An AI startup valued at nearly $4 billion in May is now at the center of a bidding story worth $7 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, October 11, that Amazon is in talks to acquire Decart, an Israeli-founded AI company, just weeks after Anthropic decided against buying it.
What Was Reported
According to the Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, a deal could come together soon if talks do not fall apart or another buyer steps in. Neither Amazon nor Decart has confirmed anything publicly. Amazon declined to comment, and Decart did not respond to requests for comment.
At roughly $7 billion, the reported price would be about a 75% jump from the nearly $4 billion valuation PitchBook put on Decart in May, in under five months.
What Decart Actually Does
Decart is not a chatbot company. Founded in 2023 by three Israeli engineers, it builds:
- Lucy, a Nvidia-backed model that can edit live video in real time
- Oasis, a model that generates simulated 3D environments used to train and test robotics and autonomous-driving systems
- Software that makes it easier for developers to move AI workloads between different chips
That last point is why Amazon is interested. AWS gave Decart early access to its Trainium3 AI chip in 2025, and Amazon’s own launch post said Decart was getting 4x faster frame generation at half the cost of GPUs on the chip.
Why Anthropic Walked Away
Anthropic explored a deal of about $6 billion in August and entered advanced talks, then dropped it in September after finishing due diligence, according to Bloomberg. Neither company has explained why. One outlet reported that Decart’s founders refused Anthropic’s push to move much of the team from Tel Aviv to San Francisco, though that detail comes from a single report and has not been confirmed by either side.
Nvidia, a Decart investor, was also reportedly in advanced talks to buy the startup before higher bids arrived, according to Israeli outlet Calcalist.
Why This Matters
For Amazon, this fits a clear pattern. The company is pushing its own AI chips against Nvidia, and buying a team that already runs fast on Trainium would reinforce that strategy. For Anthropic, which has been preparing a large public offering, walking away from a $6 billion deal after a close look is a notable signal about how carefully it is spending.
It also shows how expensive talent in “world models” and real-time video has become. We saw the same pressure in AMD’s recent $8.2 billion purchase of Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs.
The Bottom Line
This is still a report, not a signed deal. But in a single autumn, the same startup has gone from a roughly $4 billion valuation to bids of $6 billion and $7 billion, with Anthropic, Nvidia, and Amazon all reportedly circling. If Amazon closes, it will rank among its largest acquisitions in recent years.
For Amazon’s latest company news, visit Amazon’s official newsroom.
For more on the AI funding frenzy, read our coverage of OpenAI’s push for a $1.5 trillion valuation and AMD crossing $1 trillion.
