Anthropic: Unprecedented Growth According to Matt Murphy

Anthropic: Unprecedented Growth According to Matt Murphy

Matt Murphy of Menlo Ventures explains what AI startup founders need to do differently.

Anthropic reached a revenue rate of $47 billion in May, up from $9 billion in 2025. This is the kind of growth that Matt Murphy has never seen in 25 years of investing, whether during the Internet wave, in mobile, or during the first cloud boom. Menlo led the $500 million Series D funding round for Anthropic, and Murphy had an overview as the company transitioned from a pre-revenue, pre-launch bet to one of the most valuable startups.

In this episode of the TechCrunch Equity podcast, Julie Bort speaks with Murphy about supporting Anthropic before anyone else did, why a great model has never been the core, and what drives the fastest-growing startups he has ever seen.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about:

• Why Menlo bet on Anthropic at a pre-revenue valuation of $4 billion when the deal didn't perfectly fit the firm's funds, and why the involvement of Google and Amazon as investors was a "positive early sign."

• Why Murphy asserts that the model has never been the true competitive advantage, and how Claude Code, MCP, and Claude Skills transformed Anthropic from a solid model into a comprehensive platform.

• Murphy's take on the reaction to Anthropic's implementation of Mythos, and why he contests the idea that it was more about marketing than security.

• Why companies like Lovable and Legora are experiencing faster growth than any startups Murphy has seen in 25 years, and what this speed means for founders looking to compete.