Who leads Ode with Anthropic?

Ode with Anthropic is led by Chris Taylor (CEO & Co-Founder); Eddie Siegel (CTO & Co-Founder); Travis May (Co-Founder, Fractional AI (its CEO before the acquisition); role at Ode not stated in the launch release); Garvan Doyle (Head of FDE, Americas (Anthropic / Ode liaison)).

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FDE Player Dossier · Updated 2026-10-18

Ode with Anthropic

Q: Who does Ode with Anthropic compete with?

Ode with Anthropic competes with OpenAI Deployment Company, Microsoft Frontier, Distyl AI, Palantir Technologies, Deloitte, Accenture, PwC.

$1.5B JV · ~100 engineers · commercial launch Jul 15, 2026 · Privatewww.ode.com

Ode with Anthropic is a $1.5B joint venture between Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman, built on the May 2026 acquisition of Fractional AI. It embeds forward-deployed engineering teams inside enterprises to ship Claude-powered production systems, making it the most heavily capitalized direct entrant in the forward-deployed AI engineering market.

Capital committed: $1.5B; $300M each Anthropic/Blackstone/H&F; $150M Goldman; balance from consortium; confirmed
Headcount: ~100; Last public figure (July 2026); 15 roles open in October 2026; estimated
Investor firms: 9; Anthropic, Blackstone, H&F, Goldman, GA, Leonard Green, Apollo, GIC, Sequoia; confirmed
Revenue / ARR: Undisclosed; Commercial launch Jul 15, 2026; no public figures; unconfirmed
Founder-heavy team: >50%; Over half the ~100 team are former founders with 10+ yrs experience; estimated
Offices: 4; San Francisco, New York, Raleigh-Durham NC, Dubai; confirmed

Snapshot

San Francisco, CA

Founded

Apr 2024

Fractional AI operational base; JV announced May 4, 2026; branded Ode Jul 15, 2026

San Francisco, CA

Also New York, Dubai, Research Triangle NC

Stage

Private

Joint venture; legally distinct from Anthropic

Ownership

JV Consortium

Anthropic, Blackstone, H&F, Goldman, GA, Leonard Green, Apollo, GIC, Sequoia

Capital

$1.5B committed

$300M each: Anthropic, Blackstone, H&F; $150M Goldman; balance from rest

Headcount

~100est.

Last public figure (July 2026); 15 roles open in October 2026

Revenue / ARR

Undisclosedest.

Commercial launch Jul 15, 2026; no public figures

CEO

Chris Taylor

Co-founder; ex-Director of Sales LiveRamp; co-founder Wove (acq. Samba TV)

Key findings

$1.5B committed (not necessarily deployed) by Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman; JV launched commercially July 15, 2026 on the acquired Fractional AI team (~100 people).
Customer pipeline is pre-seeded from the PE investor consortium (Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, General Atlantic, Leonard Green, GIC, Sequoia), whose portfolios collectively hold hundreds of mid-market companies.
Fractional AI was an OpenAI partner for ~11 months before the acquisition; pre-acquisition case studies ran on GPT-4.1/4o/4o-mini. Post-acquisition the team operates under a Claude-first mandate, stating model-agnosticism only when technically warranted.
Palantir-style staffing: small embedded 'special-forces' teams rather than large consulting benches; over half the ~100-person team are former founders. Engagements target the top 1-2 CEO AI priorities.
Member of the Anthropic Claude Partner Network alongside Accenture, Deloitte, and PwC, differentiated by Anthropic equity backing and direct access to the model roadmap. Pricing is outcome-based or time-and-materials; no per-seat SaaS licensing.
Brand is 'Ode with Anthropic' at ode.com (redirected from fractional.ai); deploy.co is a separate OpenAI-aligned entity, not this venture.

What they do

FDE model · approach · differentiation

Core model

Applied AI services firm that embeds forward-deployed engineering teams inside enterprise clients. Engagements begin with a small assessment team of Ode engineers working alongside client domain experts (clinicians, operations, finance) to map where Claude delivers business value, followed by custom full-stack development, production deployment, and ongoing embedded collaboration. The deliverable is working code in production, not strategy decks.

Target customers

Mid-market enterprises, primarily portfolio companies of the PE investor consortium (Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, General Atlantic, Leonard Green, GIC, Sequoia): community banks, regional health systems, regional manufacturers, and PE-backed SaaS where AI is a top-1-or-2 CEO priority but internal engineering talent is lacking. Also pursues external enterprise clients. Not a platform or SaaS product; does not target Fortune 50 or early-stage startups.

