Anthropic announced on Wednesday that it has acquired Vercept, an AI startup with deep roots in Seattle’s tech scene. This acquisition follows Anthropic’s purchase of the coding agent engine Bun in December, which was aimed at scaling Claude Code.
Vercept had developed tools for complex agentic tasks, including its product Vy, a cloud-based computer-use agent capable of operating a remote Apple Macbook. The startup was part of a wave of companies reimagining the personal computer for the age of AI agents. As part of the acquisition, Anthropic will shutter Vercept’s product on March 25.
The startup was a graduate of Seattle’s AI-focused incubator A12, which originated from the Allen Institute for AI. Vercept’s co-founders themselves had roots at the Allen Institute, where they were previously researchers. One co-founder, Matt Deitke, made headlines last year as one of the AI researchers who negotiated a substantial salary from Meta to join its Superintelligence Lab. Deitke congratulated his former colleagues on the acquisition in a social media post.
Vercept was a relatively high-profile AI startup in the region. In an announcement, Vercept CEO Kiana Ehsani stated the startup had raised a total of fifty million dollars. She noted that A12’s Seth Bannon, a board member, was the lead investor. The company had previously announced a sixteen million dollar seed round last January.
The list of angel investors was notable, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean, Cruise founder Kyle Vogt, and Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi.
In its announcement, Anthropic named co-founders Kiana Ehsani, Luca Weihs, and Ross Girshick as part of the team joining the company. However, not all co-founders are making the move. Matt Deitke, another co-founder, is not joining Anthropic.
Oren Etzioni, previously named as a co-founder and investor in Vercept, is well-known in Seattle as the founding leader of the Allen Institute for AI. He is also not joining Anthropic and expressed disappointment about the acquisition. On social media, he remarked that Vercept was throwing in the towel after a little over a year and giving customers thirty days to exit the platform, while wishing the team well.
Etzioni, also a professor at the University of Washington, engaged in a public exchange with lead investor Seth Bannon on the platform. Etzioni suggested Bannon was partly responsible for Vercept not hiring the correct business people, to which Bannon replied by defending the founders’ achievements. The exchange included accusations of lying and legal threats.
While such public disputes between investors are often seen as entertaining but largely meaningless, the underlying motivation highlights the high stakes in building the next major AI success. A promising startup with significant funding will now be integrated into Anthropic.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, though Etzioni stated he received a return on his investment. Anthropic’s interest appears centered on acquiring the researchers, particularly with one of them now at Meta.
Etzioni told reporters that while pleased with the financial return, he was disappointed that a venture with so much traction and a fantastic team ended so quickly. The founders joining Anthropic, however, appear satisfied. In her post, CEO Kiana Ehsani said the choice to join Anthropic was clear, as it allowed them to accelerate their vision with an incredible team rather than building it separately.