# Yasmin Razavi Converts Early Anthropic Bet Into Windfall

> Source: <https://letsdatascience.com/news/yasmin-razavi-converts-early-anthropic-bet-into-windfall-c9a6108e>
> Published: 2026-05-27 10:50:12.322172+00:00

# Yasmin Razavi Converts Early Anthropic Bet Into Windfall

Spark Capital partner Yasmin Razavi led a $450 million financing for Anthropic in May 2023, and Forbes reports her early stake has produced an estimated $3 billion paper gain on about a $75 million commitment. Forbes recounts Anthropic's earlier fundraise of $1.1 billion assembled by CEO Dario Amodei that included backers such as Dustin Moskovitz and Sam Bankman-Fried. The profile quotes Razavi and Anthropic cofounder Daniela Amodei; Razavi called the May 2023 check "the biggest check we had written in the history of our firm," Forbes reports. Forbes also reports Anthropic is "now valued at $380 billion" and is reportedly in talks to raise at a $900 billion valuation, with "whispers of an IPO later this year."

### What happened

Forbes profiles Spark Capital partner Yasmin Razavi and reports she led a **$450 million** round for **Anthropic** in May 2023, after writing what Forbes describes as roughly a **$75 million** commitment that has since translated into an estimated **$3 billion** paper return. Forbes recounts that CEO **Dario Amodei** previously raised about **$1.1 billion** from investors including **Dustin Moskovitz** and **soon-to-be-disgraced crypto bro Sam Bankman-Fried**, and that cofounder **Daniela Amodei** told Forbes "AI was not viewed as this supersexy, exciting thing that you would want to invest in." Forbes quotes Razavi saying, "It was the biggest check we had written in the history of our firm." Forbes also reports Anthropic is "now valued at **$380 billion**" and is reportedly in talks to raise at a **$900 billion** valuation, with "whispers of an IPO later this year."

### Editorial analysis - technical context

Investors who backed foundational AI teams early often capture outsized paper returns when compute-intensive models like GPT-3, ChatGPT, and Claude achieve rapid commercial traction. Companies building large-scale foundation models face capital-intensive pre-revenue phases because training and inference scale require significant GPU and engineering spend. Industry observers note that those capital requirements have compressed funding rounds into very large, high-stakes bets.

### Industry context

Reporting on multibillion-dollar private valuations, as Forbes does here, highlights a broader pattern in the AI ecosystem: private-market price discovery has moved ahead of public-market signals for frontier-model developers. Industry reporting frames these valuations and large secondary gains as drivers of renewed VC interest, liquidity events for early backers, and stronger incentives for additional ecosystem entrants, including infrastructure and tooling vendors.

### What to watch

Monitor formal filings and primary sources for confirmation of valuation and IPO timing; Forbes cites talks and "whispers," which are not formal disclosures. Observers should also track follow-on financing terms, secondary transactions that realize paper gains, and capital commitments to compute infrastructure, since those flows materially affect model training capacity and competition dynamics.

## Scoring Rationale

This is a notable funding-and-valuation story that signals where capital is flowing in AI, affecting hiring, infrastructure demand, and secondary markets. It is primarily business news rather than a technical breakthrough, so it is important but not frontier-shifting.

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