Vertical focus

Financial services, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, software, and real estate. The Health division (Research Triangle, NC; operational since January 2026) focuses on clinical workflow automation, call-center optimization, and back-office healthcare operations.

Pricing model

Outcome-based or time-and-materials frameworks (per MarketScale), not per-seat SaaS licensing. Premium day rates reflecting a team where over half are former founders with 10+ years of experience. Pre-acquisition Fractional AI engagements included risk-sharing fees that scaled with project success. No public rate card or minimum engagement size disclosed. Clients retain full IP ownership of built systems.

Technology approach

Claude is the primary AI layer under a Claude-first mandate, with direct access to Anthropic's model roadmap. Stack: Python, TypeScript, FastAPI, React.js, AWS ECS, GCP, Docker/Kubernetes, LangChain, LangSmith, Pydantic AI, Braintrust, Weave (evaluation), Pinecone (vector store), WebSockets, Recall.ai, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) for enterprise integrations. RAG architectures are standard. Pre-acquisition case studies were built on OpenAI GPT-4.1/4o/4o-mini.

Structural differentiation

Modeled on Palantir's forward-deployed engineer playbook: small teams, embedded on-site, focused on top CEO priorities, versus large consulting benches at Accenture and Deloitte. The Anthropic relationship supplies two inputs traditional consulting firms lack: access to pre-release model capabilities and a pre-seeded customer pipeline from the PE investor consortium. Rodney W. Zemmel, Global Head of the Blackstone Operating Team: 'The bottleneck to enterprise AI isn't access to models, it's turning that potential into real business impact. Ode was built to close that gap.'

Target customers

Mid-market enterprises (~$50M-$2B revenue), primarily portfolio companies of the PE investor consortium (Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, General Atlantic, Leonard Green, GIC, Sequoia): community banks, regional health systems, regional manufacturers, and PE-backed SaaS where AI is a top-1-or-2 CEO priority but internal engineering talent is lacking. Also pursues external enterprise clients. Not Fortune 50 or early-stage startups.

Pricing model

Outcome-based or time-and-materials frameworks (per MarketScale); no per-seat SaaS licensing. Premium day rates; pre-acquisition Fractional AI engagements used risk-sharing fees that scaled with project success. No public rate card or disclosed engagement minimum. Clients retain full IP ownership.

Tech stack

Claude primary under a Claude-first mandate, with direct model-roadmap access. Python, TypeScript, FastAPI, React.js, AWS ECS, GCP, Docker/Kubernetes, LangChain, LangSmith, Pydantic AI, Braintrust, Weave, Pinecone, WebSockets, Recall.ai, and Model Context Protocol (MCP). RAG standard. Pre-acquisition work ran on OpenAI GPT-4.1/4o/4o-mini.

Backed by

AnthropicBlackstoneHellman & FriedmanGoldman SachsGeneral AtlanticLeonard Green & PartnersApollo Global ManagementGICSequoia

Leadership & structure

Corporate entities · key executives · board

Corporate structure

Entity	Founded	Role
Ode with Anthropic	2026	The JV operating brand (launched Jul 15, 2026) · Enterprise AI services firm; ode.com. Legally distinct from Anthropic.
Fractional AI	Apr 2024	Predecessor / acquired operational centerpiece · Acquired May 21, 2026; team became the founding operational core. Was an OpenAI partner for 11 months pre-acquisition. fractional.ai now redirects to ode.com.
Ode Health Division	Jan 2026	Vertical division · Research Triangle / Raleigh-Durham, NC. Clinical workflow automation, call-center optimization, healthcare back-office. GM Kyle Bryant, Eng Lead Rebecca Bilbro.
Anthropic Claude Partner Network	—	Partner network Ode belongs to · Alongside Accenture, Deloitte, PwC, but Ode is uniquely Anthropic-capitalized with direct model-roadmap access.

