Anthropic has pulled out of negotiations to acquire Israeli AI startup Decart in a deal valued at roughly $6 billion, ending what would have been the company’s largest acquisition by a wide margin.
The withdrawal, which surfaced on September 8, 2026, leaves one of the AI industry’s most closely watched deals on the cutting room floor. And it comes at a particularly awkward moment for Anthropic, which is reportedly eyeing an IPO as soon as this fall.
What Decart brings to the table
Decart is not your typical AI startup chasing the next chatbot or image generator. Founded in September 2023, the company builds chip-optimization software designed to make AI inference, the process of actually running trained models, significantly more efficient.
The startup’s focus areas span generative video, robotics simulation, and autonomous systems. All three are compute-hungry domains where shaving even small percentages off processing costs can translate into massive savings at scale.
Decart’s fundraising trajectory reflects how seriously the industry takes its technology. The company raised approximately $450 million in total, with a $300 million round closing in May 2026 that pegged its valuation at around $4 billion. Nvidia was among the prominent backers in that round, a detail that becomes especially interesting given what reportedly happened behind the scenes during acquisition talks.
Perhaps most striking: Decart’s three founders still retain roughly 64% ownership of the company. That kind of founder control is unusual for a startup that has raised nearly half a billion dollars, and it gave them significant leverage in deal negotiations.
A deal that almost wasn’t, then really wasn’t
The acquisition talks had progressed to an advanced stage by mid-August 2026. Anthropic’s offer was structured primarily in stock rather than cash, valuing Decart at approximately $6 billion. That represented a roughly 50% premium over Decart’s most recent private valuation.
Reports indicate that Nvidia, already an investor in Decart, had put forward its own offer that was considered more financially attractive. But Decart’s founders reportedly chose to pursue the Anthropic deal instead, passing on Nvidia’s bid.
But then Anthropic walked away. The specific reasons for the withdrawal remain undisclosed.
Why Anthropic might have gotten cold feet
The most obvious factor is the IPO. Anthropic has been preparing for a public listing potentially as early as September or October 2026. Closing a $6 billion stock-based acquisition right before going public would create significant complexity. It could dilute existing shareholders, complicate the company’s financial narrative for prospective public market investors, and introduce integration risk at precisely the wrong moment.
A $6 billion price tag also deserves scrutiny on its own terms. That’s a 50% premium over a valuation set just three months earlier.
For Decart, the situation is complicated but not catastrophic. The company sits on a fresh $300 million in funding, retains majority founder control, and operates in a market segment where demand for inference efficiency is only growing. The more pressing question is what happens with Nvidia’s interest. If that offer is still on the table, or can be revived, Decart’s founders face a different calculus now. The Anthropic path they preferred is closed.