Anthropic has reportedly walked away from talks to acquire AI startup Decart for roughly $6 billion after conducting due diligence on the company, according to Bloomberg.
The proposed deal would have valued Decart at a substantial premium to its most recent valuation. Decart was valued at nearly $4 billion in a May 2026 funding round, making the reported $6 billion price tag a major bet on the startup’s technology and future growth.
Decart has attracted attention for its work on AI infrastructure and technologies designed to make AI computing more efficient and reduce the cost of running increasingly demanding models. That makes the company strategically interesting to Anthropic, whose own AI models require enormous amounts of computing power.
So why walk away?
The exact reason has not been disclosed. But the fact that Anthropic proceeded to due diligence before abandoning the transaction suggests that something changed once the company had a much deeper look at Decart’s business, technology, finances or valuation.
And that distinction matters. Walking away from a $6 billion acquisition does not necessarily mean Anthropic concluded that Decart was a bad company. It may simply have decided that the risk or price was no longer justified.
For Decart, the story may ultimately be less damaging than it sounds. The fact that Anthropic was reportedly willing to discuss a deal approaching $6 billion puts a very large number around the startup. If Decart continues growing independently, the failed acquisition could eventually look more like a missed opportunity for Anthropic than a setback for Decart.
The episode also highlights something increasingly important in the AI industry: enormous valuations are attracting enormous scrutiny. AI startups may be able to command billion-dollar valuations, but when a potential buyer gets serious enough to examine everything under the hood, the numbers still have to make sense.
For Anthropic, the decision could signal a more disciplined approach to acquisitions as the company faces extraordinary spending requirements for computing infrastructure and AI development.
The AI acquisition frenzy isn’t over. But $6 billion is still $6 billion.