Key executives

Name	Role	Background
Chris Taylor	CEO & Co-Founder	CEO and co-founder; owns overall firm strategy and the commercial direction of the forward-deployed business. Prior: early employee and Director of Sales at LiveRamp, then CRO/co-founder of data-integration startup Wove (acquired by Samba TV 2019); co-founded Fractional AI (now Ode) in April 2024.
Eddie Siegel	CTO & Co-Founder	CTO and co-founder; owns the engineering org and the FDE delivery model. Prior: VP of Engineering at Rapleaf (acquired by LiveRamp) and CEO/co-founder of Wove (acquired by Samba TV 2019); co-founded Fractional AI (now Ode) as CTO in April 2024.
Travis May unconfirmed	Co-Founder, Fractional AI (its CEO before the acquisition); role at Ode not stated in the launch release	Co-founded the firm in 2024; role at Ode not stated in the launch release. The relevant signal is his enterprise-data operating track record: founding CEO of LiveRamp (taken public) and founder/CEO of Datavant (healthcare data logistics, merged at ~$7B), plus active angel investing and board seats.
Garvan Doyle unconfirmed	Head of FDE, Americas (Anthropic / Ode liaison)	Leads Anthropic's Applied AI (forward-deployed) organization in the Americas and is the named primary Anthropic interface for Ode client engagements, the key link between Anthropic and Ode's delivery. Full prior career history not available in public sources.
Kyle Bryant unconfirmed	General Manager, Ode Health Division	GM of the health-focused division (Research Triangle, NC), launched January 2026; owns clinical-workflow/back-office health engagements and the pod's hiring bar (ex-founders/CTOs, 10+ years, 'very scrappy'). Full prior career history not available in public sources.
Rebecca Bilbro unconfirmed	Engineering Lead, Ode Health Division	Engineering lead for the NC health division, co-founding the health pod alongside GM Kyle Bryant. Prior: ex-Rotational Labs and O'Reilly author, with an applied ML / data-engineering background directly relevant to the FDE delivery work.

Board & investor representation

Name	Role	Background
Rodney W. Zemmel unconfirmed	Investor representative, Blackstone Operating Team	Global Head of Blackstone's Operating Team (portfolio value creation); represents Blackstone's $300M anchor position in Ode and publicly endorsed the firm at its July 2026 launch. Prior: long-tenure McKinsey senior/managing director.

Team & org structure

5 people mapped

Team profile

Small embedded 'special-forces' teams rather than a consulting bench; over half are ex-founders or ex-CTOs. Claude-first and full-stack (Python/TypeScript, LangChain, evals via Braintrust and Weave).

Ode with Anthropic (formerly Fractional AI; ~100 people, the last public figure) is an engineering-dominant applied-AI services firm organized as small embedded delivery teams rather than a large consulting bench. It runs five functional tracks (Engineering, Product/Forward-Deployed PM, Commercial, Operations, Talent) across four geographic pods (San Francisco HQ, New York, Raleigh-Durham NC 'Health' division, and Dubai). Anthropic supplies model access and an Applied AI liaison rather than headcount inside the JV. By October 2026 the commercial track is organized by vertical practice (financial services, healthcare and life sciences, semiconductor), forward-deployed product managers are hired per vertical, and the firm recruits whole engineering teams through a 'Bring Your Own Engineering Team' posting; 15 roles were open across San Francisco, New York, Raleigh-Durham, the South Bay and Dubai. Leadership named at the July launch (Taylor, Siegel) is unchanged; the other named leaders were not re-verifiable from public sources in October 2026.

Functional distribution

Forward-Deployed / Applied AI Engineering & Delivery

~60-70%

Product (Forward-Deployed PM)

~10-15%

Commercial / GTM

~10%

Operations

~5%

Talent / Recruiting

~3-5%

Reporting Chris Taylor (CEO) and Eddie Siegel (CTO) run the company day-to-day; Travis May is a co-founder (operating role not confirmed). Division and vertical GMs: Kyle Bryant (GM, Health Division, Raleigh-Durham NC, with Rebecca Bilbro as Engineering Lead) and Xerxes Sarrafan Sanii (GM, Private Equity, owning the investor-portfolio engagement motion). Annie Powers (VP Operations) and Kayla Pearson (Talent) lead central functions. Geographic pods: San Francisco (HQ), New York (East Coast delivery), Raleigh-Durham NC (Health, since January 2026), and Dubai (MENA). Garvan Doyle leads Anthropic Applied AI (Americas) as the Anthropic-side interface and is Anthropic staff, not counted in Ode headcount.

Team roster

Forward-Deployed / Applied AI Engineering & Delivery

~60-70 of ~100 (majority; largely private)

Core of the firm, small embedded 'special-forces' teams that ship production code, not decks; over half are ex-founders/ex-CTOs. Stack (from case studies + eng blog): Python + TypeScript, FastAPI, React, AWS ECS / GCP, Docker/K8s; LangChain, LangSmith, Pydantic AI, Braintrust, Weave for evals, Pinecone vector store, WebSockets, Recall.ai, Model Context Protocol (MCP), RAG-standard. Claude-first post-acquisition (was GPT-4o/4.1-heavy). Culture: 'ship an AI product every quarter,' 'overuse AI,' 4-days-in-office/Friday-remote. Open reqs (Oct 2026): Staff Software Engineer in San Francisco, New York, Raleigh-Durham and Dubai; Developer Relations Engineer; and a 'Bring Your Own Engineering Team' intake for whole teams.

