Top News
Anthropic unleashes Claude Opus 4.8: After OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 was well received, and its own Opus 4.7 model experienced some turbulence, Anthropic is back with a new update to its (current) largest model series. Opus 4.8 brings higher benchmark scores, improved honesty, and more. Pipping GPT-5.5 per Artificial Analysis, the new Opus may not be atop the model charts for long. Anthropic pledges to bring “Mythos-class models to all our customers in the coming weeks.” Buckle up.
Wix to axe 20% of its staff: Another day, another massive technology layoff? Yes, but this one is a little bit different. Yes, Wix is cutting staff in part because it wants to shake up its internal operations to better leverage AI. But Wix is also in the middle of the Iran War’s impact on currency exchange rates. With much of its revenue generated in dollars (depreciating compared to the shekel) and expenses in shekels (appreciating compared to the dollar), Wix is on the wrong end of a currency trade it didn’t ask for.
Corgi raises $106M: A startup using AI to write business insurance policies can’t stop raising money. Corgi closed a $160 million Series B earlier in April at a $1.3 billion valuation. Investors came back to the company and executed a $106 million Series B1 at a $2.6 billion valuation. Insurtech as a category has had a mixed track record on the exit front, but perhaps AI speed will keep Corgi sprinting into the public markets.
TWiST 500
Back to Anthropic, a company so valuable it’s worth more than most countries can sport in yearly GDP, raised more money. This time, a $65 billion Series H that values the company at $965 billion (post-money). That’s spitting distance of $1 trillion, making Anthropic a new type of startup. A milocorn, perhaps, though that phrase won’t stick.
The funding round includes $15 billion worth of already-raised capital (including $5 from Amazon), so the capital is not entirely fresh. But $50 billion of the sum is. The most recent two American AI lab funding rounds (final pre-IPO rounds, perhaps) are worth a combined $187 billion. That’s a lot.
What’s underpinning the TWiST500 goilath’s new valuation? Continued revenue growth. Anthropic’s “run-rate revenue crossed $47 billion earlier this month,” the company reported. For context:
January, 2024: $100 million run rate
January, 2025: $1 billion run rate
August, 2025: $5 billion run rate
February, 2026: $14 billion run rate
And now, $47 billion. There’s nuance to the number around how Anthropic counts revenue from partners (“Claude is the first frontier model available on all three of the world's largest cloud platforms”), meaning that it may not deduct revenue share from its number. But even with that caveat, there really hasn’t been a company in history that has scaled as quickly as the Claude maker. We’re in new territory.
The other possible milocorn on the TWIST500 (apart from SpaceX, of course), OpenAI, has not dropped new numbers in a minute, but at the end of March, the ChatGPT maker was at a $24 billion run rate. That’s still insane, but without a new OpenAI figure to index against, it seems fair to say that Anthropic is mogging OpenAI on the revenue front, and that as a pair, the duo runs the global AI game today, in revenue terms. Hyperscalers with their own models are in second place, ironically, thanks in part to their investments in the very AI labs currently atop the AI industry.
Hats off to Anthropic, well done. Now go public already! — Alex
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This Week in Startups
E2293: The "Ryanair of drone delivery" just raised $50 million and plans to bring its technology from Europe to the United States. Manna founder Bobby Healy explains to TWiST how his Dublin-based company completed 300,000 deliveries while some rivals are still publishing blog posts, and why low-cost airline economics will decide who wins the autonomous skies. Sticking to the drone theme, TWiST welcomed Theseus co-founder Ian Laffey, who called in from Kyiv to tell us about his company’s drone guidance system. It runs off a simple camera and Google Maps. The technology could rewrite the modern, GPS-jammed battlefield, and bring more firepower to smaller nations fending off larger foes.
E2292: Jason and Lon start off the episode with Divergent Technologies’ co-founder and CEO Lukas Czinger. He tells us about their proprietary 3D printing component platform, which interconnects AI-powered design and in-house 3D printers with computer vision-enabled robotic assembly systems. The company has shifted from a focus on luxury vehicle components to parts for the defense and aerospace industries. Then, Brendan Goode and Dr. Mark Horowitz of Outro Health join the show. They’re helping patients wean themselves off of anti-depressants using a “hyperbolic tapering” method.
E2291: Why raise $200 million if you are already profitable? That’s the question Jason and Alex put to Mercury’s founder and CEO, Immad Akhund, after the entrepreneur raised another massive round for his upstart, technology-friendly bank. TWiST then welcomed Kled founder Avi Patel to discuss the startup he considers a clear ripoff of his own company. Jason gavels in verdicts on all parties involved, including Y Combinator and venture capital firm General Catalyst. The show closes with a news lightning round, including OpenAI’s decision to offer $2 million in token credits to hundreds of startups.
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