TMTPOST -- Anthropic, an AI startup and competitor to OpenAI, is finalizing a new funding round that could raise up to $3.5 billion. This funding round will increase the company's valuation to $61.5 billion. Sources revealed that Anthropic initially planned to raise $2 billion but decided to upsize the funding after discussions with investors. Founded by former OpenAI employees in 2021, Anthropic was previously valued at $18 billion.  Anthropic also announced the launch of Claude 3.7 Sonnet, its most intelligent model to date and the first hybrid inference model on the market. The company explained that Claude 3.7 Sonnet offers near-instantaneous responses while also providing detailed step-by-step reasoning. API users can now fine-tune the model's response time. Additionally, Anthropic introduced Claude Code, a command-line tool in its research preview, allowing developers to delegate important tasks directly to Claude through a terminal.