Rebecca Bilbro · Engineering Lead, Health Division (Raleigh-Durham, NC) · PhD; ex-Rotational Labs, O'Reilly author; co-started health pod
Kyle Bryant · General Manager, Health Division (Raleigh-Durham, NC) · Runs clinical-workflow/back-office health pod

Product (Forward-Deployed PM)

~5-10

Dedicated 'Forward Deployed Product Manager' role embedded alongside FDE teams and clients; hiring in both SF/NY and the NC Health pod. Product sits close to delivery, not a separate roadmap org. No individual FDPMs are publicly named. Open reqs (Oct 2026): Forward Deployed Product Manager, general and Financial Services.

Commercial / Go-to-Market

~5-10

Sells outcome-based / time-and-materials engagements, not per-seat SaaS. Primary motion is the near-captive PE-portfolio pipeline (Blackstone, H&F, Goldman, Apollo, General Atlantic, Leonard Green, GIC). Open reqs (Oct 2026): Principal and Associate Principal, AI Transformation, by vertical practice (Financial Services; Healthcare & Life Sciences; Semiconductor).

Xerxes Sarrafan Sanii · General Manager, Private Equity · Owns PE-portfolio engagement vertical / investor pipeline

Operations

~3-6

Lean central ops for a services firm scaling from ~88 (Fractional AI) to ~100+; supports multi-office footprint (SF HQ, NY, Raleigh-Durham NC, Dubai). Head of Business Operations and Analytics open (Oct 2026).

Annie Powers · VP, Operations · Supports the four-office footprint

Talent / Recruiting

~2-4

Recruiting runs through Ashby (jobs.ashbyhq.com/odewithanthropic); explicit 'Talent Partner - Engineering' focus reflects that hiring is overwhelmingly engineering-weighted. Bar is ex-founder / 10+ yrs experience, 'very scrappy.' Recruiting Coordinator open (Oct 2026).

Kayla Pearson · Talent Partner · Engineering-focused recruiting

Scale & footprint

Headcount · customers · geographies

~100 engineers, the last public figure (July 2026); Fractional AI was ~88 people before the acquisition.
Over half the team are former founders with 10+ years of experience; hiring across engineering, product, and operations.
Four offices: San Francisco (global HQ, inherited from Fractional AI), New York, Dubai (MENA), and Research Triangle/Raleigh-Durham, NC (Health division HQ, operational since January 2026).
Commercial operations launched July 15, 2026; no ARR or revenue figures released.
Customer pipeline pre-seeded from the PE investor consortium's portfolio companies, plus external enterprise clients.
15 roles open on the Ashby board on Oct 18, 2026, across San Francisco, New York, Raleigh-Durham, the South Bay and Dubai.

Named customers

Zapier, LLM evaluation suite reducing hallucinations by 80%+ (Fractional AI era)Airbyte, AI Connector Builder automating API integrations in under 5 minutes (pre-acquisition)Datasite, PE-backed by CapVest; Blackstone had pre-existing relationship (pre-acquisition)Cando Rail & Terminals, "Peter the Safety Agent" for risk assessment (pre-acquisition)Superintelligent, AI voice interview agent (pre-acquisition)Beghou, AI copilot for software configuration; 10x speedup (pre-acquisition)Sincera, Data normalization system (pre-acquisition)Change.org, listed as client on fractional.ai homepage; scope undisclosedLogicGate, listed as client on fractional.ai homepage; scope undisclosedBaker Tilly, referenced in Eddie Siegel LinkedIn activity; scope undisclosed

Geographic footprint

Location	Role	Note
San Francisco, CA	Global HQ	Inherited from Fractional AI; center of gravity for engineering and leadership.
New York, NY	East Coast office	Proximity to Blackstone, Goldman, H&F and financial-services clients.
Raleigh-Durham / Research Triangle, NC	Health division HQ	Operational since January 2026; clinical workflow automation, call-center optimization, healthcare back-office. GM Kyle Bryant, Eng Lead Rebecca Bilbro.
Dubai, UAE	MENA presence	International hub serving Middle East enterprise clients.

