Good day. Investment firm Iconiq made its largest bet ever by leading Anthropic’s $13 billion funding round in August at a $183 billion valuation, according to Matt Jacobson, a partner at Iconiq. He declined to specify the amount Iconiq deployed, only saying it was historic for the firm.

The Iconiq team initially had reservations about investing in large language model makers because of their capital intensity, but eventually came around, Jacobson said.

Anthropic develops LLMs and competes with other frontier model makers such as OpenAI and Google. The company’s products include an AI assistant called Claude, as well as the software development tool Claude Code.

Founded in 2011, San Francisco-based Iconiq had about $95 billion in assets under management as of December, according to a regulatory filing. It closed its seventh venture and growth fund last year at $5.75 billion. The firm got its start managing wealth on behalf of prominent individuals, including Mark Zuckerberg.

WSJ Pro interviewed Jacobson about why his firm went big on Anthropic. 

WSJ Pro: You are paying a high price. How will you make money on this deal?

Jacobson: I made a joke that for this to be a success for us it would need to be a Dow component. We think the AI opportunity in the [business-to-business] space is absolutely enormous. What this opens up is new areas where technology did not permeate previously. It is my belief Anthropic is the largest B2B frontier AI business globally. When we speak to CEOs and leaders at large companies, they are looking to go deep with a small number of trusted companies with their AI strategy. We think that if people build mission critical applications on your technology and you continue to build value for them further up the stack to make those applications useful and secure, that can grow into a very sticky relationship.

Read the full article.

And now on to the news...

Quantum computing heats up. PsiQuantum, which is targeting an aggressive 2027 timeline to deliver a full-scale commercial-grade quantum computer, said Wednesday that it collected $1 billion in its latest fundraise. The funding round, led by existing investors BlackRock, Temasek and Baillie Gifford, and including new investors such as Nvidia’s venture-capital arm, brings the startup’s valuation to $7 billion.

• The Series E financing comes amid a surge of recent activity in the space. Quantinuum’s latest fundraise earlier this month gave it a valuation of $10 billion, IQM raised $320 million at a $1 billion valuation, and Infleqtion said it would go public via a special-purpose acquisition company at a $1.8 billion valuation.

Meta Platforms spent millions of dollars this summer recruiting AI stars. Now comes the hard part of making them work with their new colleagues. Some of Mark Zuckerberg’s expensive new recruits have already defected to other AI labs. Existing employees have jockeyed for new spots within Meta’s restructured AI organization or lobbied for raises in light of the influx of highly paid new colleagues. At least one who was given a grant worth millions of dollars left anyway, saying they believed newcomers were still making multiples more.

Veritas Capital Fund Management collected $14.4 billion for its newest and largest fund focused on investments in companies at the intersection of government and technology. The tally for Veritas Capital Fund IX exceeded both the firm’s $13 billion initial goal for the fund and the nearly $10.7 billion it raised for a predecessor pool in 2022. Through its main funds, Veritas backs technology companies that operate in highly regulated industries, including aerospace and defense, healthcare, financial services, education and energy infrastructure. The private-equity firm generally uses its main funds to back larger deals, typically valued at well over $1 billion.

People

Institutional investment services provider GEM said Kate Simpson was appointed as a managing director to lead the firm’s venture-capital strategy. She most recently served as partner at TrueBridge Capital Partners.

6sense, an agent-powered revenue marketing platform, named Chris Ball as the company’s new chief executive officer, replacing Jason Zintak, who will continue in his role as chairman of the board. Ball was previously president and chief operating officer at Instructure.

Guesty, a platform for the short-term rental industry, appointed Gil Vassoly as chief financial officer. He was most recently at NiCE.

Exits

Talent acquisition software provider Radancy acquired AI hiring assistant developer myInterview.

Anaplan, an AI-driven scenario planning and analysis provider, acquired Syrup Tech, a supply-chain platform for retailers.

Aven, a San Francisco-based provider of home-equity-backed credit cards, scored $110 million in Series E funding at a $2.2 billion post-money valuation. Khosla Ventures led the round, which included participation from General Catalyst, Caffeinated Capital and Founders Fund.

DataCrunch, a Helsinki-based provider of AI computing infrastructure, raised €55 million in Series A funding, including debt, from investors including byFounders.

Higgsfield.ai, a San Francisco-based generative AI video platform for creative professionals, collected $50 million in Series A funding led by GFT Ventures.

Fyxer AI, an email management startup, secured $30 million in Series B financing led by Madrona.

Pest Share, a Nampa, Idaho-based on-demand pest control platform for residential property managers, raised $28 million in Series A funding led by Integrity Growth Partners.

Clockwork, a San Francisco-based AI networking startup, picked up nearly $20.6 million in funding led by New Enterprise Associates. 

Accordance, a San Francisco-based AI platform for accounting and tax firms, launched with $13 million in funding, including a $10 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures.

AegisAI, a New York-based autonomous email security platform, emerged from stealth with $13 million in seed funding led by Accel and Foundation Capital.

Runware, a San Francisco-headquartered AI media generation API, grabbed a $13 million seed investment. Insight Partners led the funding, with Managing Director George Mathew joining the company’s board.

Hush Security, a Tel Aviv-based access platform for securing machine identities, was seeded with an $11 million investment led by Battery Ventures and YL Ventures.

Nuclearn, a Phoenix-based AI platform for nuclear professionals and critical infrastructure operators, fetched $10.5 million in Series A funding. Blue Bear Capital led the investment, which included participation from SJF Ventures and others.

Cassidy, a New York-headquartered AI automation platform for non-technical teams, landed $10 million in Series A funding led by HOF Capital.

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• Anglo American, Teck to Merge Into $53 Billion Copper Giant

• Microsoft Cracks Down on Work Speech, Limits Remote Work

• Nvidia’s ‘Wow’ Factor Is Fading

• Abu Dhabi launches low-cost AI reasoning model in challenge to OpenAI, DeepSeek (CNBC)
   
• Ex-Google Maps, Siri executives back $59 million European fund for industry-specific AI (Bloomberg)
   
• New emojis will include Bigfoot, orca whale, treasure chest, and more (TechCrunch)

This newsletter was compiled by Yuliya Chernova, Matthew Strozier and Zachary Cole.

WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley and Marc Vartabedian.