Zoom Anthropic Stake Turns an AI Partnership Into a Balance-Sheet Bet
Zoom spent $362 million buying back its own stock last quarter. At the same time, the video communications company is sitting on an Anthropic stake that Baird estimates is worth between two and four times what Zoom paid for it — and that estimate was published before Anthropic started floating a funding round at a valuation above $900 billion.
Zoom invested roughly $51 million in Anthropic in early 2023 as part of a partnership to embed the startup's Claude models in its enterprise product. The position is now carried on Zoom's balance sheet at $1.27 billion, according to its Q1 fiscal 2027 10-Q filing, and Bloomberg reported the stake has netted Zoom approximately $1 billion on the original investment. Zoom also disclosed an additional $46 million investment in Anthropic during the same quarter.
Anthropic is currently weighing a funding round that would value the AI developer at more than $900 billion, per Bloomberg — a pending round that has not closed and whose terms may change. If the valuation lands in that range, Zoom's stake — currently marked at $1.27 billion — could be worth roughly $4 billion to $5 billion, based on a simple pro-rata calculation using Anthropic's February 2026 raise that priced the company at $380 billion post-money. Baird analysts have already estimated the stake could be worth $2 billion to $4 billion at a $350 billion valuation for Anthropic, according to CNBC. The implied ownership percentage is small — roughly 1-2% — but at an $900 billion valuation, even that sliver translates to real money.
Zoom's board authorized an additional $1 billion share repurchase program during the same quarter, per Seeking Alpha, on top of 4.2 million shares already repurchased for $362 million in Q1 fiscal 2027. The company ended the quarter with approximately $7.8 billion in cash and marketable securities. Revenue for Q1 fiscal 2027 was $1.239 billion, up 5.5% year-over-year, with enterprise revenue rising 7.2% to $755.7 million. GAAP net income was $425.7 million. AI Companion monthly active users grew nearly 40% quarter over quarter.
The framing matters because Zoom's core business is mature. The company grew total revenue 3% year-over-year in the year-ago quarter and 5.5% this quarter, a deceleration from the double-digit expansion that once justified its pandemic-era multiple. The Anthropic stake is now one of the most consequential assets on Zoom's balance sheet, yet it exists because of a partnership that predates the current enterprise AI boom. Zoom has never publicly disclosed plans to monetize the position. The structural pressure is straightforward: buybacks return cash to shareholders at a premium valuation while the Anthropic stake sits below its implied market value, creating a mismatch that institutional investors and activist shareholders have begun to notice.
What to watch next: whether Zoom announces further Anthropic investment, whether the pending Anthropic funding round closes at the reported valuation and how Zoom's carrying value adjusts, and whether Zoom's board authorizes additional buybacks once the new $1 billion authorization is deployed.