Anthropic will back an independent AI consultancy in Europe with London equity firm Hg, its first such venture on the continent, with a launch expected by the end of 2026, people familiar with the deal said.
Key Brief
- Anthropic and Hg will create a separate company that places AI consultants and engineers inside European businesses to build products.
- The new firm will run hubs in London and Berlin and serve software companies that sell to businesses and white-collar groups.
- Anthropic will put in balance sheet capital, and Hg will invest through funds it manages, including the London-listed HgCapital Trust.
- Ode, Anthropic’s US services firm with Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman, launched earlier this year with $1.5 billion in planned investment.
Engineers will sit inside client companies
The consultants will lead the design of new AI products at client firms or support projects already under way, according to the people. The company will also take on work across Hg’s own portfolio.
As first reported by the Financial Times, this is the first standalone consultancy Anthropic has backed in Europe. The lab has worked with Hg-backed companies since 2024, and it works with other European buyout firms too.
FT Exclusive: Anthropic has agreed to back a new European consultancy with private equity firm Hg, the frontier lab’s first move to create an independent business selling AI expertise to companies on the continent https://t.co/H9nTbOmMEB https://t.co/mNl37ZxqDp
— Financial Times (@FT) October 23, 2026
Hg already employs 150 AI experts who deploy the technology across its holdings. One person said the new venture won’t replace that team, so portfolio companies that rely on it today keep the same support.
The structure now looks like a template, with both leading US labs pairing their models with private equity money and engineers on the ground:
- OpenAI Deployment Company (May): OpenAI teamed with TPG, Advent, Bain Capital and Brookfield to help clients build AI into core operations.
- Ode (July): Anthropic partnered with Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman, with Goldman Sachs, Apollo Global Management and General Atlantic among the other backers.
- Anthropic and Hg (by year end): a European vehicle with a built-in channel into companies Hg already owns.
That pits the labs against Accenture and the Big Four, Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC, which earn lucrative fees steering companies through new technology. A lab that sends in its own engineers can now chase the same budgets.
Anthropic needs new revenue before its listing
The timing is hard to miss. Anthropic wants fresh revenue to justify heavy data center spending and win support for its planned IPO, while investors fret over AI valuations. Its revenue growth slowed in the third quarter.
Media reports say the prospectus could become public as soon as today, ahead of a targeted November listing that remains subject to change. Some prospective and existing investors are reportedly weighing a valuation near $1.5 trillion, below the roughly $2 trillion figure discussed before.
A draft prospectus reportedly showed a net loss of $80.7 billion for the first half of 2026, up from $13 billion a year earlier. About $72 billion of that was a non-cash accounting charge, tied to a higher estimated value of convertible bonds and other financing instruments.
The Bottom Line
The reports leave real gaps. How much is each partner putting in? Who owns what share, and who will run the firm? Those answers will show how far Anthropic is willing to fund deployment work while it asks public markets to back its spending.
Hg has its own reason to sign, since AI fears sparked a software sell-off earlier this year. Private equity owners have since tried to prove that companies they bought over the past decade can become AI businesses. Hg still found buyers, selling Gen II to KKR for more than $5 billion and Quantios to Vista Equity Partners for about £400 million. Its London and Berlin hubs are due to open before the year is out.
