Anthropic has acquired the co-founders and most of the team behind Humanloop, a platform for prompt management, LLM evaluation, and observability, in a move to strengthen its enterprise strategy. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it follows the growing trend of acqui-hires in the tech industry amid the intense competition for AI talent.
Humanloop’s three co-founders—CEO Raza Habib, CTO Peter Hayes, and CPO Jordan Burgess—have all joined Anthropic, along with around a dozen engineers and researchers. Anthropic is rapidly expanding in the enterprise space, particularly in agentic and coding capabilities. While Anthropic did not acquire Humanloop’s assets or intellectual property, the team’s expertise in developing tools for safe and scalable AI deployment is a valuable addition.
Brad Abrams, API product lead at Anthropic, stated, “Their proven experience in AI tooling and evaluation will be invaluable as we continue to advance our work in AI safety and building useful AI systems.” In a market where model quality alone is no longer enough to stay ahead, enhancing its tooling ecosystem could help Anthropic solidify its lead over competitors like OpenAI and Google DeepMind in both performance and enterprise readiness.
Humanloop was founded in 2020 as a spinout from University College London. The startup participated in Y Combinator and the Fuse Incubator before raising $7.91 million in seed funding across two rounds led by YC and Index Ventures. It built a reputation for helping enterprise clients, including Duolingo, Gusto, and Vanta, develop, evaluate, and fine-tune AI applications. Last month, Humanloop informed customers it would shut down in preparation for the acquisition.
The timing aligns with Anthropic’s push to offer enterprise-friendly features, such as longer context windows, expanding the capabilities and applications of its models. Earlier this week, Anthropic secured a deal with the U.S. government’s central purchasing arm to provide AI services to federal agencies for just $1 per agency in the first year—a strategic move to compete with OpenAI’s similarly priced offering. Both government and enterprise clients require the evaluation, monitoring, and compliance features that Humanloop specialized in.
The acquisition reinforces Anthropic’s identity as a safety-first AI company. Humanloop’s evaluation workflows, which include performance measurement, safety guardrails, and bias mitigation, align with Anthropic’s mission.
Raza Habib, former CEO of Humanloop, said, “From our earliest days, we’ve been focused on creating tools that help developers build AI applications safely and effectively. Anthropic’s commitment to AI safety research and responsible AI development perfectly aligns with our vision.”