Anthropic in Talks to Buy Decart for $6 Billion

Anthropic is in advanced talks to acquire Israeli AI startup Decart for roughly $6 billion, according to a Bloomberg report. It would be by far the largest known acquisition by the Claude maker. The deal is not final and could still fall apart, the reports caution.

Founded only in 2023 by Dean Leitersdorf, Orian Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev, Decart specializes in two areas: world models that simulate physical environments in real time, and software that squeezes more efficiency out of AI chips, cutting training and inference costs. The startup is best known for “Lucy,” a model powering real-time video applications such as virtual try-ons in e-commerce.

The price marks a remarkable jump. As recently as May 2026, Decart raised $300 million led by Radical Ventures at a valuation of about $4 billion, up from $3.1 billion in August 2025. Its investors include Nvidia, Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and Adobe Ventures.

Strategically, the deal fits Anthropic's IPO preparations: the company has confidentially filed for a public listing, which observers believe could happen as early as fall 2026. Decart's chip-efficiency technology could push down inference costs – one of the biggest levers for an AI provider's margins.

At the same time, the world-model technology would give Anthropic a capability so far associated mostly with Google DeepMind and a handful of video startups. Decart co-founder Dean Leitersdorf recently described the industry's pace by saying the market moves so fast that “we get to reinvent every different aspect of the economy in the next 18 to 24 months.”

One caveat: all figures trace back to Bloomberg's August 13 reporting, which was picked up by outlets including Fortune and Quartz. Neither Anthropic nor Decart has officially confirmed the deal.