Anthropic, a leading artificial intelligence company known for its Claude language models, is reportedly in advanced negotiations to acquire Israeli AI startup Decart (also referred to as Descartes) for approximately $6 billion. If finalized, this would mark Anthropic’s largest known acquisition to date and comes as the company prepares for a potential initial public offering (IPO).
According to multiple reports, the deal is not yet finalized and could still fall through. Decart, founded in 2023 by Israeli brothers Dean and Orian Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev, specializes in developing world models and software that optimize chip usage, thereby reducing the cost and improving the efficiency of AI model training and inference. These capabilities are seen as increasingly critical as AI adoption accelerates and operational costs rise across the industry.
Decart’s technology portfolio includes the Lucy model, which processes live video feeds to generate real-time footage for fashion e-commerce applications, and the Oasis model, designed to create synthetic environments for robotics and self-driving technology development. The startup counts eBay as both an investor and a customer, and recently raised $300 million in a funding round led by Radical Ventures, with participation from Nvidia, Atreides Management, Valor Equity Partners, and Adobe Ventures. That round valued Decart at nearly $4 billion, making the proposed $6 billion acquisition a significant premium.
Industry analysts suggest that Anthropic’s interest in Decart is driven by the need to enhance its AI infrastructure, particularly in areas such as real-time video, robotics, and chip optimization. The move reflects a broader trend among AI companies to secure specialized technologies that can help manage the soaring costs of running large-scale AI models. If the acquisition proceeds, Decart’s team is expected to join Anthropic’s inference and performance organization, further strengthening Anthropic’s technical capabilities ahead of its anticipated IPO.
The talks underscore the intensifying competition in the AI sector, as companies race to build more efficient and scalable infrastructure to support next-generation applications.
Sources
Internal sources
- Rate-Hike Bets Ease; Anthropic in Talks to Buy Decart | Bloomberg Brief 08/13/2026
- Anthropic in Talks for $6 Billion AI Infrastructure Bet | Bloomberg Tech 8/13/2026
- Anthropic in Talks to Buy AI Startup Decart for $6 Billion