Monday, Oct 12 | --:--
Times of AI

Regions

China Europe India Japan Taiwan United Kingdom United States

Platforms

Alibaba Qwen Amazon Anthropic DeepMind Google Groq Meta Microsoft MiniMax Mistral Moonshot AI NVIDIA OpenAI PrismML Replit Thinking Machines xAI

Sections

Business Enterprise Frontier Labs Industry Infrastructure Models Policy Products Research Security Work All articles →
Back to home
Industry M&A United States Amazon Anthropic

Amazon Is in Talks to Buy World-Model Startup Decart for About $7 Billion, According to the WSJ as Reported by Reuters

Amazon is in talks to acquire Decart, the startup behind the real-time video model Lucy and the simulation model Oasis, in a deal valued at around $7 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 11, citing people familiar with the matter, according to Reuters. A deal could come soon if talks hold, the Journal said. Anthropic, which explored a deal for Decart at about $6 billion in August, decided last month not to pursue it, Bloomberg has reported. Amazon declined to comment and Decart did not respond.

Times of AI Desk 3 min read Seattle, WA View as Markdown
Cover illustration for Amazon Is in Talks to Buy World-Model Startup Decart for About $7 Billion, According to the WSJ as Reported by Reuters

Decart has a second suitor, and a higher price tag. Amazon is in talks to acquire the AI startup in a deal valued at around $7 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, October 11, citing people familiar with the matter, according to Reuters. Two months ago the bidder was Anthropic, at about $6 billion. Nothing is signed: the Journal said a deal could happen soon if talks do not fall apart or another suitor emerges.

We did not read the Journal's article; the details below come from Reuters' summary and the opening of Bloomberg's write-up, both of which credit the Journal.

What has been reported

  • The price: around $7 billion, per the Journal. Reuters adds that the Journal put Decart's valuation at nearly $4 billion in May, citing PitchBook data. Decart raised $300 million that month in a round led by Radical Ventures, with Nvidia joining as a new investor, Reuters reports.
  • What Decart makes: its Nvidia-backed Lucy model can edit live video in real time, according to Decart's website, and its Oasis model generates simulated environments to train and test robotics and autonomous-driving systems, Reuters reports.
  • Who founded it: brothers Dean and Orian Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev, three Israeli engineers, in 2023, per Bloomberg.
  • Responses: Amazon declined to comment outside regular business hours, and Decart did not respond, according to Reuters.

Neither Reuters' summary nor the part of Bloomberg's story we could read says how Amazon would use Decart's technology.

The earlier suitor

In August we reported that Anthropic was in talks to acquire Decart for about $6 billion, according to Bloomberg, in what would have been Anthropic's largest known deal. Those talks ended without a deal: last month Anthropic decided not to pursue an acquisition after conducting due diligence, Bloomberg News reported, according to Reuters.

Limits

  • The Wall Street Journal's article is paywalled and was not opened. Its contents come from Reuters (read in full via StreetInsider) and Bloomberg Law (opening paragraphs only), which both relay it; they are not independent confirmation.
  • The ~$7 billion figure, the timing and the state of talks all come from unnamed people via the Journal. Neither Amazon nor Decart has confirmed talks.
  • Anthropic's decision not to proceed is Bloomberg's reporting as relayed by Reuters and Bloomberg Law; Anthropic has not commented on it in anything we read.

Sources

Prior Coverage

Earlier Times of AI reporting on this thread.

Related Coverage

Scroll to continue reading