The joint venture established by Anthropic alongside Wall Street institutions such as Blackstone has completed its first acquisition since its launch in July, a move aimed at accelerating the growth of its Claude chatbot within the enterprise sector. According to sources from Ode, the venture is set to announce on Thursday its purchase of Casper Studios, an AI consulting firm that assists companies in developing AI applications. This acquisition comes at a time when corporate executives are exploring ways to maximize the value of AI while also grappling with concerns over the rising costs associated with this new technology.
"With the full suite of tools Anthropic has built on top of its large language models, enterprises can actually address the vast majority of their business needs," said Chris Taylor, CEO and co-founder of Ode. Casper Studios, which has been operating for four years, employs over a dozen technical consultants and has served clients including Netflix, PepsiCo, as well as numerous private equity firms and hedge funds. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Ode currently has a workforce exceeding 100 employees. Its teams frequently collaborate with Anthropic engineers to help businesses across industries such as accounting and healthcare implement AI solutions. The venture was officially launched in July, following the earlier acquisition of Fractional AI, another AI application services company, by an entity jointly owned by Anthropic and private equity investors. Fractional AI was co-founded by Taylor and Ode's Chief Technology Officer, Eddie Siegel. Earlier this summer, Ode announced partnerships with IT consulting firms Baker Tilly and Citrin Cooperman to develop customized products.
Anthropic is experiencing unprecedented business expansion, driven primarily by the strength of its AI coding models, which continue to attract developers even as costs per user rise significantly. Retailers like Restoration Hardware have also adopted Claude chatbots and supporting tools to empower employees in automating tasks related to finance and project management. Anthropic faces competitive pressure from two fronts: OpenAI is pivoting to focus on the enterprise market, while open-source models offer clients a way to reduce procurement costs. However, both Anthropic and OpenAI acknowledge that implementing AI is not straightforward for some businesses, which has fueled demand for on-site engineers, or consultants.
These consultants often work directly at client locations, helping to organize corporate documents and private data so that AI systems can interpret internal information, while also developing automation applications for functions like customer service. OpenAI itself has invested in The Deployment, a venture that sells AI products to enterprises. That company has raised $4 billion from investors including TPG, Brookfield Asset Management, Bain Capital, and Advent International, at a valuation of $10 billion. The Deployment has already used some of its new capital to acquire several firms that employ hundreds of consultants dedicated to helping clients deploy customized AI models and systems.
Meanwhile, Thrive Holdings, a holding company established a year ago by OpenAI investor Thrive Capital, recently completed a $2 billion external fundraising round. The firm invests in and operates a portfolio of small and mid-sized accounting and services businesses, with the goal of transforming these traditional industries by automating repetitive work. OpenAI provides research, product, and engineering support for the project, though companies under Thrive Holdings are not restricted to using OpenAI models and may also choose open-source alternatives.
Ode was established by Anthropic together with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs, and Sequoia Capital, with investors collectively contributing $1.5 billion to the new company. A significant portion of Ode's client base consists of companies backed by these same private equity institutions.