OpenAI: The $122 Billion Gorilla

OpenAI's latest funding round—$122 billion—pushes its valuation toward an estimated $852 billion. But the real story is its acquisition strategy.

In 2026 alone, OpenAI has already completed six acquisitions—nearly as many as it made in all of 2025. The shopping spree includes:

Astral (March): Open-source tools for software developers

Promptfoo (March): AI security and red-teaming for enterprise agents

Convogo (January): GenAI consulting and predictive analytics

Torch Health (January): AI-powered health record unification, ~$100 million

Crixet (January): LaTeX editing and collaboration tools

OpenClaw (February): Acqui-hire of open-source AI agent

The company's most expensive disclosed deal remains the $6.5 billion acquisition of Io, an AI-powered device startup, in May 2025. Notably, a $3 billion proposed acquisition of coding startup Windsurf fell apart in March 2026—partly due to Microsoft's involvement—forcing OpenAI to double down on its self‑developed Codex platform.

Anthropic: The $380 Billion Enterprise Powerhouse

Anthropic raised $30 billion in Series G funding on February 12, 2026, at a $380 billion post-money valuation—more than doubling its previous $183 billion valuation from September 2025.

The round was led by GIC and Coatue, with participation from nearly every major VC on the planet. The company's run-rate revenue has hit $14 billion, growing over 10x annually for three consecutive years.

Key metrics driving Anthropic's dominance:

500+ customers spending over $1 million annually (up from just 12 two years ago)

8 of the Fortune 10 are now Claude customers

Claude Code run-rate revenue: $2.5 billion, doubling since January 2026

4% of all GitHub public commits worldwide are authored by Claude Code

xAI: The $230 Billion Musk Machine

Elon Musk's xAI completed a $20 billion Series E round in January 2026, exceeding its $15 billion target, at a $230 billion valuation—double its valuation from spring 2025. Investors include Fidelity, Qatar Investment Authority, Abu Dhabi's MGX, and—critically—Nvidia and Cisco as strategic partners, ensuring chip and networking supply in a capacity-constrained market.

The company has since been acquired by SpaceX in a deal valuing xAI at $250 billion and SpaceX at $1 trillion, accelerating Musk's vertical integration strategy. xAI also acquired social network X for $45 billion in March 2026, integrating Grok directly into the platform now reaching over 600 million monthly active users.