Anthropic strikes deal to launch European consultancy

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.

The AI start-up and London-based buyout group have agreed a deal to set up an independent company that will embed AI consultants and engineers into European businesses, according to people familiar with the matter.

The engineers will lead the design of new products using AI or support a company’s existing efforts, the people said, adding that the new company will also work with Hg’s portfolio companies.

The launch of consultancies by AI firms heralds a new threat to traditional IT consulting practices such as Accenture and those of the Big Four professional services groups — Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC — which have lucrative businesses advising companies on the adoption of new technology.

The partnership comes as European investors and policymakers rush to catch up with the US on the development of AI and accelerate the take-up of the cutting-edge technology across the continent.

Anthropic and private equity firms Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman launched a similar standalone service company with $1.5bn in planned investment in the US earlier this year, which they called Ode. Other investors in Ode included Goldman Sachs and Apollo Global.

Anthropic’s rival OpenAI launched its own joint venture in May with private equity firms TPG, Advent, Bain Capital and Brookfield — the OpenAI Deployment Company — as part of its efforts to accelerate the adoption of its products.

Anthropic, founded by Dario Amodei, has worked with Hg’s portfolio companies since 2024 and also works with other European buyout firms. The launch of the new company marks the first time that Anthropic has backed a standalone European consultancy.

Anthropic will put its balance sheet capital into the company and Hg, a software buyout specialist, will invest from funds it manages including its London-listed HgCapital Trust, the people added.

The consultancy, which is expected to launch by the end of this year, will have hubs in London and Berlin and work with software companies targeting business clients or other white-collar groups, they said.

Hg already has a team of 150 AI experts who deploy the technology in its portfolio companies. The new business will not replace those, one of the people said.

The partnership comes as Anthropic seeks to generate new revenues to justify its heavy spending on data centre infrastructure and to rally support for its planned blockbuster IPO amid growing concerns about AI valuations. The start-up’s revenue growth slowed in the third quarter, the FT reported last week.

Private equity firms have been looking to prove that they can transform the software companies they have acquired over the past decade into AI businesses.

Advances in AI had caused fears over software companies’ business models earlier this year and a public sell-off in the sector, although nerves have since calmed somewhat as investors have distinguished between software companies. In recent months Hg sold fund services group Gen II to KKR for more than $5bn and software company Quantios to Vista Equity Partners for about £400mn.

Hg and Anthropic declined to comment.