Anthropic acquires computer-use AI startup Vercept after Meta poached one of its founders

Source: TechCrunch

Anthropic acquires Vercept

Anthropic announced on Wednesday that it has acquired Vercept, an AI startup with deep roots in Seattle’s tech scene. The acquisition follows Anthropic’s December purchase of the coding‑agent engine Bun to help scale Claude Code.

Vercept created tools for complex agentic tasks, including its product Vy, a computer‑use agent in the cloud that could operate a remote Apple MacBook. As part of the deal, Anthropic is shuttering Vercept’s product on March 25.

Background

Vercept was a graduate of Seattle’s AI‑focused incubator A12, which spun out of the Allen Institute for AI. The startup’s co‑founders were former researchers at the Allen Institute. One co‑founder, Matt Deitke, made news last year as one of the AI researchers who negotiated a $250 million salary from Meta to join its Superintelligence Lab. Deitke later congratulated his former colleagues in a post on X.

Funding

In a LinkedIn post announcing the acquisition, Vercept CEO Kiana Ehsani said the startup had raised a total of $50 million. The lead investor was A12’s board member Seth Bannon. Vercept previously announced a $16 million seed round in January.

The angel investor list included:

• Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt
• Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean
• Cruise founder Kyle Vogt
• Dropbox co‑founder Arash Ferdowsi

(Reported by GeekWire.)

Team transition

Anthropic’s announcement named co‑founders Kiana Ehsani, Luca Weihs, and Ross Girshick as members joining Anthropic. Not all Vercept co‑founders are moving to the Claude maker; Matt Deitke is not among those transitioning.

Investor dispute

Oren Etzioni, a co‑founder of Vercept and a prominent figure at the Allen Institute for AI, expressed disappointment on LinkedIn, noting that Vercept is giving customers 30 days to migrate off the platform. He also criticized lead investor Seth Bannon, suggesting Bannon was partly responsible for Vercept’s lack of appropriate business hires. Bannon responded, defending the founders’ work and accusing Etzioni of disparagement. The exchange included accusations of lying and legal threats, though it remained largely a public spat.

Etzioni told GeekWire that, while he received a positive return on his investment, he is “bummed” that the startup is being folded after just over a year of traction.

Founder reactions

Kiana Ehsani’s LinkedIn post reflected optimism about the acquisition:

“The choices were clear: we could build independently and work toward the same vision as two separate versions of it, or join forces with an incredible team and accelerate that vision into reality. The decision became an easy choice.”