Anthropic boss Dario Amodei is shopping with an accountant's eye. A potential $6 billion deal for Decart, as reported by Bloomberg, looks prosaic next to his AI rivals’ splashiest transactions. Yet the startup’s claims to squeeze more useful output from chips and models, if it works, could be a big benefit for Anthropic’s growing server bill. It’s a sign that, as Amodei eyes an IPO, the chatbot battle is turning to ever-harder optimizations.
Decart, founded by Israeli brothers Dean and Orian Leitersdorf, is backed by investors including chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O) and venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. It was last valued at $4 billion in May. Even at the reported premium, this would be a smaller deal than OpenAI’s $6.5 billion purchase of iPhone designer Jony Ive’s startup io, and especially SpaceX’s (SPCX.O) $60 billion pounce on vibe-coding toolmaker Cursor. While both of those acquisitions are all about attracting customers - whether through fancy gadgets or handy software - Decart is just as much about efficiency.
At this stage of the race, with Anthropic's Claude Code tool turbocharging its revenue, Amodei has the luxury of focusing on optimizations. PitchBook analysts estimate the company's gross profit margin, after costs overwhelmingly comprised of compute and infrastructure, reached 44% in the second quarter. If revenue were to reach $100 billion this year, as investors now expect according to the Financial Times, that would imply a bill of as much as $56 billion. A 10% efficiency gain would therefore save as much as $5.6 billion a year.
Cramming down costs becomes especially important if technical leadership begins to matter less to costumers. Data tracked by corporate expenses operator Ramp implies that Fable, Anthropic’s most advanced model, accounts for just 11% of business spend on the company’s products, with many more dollars spent on cheaper chatbots. As Meta Platforms (META.O) and SpaceX push cheaper alternatives, Anthropic may have a tough fight at the market's low end.
A $6 billion price would represent a big leap from Decart's valuation just three months ago. But computing costs are becoming, if anything, even more important in a world where customers are now trading off price and performance. This is a brutal form of competition, especially amid spiraling commitments to purchase server capacity. Amodei’s deal fancy might be acknowledging that reality.
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