On Wednesday, Anthropic revealed its acquisition of Vercept, an AI startup with significant connections to prominent figures in Seattle's technology community. This move follows Anthropic's purchase of the coding agent engine Bun last December, which was aimed at scaling its Claude Code capabilities. Vercept had developed tools for advanced agentic tasks, notably its cloud-based computer-use agent named Vy, which was capable of operating a remote Apple MacBook. The startup was part of a growing wave of companies rethinking the personal computer for an era dominated by AI agents. As a result of the acquisition, Anthropic will discontinue Vercept's product on March 25.

Vercept emerged from Seattle's AI-focused incubator A12, which originated from the longstanding Allen Institute for AI. The co-founders of Vercept also had prior affiliations with the Allen Institute, where they previously worked as researchers. One co-founder, Matt Deitke, gained attention last year for negotiating a substantial $250 million compensation package from Meta to join its Superintelligence Lab. Deitke publicly congratulated his former colleagues on the acquisition in a post on X.

As a notable AI startup in the region, Vercept had raised a total of $50 million, according to a LinkedIn announcement by CEO Kiana Ehsani. She highlighted A12's Seth Bannon, a board member, as the lead investor. The startup had previously disclosed a $16 million seed round in January of the prior year. Its roster of angel investors was equally distinguished, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean, Cruise founder Kyle Vogt, and Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi.

In its acquisition announcement, Anthropic confirmed that co-founders Kiana Ehsani, Luca Weihs, and Ross Girshick would be joining its team. However, not all founders are making the transition. Matt Deitke, another co-founder, is not joining Anthropic, and Oren Etzioni—previously identified as a co-founder and investor—is also not part of the move. Etzioni, a well-known figure in Seattle as the founding leader of the Allen Institute for AI, expressed clear disappointment regarding the acquisition. On LinkedIn, he remarked, “After a little bit more than a year, Vercept is throwing in the towel and giving their customers 30 days to get off the platform. Sad. A fantastic team is joining Anthropic. I wish them the very best.”

Etzioni, who is also a professor at the University of Washington and an active venture capitalist, did not respond to requests for comment. In his LinkedIn post, he suggested that lead investor Seth Bannon bore some responsibility for Vercept not hiring the right business personnel. This sparked a public exchange between the investors, with Bannon criticizing Etzioni's comments and defending the founders' achievements. Their disagreement included accusations of dishonesty and legal threats, highlighting the intense pressures in the race to build leading AI companies.

While the financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed, Etzioni confirmed he received a positive return on his investment. Despite this, he conveyed his disappointment that a promising startup with strong traction and a talented team was concluding its independent journey so soon. In contrast, the founders joining Anthropic appear optimistic. In her LinkedIn post, CEO Kiana Ehsani explained, “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.”