Zoom’s Anthropic bet is quietly worth more than most people realize

Through its venture arm, Zoom Ventures, the company has accumulated a meaningful equity stake in Anthropic, the AI safety startup behind the Claude family of models. How a $97 million bet became a $3 billion position Zoom made its first move into Anthropic in May 2023, committing roughly $51 million. The company followed that with an additional $46 million in preferred shares between late January and April 2026, bringing its total outlay to approximately $97 million across both tranches. At the start of 2026, when Anthropic carried a valuation of around $380 billion, Zoom’s stake was worth approximately $1.27 billion. By the end of July 2026, after Anthropic’s valuation had climbed to roughly $965 billion, that figure had grown to approximately $3.13 billion. The single-quarter mark-to-market gain: $1.61 billion. To frame that against Zoom’s core business, the company reported revenue of $1.24 billion in Q1 FY2027, a 5.5% year-over-year increase. The quarterly gain on the Anthropic stake alone is larger than a full quarter of operating revenue. Anthropic’s funding backers include Amazon and Alphabet, two companies that have each made multi-billion-dollar commitments to the startup....