Just five months after announcing their new $100 million Anthology Fund, venture capital firm Menlo Ventures and AI company Anthropic have selected the first 18 startups to receive investments.
The 18 startups were chosen from thousands of applicants and are working on a diverse array of technologies, including:
- Recruiting software
- Autonomous coding
- Interpretability research (understanding how AI models make decisions)
- Fintech compliance and tax apps
- Radiology image analysis and medical chart review apps
- Non-human identity cybersecurity
- Customer engagement software
- A consumer nutrition app
In addition to the 18 publicly announced startups, Menlo Ventures says there are 8 more companies in the program that are still in stealth mode.
This new fund is a unique hybrid, combining elements of a typical corporate startup program, where startups receive credits and educational resources, with an incubator model where startups get hands-on support and investment.
The fund will invest checks of $100,000 or more into startups, from pre-seed to Series B stages, and will also provide $25,000 worth of credits for Anthropic's AI services.
"We're one of the biggest investors in Anthropic and huge fans of what they're doing," said Menlo Ventures partner Tim Tully. "We thought this was an opportunity for us to do something together, where we can see the ecosystem and find great companies that are building on Anthropic or AI more broadly."
This initiative highlights Menlo Ventures and Anthropic's focus on identifying and nurturing the next generation of AI-powered startups, as the industry prepares for a major shift in 2025 towards new AI-driven applications built on top of foundational models and infrastructure.
With this first batch of 18 startups, Menlo and Anthropic are already making their mark on the future of AI innovation.
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