Feb 24 (Reuters) - AI startup Anthropic is looking to

raise $3.5 billion in its latest funding round which would value

the startup behind the chatbot Claude at $61.5 billion, the Wall

Street Journal reported on Monday.

Investors in the latest round include venture firms

Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst and Bessemer

Venture Partners, WSJ said. Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX

is also in talks, according to the report.

Anthropic did not immediately respond to a Reuters request

for comment.

In January, Reuters had reported the startup was nearing a

deal to raise an additional $2 billion at a price that values

the company at $60 billion, months after its $4 billion funding

from Amazon ( AMZN ).

Alphabet's Google is making a fresh investment of

more than $1 billion into the AI startup, the Financial Times

had reported late last month. It already has an existing

commitment of $2 billion in Anthropic.

Anthropic, a major competitor of OpenAI in the foundation

model space, was valued at around $18 billion in a fundraise led

by Menlo Ventures last year.

On Monday, Anthropic launched an advanced AI model, called

Claude 3.7 Sonnet, that can produce faster responses or display

its step-by-step reasoning process, as it looks to gain a

competitive edge in the generative artificial intelligence

industry.