Private Markets: Anthropic to invest $50B in computing infrastructure

Chaos Industries announced it has raised $510M. The new funding led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from previous investors 8VC and Accel, at a $4.5B valuation.

This week’s private company news:

• Anthropic said in a post to its corporate site, “Today, we are announcing a $50 billion investment in American computing infrastructure, building data centers with Fluidstack in Texas and New York, with more sites to come. These facilities are custom built for Anthropic with a focus on maximizing efficiency for our workloads, enabling continued research and development at the frontier. The project will create approximately 800 permanent jobs and 2,400 construction jobs, with sites coming online throughout 2026. It will help advance the goals in the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan to maintain American AI leadership and strengthen domestic technology infrastructure. We are proud to create good American jobs and bolster American competitiveness.”
• Thinking Machines Lab, the artificial intelligence startup founded by former OpenAI executive Mira Murati, is in talks to raise a new round of funding at a roughly $50B valuation, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg’s Shirin Ghaffary and Ed Ludlow. The new financing would more than quadruple the startup’s valuation from July, the report noted.
• Anthropic is on pace to turn a profit much more quickly than rival OpenAI, Berber Jin of The Wall Street Journal reports, citing documents obtained by the Journal. Anthropic expects to break even first in 2028, the documents show. Meanwhile, OpenAI forecasts operating losses to increase to $75B in 2028 and burn through about 14 times as much cash as Anthropic before turning a profit in 2030.

Some of the biggest capital raises by private companies this week include: 

• Chaos Industries – The defense technology company building Coherent Distributed Networks systems that give warfighters time to act against borders and autonomous threats announced it has raised $510M. The new funding led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from previous investors 8VC and Accel, at a $4.5B valuation. Publicly traded companies in the space include Lockheed Martin (LMT), Raytheon Technologies (RTX), and Northrop Grumman (NOC).
• d-Matrix – The pioneer in generative AI inference compute for data centers said it has closed $275M in Series C funding, valuing the company at $2B and bringing the total raised to date to $450M. Publicly traded companies in the space include Nvidia (NVDA), AMD (AMD), and Intel (INTC).
• Gopuff – The instant commerce company announced it has raised $250M in new funding led by Eldridge Industries and Valor Equity Partners, with participation from Baillie Gifford, Robinhood, Equalis Capital, George Ruan, Yakir Gabay, and Gopuff’s co-founders, among others. This announcement comes as Gopuff “enters its strongest financial position in company history, fueled by record revenue, contribution profit, and sustained core business growth,” the company said. Publicly traded companies in the space include Instacart (CART), DoorDash (DASH), and Uber (UBER).
• Harbinger Nabs – The American-made medium-duty electric and hybrid vehicle manufacturer announced it has secured $160M in a Series C funding round. The round was co-led by FedEx (FDX), Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund, and THOR Industries (THO).
• Scribe – The company announced a $75M Series C funding round, led by StepStone with participation from existing investors, Amplify Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Tiger Global, Morado Ventures, New York Life Ventures, and others, that values the company at $1.3B. The capital will scale Scribe’s enterprise go-to-market and accelerate the rollout of Scribe Optimize, the company’s newest product. Publicly traded companies in the space include Atlassian (TEAM), Smartsheet (SMAR), and Monday.com (MNDY).

Unicorns to watch this week:

• Harvey – The legal AI startup offers tools for law firms and in-house counsel. It’s part of the growing legal tech wave. Publicly traded companies in the space include Thomson Reuters (TRI), Intapp (INTA), and Veritone (VERI).
• Glean Technologies – The enterprise search/knowledge management company has an estimated valuation of $7.2B. Publicly traded companies in the space include Elastic (ESTC), Palantir (PLTR), and Microsoft (MSFT).
• Abridge – The healthcare plus AI combo is resonating with investors, with the company currently valued at about $5.3B. Publicly traded companies in the space include CareCloud (CCLD) and IQVIA (IQV).
• Colossal Biosciences – The biotech “de-extinction” startup secured $200M in January 2025, reaching $10B valuation. Publicly traded companies in the space include Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA) and Twist Bioscience (TWST).
• Shield AI – Operating in the Defense and autonomous drones space, Shield AI has an estimated $3B valuation. Publicly traded competitors include Palantir (PLTR) and AeroVironment (AVA).

IPOs to watch: 

• Speed Group (SPED) – The company filed a prospectus for 2.5M share initial public offering. It expects the IPO price to be in the range of $4.00 to $5.00 per. The company’s operating subsidiary, Speed Logistics, is an e-commerce logistics provider providing end-to-end logistics solution in Hong Kong, Europe and North America. The services include warehousing, customs clearance, air transportation, and final delivery from the European airports. For the years ended June 30, 2024 and 2025, Speed’s revenues were $17.9M and $22.64M, respectively.
• Medline (MDLN) – The provider of medical-surgical products and supply chain solutions filed a prospectus for an initial public offering on the Nasdaq.
• Central Bancompany (CBC) – The company announced its filing of a registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering of shares of its Class A common stock. In connection with the proposed initial public offering, the Board of Directors of Central Bancompany approved a 50-for-1 stock split in the form of a stock dividend, whereby each shareholder of record as of the October 20 record date will receive 49 shares of Class A common stock for each share owned as of the record date.
• Lendbuzz (LBZZ) – The company is offering an undetermined number of shares of its common stock and the selling stockholders identified in this prospectus are offering additional shares of common stock, according to an initial public offering prospectus filed with the SEC.

“Private Markets” is The Fly’s recurring series of stories on the latest moves in the private sector, largest unicorn companies and initial public offerings to watch. Fly subscribers, add $PRIVATE to your portfolio for alerts on breaking news in the startup and venture capital space.