What the business is
Seattle AI startup that built Vy, a cloud computer-use agent able to operate a remote Apple MacBook.
The bet
Folding a computer-use agent team into Anthropic accelerates Vercept's vision faster than building independently, even at the cost of its own product.
Starting capital
$50M raised in total, per CEO Kiana Ehsani, including a $16M seed round announced in January 2025.
How it started
Vercept came out of Seattle's AI2 incubator, with co-founders who were previously researchers at the Allen Institute for AI.
What happened
Co-founder Matt Deitke, who TechCrunch says negotiated a $250M package from Meta's Superintelligence Lab in 2025, left the startup. Vercept had raised a $16M seed in January 2025 and $50M in total, with angels including Eric Schmidt, Jeff Dean, Kyle Vogt and Arash Ferdowsi.
How it ended up
On 25 February 2026 Anthropic announced it had acquired Vercept, bringing in co-founders Ehsani, Luca Weihs and Ross Girshick. Anthropic is shutting Vy on 25 March, giving customers 30 days to leave, and terms were not disclosed.
What has to be true
Anthropic clearly wanted these researchers, TechCrunch wrote, perhaps especially with another of them at Meta.
CEO Ehsani said joining Anthropic would accelerate the vision faster than building independently as a separate version of it.
Anthropic had bought Bun in December to scale Claude Code, and Vercept added computer-use agent expertise.
What can be applied
In a talent war, a startup that loses a co-founder to a lab can choose between two versions of the same vision, and the acquirer's pitch was a faster one.
Aftermath
As of 25 February 2026, Vercept's team was joining Anthropic, Vy was set to close on 25 March, and some investors and a co-founder were publicly at odds over the outcome. Terms were not disclosed.
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