Hiring signals · open FDE roles

15 open roles (Oct 18, 2026)

Ode hires through an Ashby board. On October 18, 2026 it listed 15 roles across San Francisco, New York, Raleigh-Durham, the South Bay and Dubai: Staff Software Engineers in four locations, a Developer Relations Engineer, Forward Deployed Product Managers (general and Financial Services), Principal and Associate Principal, AI Transformation roles by vertical practice (Financial Services, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Semiconductor), a Head of Business Operations and Analytics, a Recruiting Coordinator, and a 'Bring Your Own Engineering Team' intake. Compensation is not shown on the postings.

Role	Location	Comp
Forward Deployed Product Manager · A Financial Services variant is also open	San Francisco / New York	n/d
Principal, AI Transformation · Vertical variants: Healthcare & Life Sciences, Financial Services, Semiconductor; Associate Principal also open	San Francisco / New York / Raleigh-Durham	n/d
Staff Software Engineer · One req per location	San Francisco / New York / Raleigh-Durham / Dubai	n/d
Developer Relations Engineer	San Francisco / New York	n/d
Head of Business Operations and Analytics	San Francisco	n/d
Bring Your Own Engineering Team · Whole-team intake	San Francisco / New York	n/d

Recent signals

Trailing 12 months · Jul 2025 – Jul 2026

Date	Item	Source
Oct 18, 2026	Careers board shows 15 open roles: AI Transformation principals by vertical (financial services, healthcare and life sciences, semiconductor), forward-deployed PMs, staff engineers in four cities including Dubai, a Head of Business Operations and Analytics, and a 'Bring Your Own Engineering Team' intake.	Ode careers (Ashby)
Feb 13, 2026	Fractional AI (pre-acquisition) launched a health-focused division in Research Triangle, NC, with Kyle Bryant as General Manager and Rebecca Bilbro as Engineering Lead, targeting clinical workflow automation, call center optimization, and back-office healthcare operations. First major geographic expansion outside San Francisco.	Grepbeat
May 4, 2026	Anthropic announced a $1.5B joint venture with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs to launch an AI-native enterprise services firm. Individual commitments of $300M each from Anthropic, Blackstone, and H&F; $150M from Goldman. General Atlantic, Leonard Green, Apollo, GIC, and Sequoia also joined. Same day, OpenAI announced a rival JV.	Anthropic / CNBC
May 21, 2026	The Anthropic-backed JV disclosed the acquisition of Fractional AI, ending Fractional AI's 11-month partnership with OpenAI. Co-founders Chris Taylor (CEO), Eddie Siegel (CTO), and Travis May join; the Fractional AI team becomes the "founding operational centerpiece." Terms undisclosed.	BusinessWire
May 4, 2026	Fortune reported that Anthropic is "taking a shot at the consulting industry" with the JV, positioning Ode as undercutting Big Three consulting firms in cost while combining embedded engineering with Anthropic's proprietary Claude models.	Fortune
Jul 15, 2026	Ode with Anthropic officially introduced as the named brand. ~100 engineers at launch confirmed. Website ode.com launched (redirected from fractional.ai). Palantir-modeled FDE engagement structure publicly disclosed. Joined Anthropic Claude Partner Network alongside Accenture, Deloitte, and PwC. Commercial operations begin.	BusinessWire
Jul 15, 2026	TechCrunch reported Ode launches with 100 engineers, positions as "Claude-first but model-agnostic," and competes directly against OpenAI's The Deployment Company ($4B raised, ~$10B valuation), Deloitte's FDE practice, and Accenture's Microsoft FDE teams.	TechCrunch

Market position

Where they lead · structural gaps · competitors

Market they lead

Mid-market companies (~$50M-$2B revenue) owned by the PE investor consortium (Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, General Atlantic, Leonard Green, GIC, Sequoia), a pipeline of hundreds of firms with large AI budgets seeking Anthropic roadmap access. The Health division serves regional health systems with HIPAA-oriented Claude deployments; financial services and manufacturing at the $50M-$2B tier are core territory.

Structural gaps

Every engagement is Claude-first by mandate, excluding vendor-neutral or multi-model buyers and clients standardized on OpenAI or Google infrastructure. Premium day rates and the small embedded-team model exclude early-stage startups and Series A-C companies too small to absorb the cost. The absence of a productized platform or disclosed engagement minimum limits reach to clients able to fund bespoke, high-touch delivery. Anthropic's equity ownership can deter competitively sensitive tech companies wary of sharing data.

Competes with

OpenAI Deployment Company Microsoft Frontier Distyl AI Palantir TechnologiesDeloitteAccenturePwC