 billion on the same date. The notes could turn into as many as 1.84 billion shares, though a cap holds Amazon to 12% of a partially diluted share count unless it waives the limit. Amazon also bought $10 billion of nonvoting preferred stock across Anthropic's two most recent rounds, bringing its total outlay to roughly $18 billion. Anthropic has agreed to spend at least $110 billion with Amazon Web Services over 10 years.

By contrast, no venture investor clears the 5% ownership line that would require disclosure in the principal stockholders table, an unusual outcome driven by Anthropic's $965 billion private valuation. Menlo Ventures' position of about $14 billion equals roughly 1.5%, TechCrunch said, citing Bloomberg figures.

Google, which invested another $10 billion in April 2026, holds an estimated 8% stake, according to PitchBook analyst Harrison Rolfes, and has secured at least $114 billion in Anthropic cloud commitments through 2033.

This story was first reported by TechCrunch.