Anthropic Acquires Seattle AI Startup Vercept to Expand Claude AI Capabilities

Anthropic on Wednesday confirmed the acquisition of Vercept, a Seattle-based AI startup known for its cloud-powered computer-use agent, Vy. The move comes after Anthropic’s December acquisition of the coding agent engine Bun, part of its strategy to scale Claude AI. As a result of the deal, Vercept’s Vy product will be retired on March 25, signaling a consolidation of AI tools under Anthropic’s platform.

Founded by graduates of the Allen Institute for AI, Vercept has deep ties to Seattle’s AI ecosystem. Its co-founder, Matt Deitke, made headlines last year for negotiating a $250 million salary to join Meta’s Superintelligence Lab. Deitke publicly congratulated his former teammates on X (formerly Twitter) following the acquisition, emphasizing the continued influence of Vercept’s founders in the AI space.

Vercept had raised $50 million to date, including a $16 million seed round last January, and attracted high-profile investors such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean, Cruise founder Kyle Vogt, and Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi. In a LinkedIn post, CEO Kiana Ehsani highlighted that the acquisition allows the team to accelerate their vision for AI-driven computing by joining forces with Anthropic.

Not all of Vercept’s founders are moving to Anthropic. Co-founder Oren Etzioni, a prominent AI researcher and University of Washington professor, expressed disappointment over the shutdown, calling it “throwing in the towel” despite the company’s strong momentum. Etzioni also shared critical comments about investor decisions, leading to a public dispute with Vercept’s lead investor, Seth Bannon, over LinkedIn regarding strategic and operational disagreements.

Despite internal tensions, the founders joining Anthropic appear optimistic. Ehsani framed the acquisition as a clear choice to accelerate their vision rather than compete independently. The deal underscores the intense competition among AI startups and tech giants to secure top research talent and promising technology, highlighting Anthropic’s strategic push to dominate the AI agent and cloud-computing landscape.

source: techcrunch