Money was no object for the AI industry in early 2025. A vibe check crept in the second half of the year. OpenAI raised $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation. Safe Superintelligence and Thinking Machine Labs raised individual $2 billion seed rounds before shipping a single product. Even first-time founders were raising at a scale that once belonged only to Big Tech.
Six of the seven have experienced mixed or negative returns at points throughout the year, with broad concerns over valuations, sector rotations, and sustainability weighing on performance. In contrast, one unexpected name has outperformed six of the seven: Caterpillar ( ), the heavy equipment manufacturer. On a total return basis (capital appreciation plus dividends), Caterpillar trails only Alphabet by about one percentage point or so as of last Friday's close.
If you think about it, Anthropic has come very far in a short time with limited name recognition compared to rivals like Google and OpenAI. Today, Anthropic is frequently seen as the favorite in enterprise AI. Valued at $183 billion ( for the moment), Anthropic is on track to hit an annualized revenue run rate of nearly $10 billion by the end of 2025-and has told investors that figure could reach $70 billion by 2028.
Ministers are expected to indicate a greater degree of caution in the upcoming Summer Economic Statement and National Development Plan as the economic model faces threats.
