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Summary
- Bloomberg reported on September 8 that Anthropic dropped its roughly $6 billion bid to acquire Decart after completing due diligence.
- Decart is a real-time world-model and chip-optimization startup that raised $300 million in May at a valuation of nearly $4 billion.
- People familiar with the matter said the two companies may still explore other forms of collaboration, such as a technology licensing deal, instead of an acquisition.
Anthropic has pulled out of talks to acquire AI startup Decart for roughly $6 billion. Bloomberg reported on September 8, citing people familiar with the matter, that Anthropic decided against the acquisition after completing due diligence. It would have been Anthropic's largest acquisition attempt to date, and it stalled at the final stage.
Due diligence is the process of combing through a target's books, technology, and contracts before a deal closes. It's not unusual for talks to fall apart at this stage even after a price has already been set.
Decart builds real-time world models that generate video frame by frame, paired with optimization technology that squeezes maximum performance out of a single chip. In May 2026, the company raised $300 million from investors including Radical Ventures, NVIDIA, and Adobe Ventures at a valuation of nearly $4 billion. The $6 billion price tag Anthropic was reportedly willing to pay represented a 50% premium over that valuation, set just four months earlier.
Decart, which got its start in Israel, built its reputation on demos like Oasis, which renders game footage in real time frame by frame. Rather than pre-rendering video, the system draws each frame fresh the instant a user moves — making raw computational speed on a given chip essentially the product itself.
Many observers believe Anthropic was after Decart's chip optimization technology more than its video capabilities. That technology lets a single chip handle more work across both training and inference — a compelling proposition for Anthropic, which faces compute constraints and could have used it to serve more customers on its existing infrastructure.
Neither side has said why the talks broke down. Spokespeople for both companies declined to comment, and it's unclear which side walked away first. But the timing stands out. Anthropic is preparing for an IPO, and paying 50% more than a valuation set just four months prior, right before going public, would be one more thing to explain to new shareholders.
The timing is sensitive for Anthropic for other reasons too. Reports suggest the company will file its S-1 and go public soon, around the end of this month. Meanwhile, Labs — the internal experimental team led by co-founder Ben Mann — is reportedly set to double in size, and Anthropic has been signing a string of new compute deals. With multiple major spending commitments already on the table, adding an acquisition on top raises questions of priority.
Even though the acquisition is off, the relationship isn't necessarily over. People familiar with the matter said the two companies may still look at other forms of collaboration, such as a deal to license the technology, instead of a full acquisition. If what Anthropic wanted was specific technology rather than the whole company, there's still a path to using it without buying it.
This episode suggests the acquisition math for frontier AI companies is shifting. Until now, these companies have spent heavily to acquire both people and technology in one move. But a company preparing to go public now has to consider how that price will look on its books first. A $6 billion deal stalling at the due diligence stage suggests that calculus is actually playing out in practice.
There's an upside for Decart as well. The fact that Anthropic offered more than Decart's valuation from four months earlier — and still walked away — signals to the market that Decart's technology is the kind frontier labs actively want. In its next funding round, this episode won't be a dead deal; it'll be a price marker.
Now that the talks are public, attention turns to who might approach Decart next. Companies combining real-time world models with chip optimization are rare, and both OpenAI and Google are reportedly looking for similar technology. Whatever gap Anthropic leaves behind probably won't stay empty for long.
In the end, Anthropic saved itself $6 billion, and Decart came away with a $6 billion valuation marker. The deal fell apart, but both companies arguably end up in a better position than before the talks began — and their next meeting is likely to be over a contract, not an acquisition.
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