Anthropic has abandoned a potential $6 billion acquisition of Decart AI after conducting due diligence, killing what would have been the Claude developer’s largest known takeover only weeks before its expected initial public offering.
Bloomberg reported the decision late Monday, citing people familiar with the private negotiations. Anthropic had examined Decart and completed due diligence before deciding not to proceed, according to the report.
The withdrawal comes after Decart’s valuation accelerated sharply in less than four months. The startup announced a $300 million financing on May 18, led by Radical Ventures, bringing its total funding above $450 million. Nvidia, Adobe Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, and Atreides Management joined the round, while earlier investors included Sequoia Capital, Benchmark, and Zeev Ventures.
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The Wall Street Journal reported that the financing valued Decart at nearly $4 billion. Anthropic’s contemplated $6 billion purchase would therefore have represented roughly a 50% premium to that valuation just months later.
Decart’s infrastructure technology was central to the proposed transaction. The company develops the Decart Optimization Stack, or DOS, which is designed to increase AI training and inference performance across different chips. It also develops real-time world models including Lucy and Oasis.
When the acquisition talks emerged in August, Bloomberg reported that Anthropic was interested in using Decart’s technology to make its existing computing infrastructure handle more demand. Bloomberg reported at the time that the talks could still collapse, and no transaction had been finalized.
The decision now lands during a substantially larger capital-markets exercise. Reuters reported September 4 that Anthropic was preparing to begin IPO marketing around mid-October, with the company potentially seeking a valuation of as much as $2 trillion. Anthropic was also finalizing a $15 billion revolving credit facility, according to the report.
A person familiar with the Decart discussions told Bloomberg that the companies could still pursue other forms of collaboration. No structure or terms have been disclosed.
For now, the only confirmed outcome is narrower. Anthropic examined a $6 billion acquisition, completed due diligence, and walked away. Neither company has publicly explained what changed.
