Propel Ventures is a Select partner in the Claude Partner Network. Here is what that actually means.

Most “AI partner” claims are a logo on a slide. A firm fills in a form, gets listed somewhere, and from then on the word “partner” appears in every proposal. Nobody checks whether the firm has put anything into production, whether its people can pass an exam, or whether a single customer has agreed to be named.

Anthropic built its Claude Partner Network differently, and the difference is worth understanding before you hire anyone to help you deploy Claude.

Registered is not partnership. Select is.

The Claude Partner Network Services Track has an on-ramp and three partner tiers. The on-ramp is called Registered. A Registered firm has been accepted into the program and can access training and certification, but it is not a partner. It cannot use the Claude Partner badge, does not appear in the partner directory, and may not describe itself as a Claude or Anthropic partner.

Partner status begins at Select. Above Select sit Preferred and Global Premier, reserved for firms operating at significant scale across multiple regions.

Propel Ventures is a Select partner in the Claude Partner Network Services Track.

In Anthropic’s words: “The Claude Partner Network is how Anthropic works with the firms that put Claude into production for customers. The Services Track recognizes partners for building a certified delivery team, deploying it with customers, and proving the work through public customer references.”

How a tier is earned

A firm reaches a tier only by meeting every one of three published minimums at the same time. There is no composite score, no averaging, and no application step. Anthropic verifies the data itself at a scheduled review.

The three dimensions are:

1. Active certified individuals. People holding a current Claude certification, earned under the firm’s own email domain. The exams are proctored and identity-verified through Pearson VUE, and they are open only to approved partners. Customers cannot sit them. Certifications expire, so a certified bench is a live measure, not a historical one.
2. Deployed joint customers. Unique customers with a live production deployment where the firm is Delivery Partner of Record. Pilots and proofs of concept do not count until they reach production. Each engagement has to be registered with Anthropic and is verified against the customer’s actual Claude usage before it is credited.
3. Public customer stories. Stories that describe the customer’s challenge, the partner’s approach, delivery to production and quantified business impact. A story counts only after Anthropic has reviewed and approved it, and only with the customer’s consent to publish.

Notice what this rules out. You cannot buy your way in. You cannot talk your way in. You cannot get in on the strength of a slide deck about “AI transformation”. You get in by having certified people, live deployments a customer is paying to use, and at least one customer prepared to put their name to the result.

What Propel brings to that measure

Propel has been building software and product teams in Melbourne since 2016 and has worked with more than 100 teams across financial services, energy, retail, health, education, property and hospitality. We are ISO 27001 certified and partner with AWS, Microsoft, Google and Anthropic.

On the three dimensions that matter to Anthropic:

• Anthropic has approved more than twenty of our engagements as Services Registrations under the Claude Partner Network, recognising Propel as Delivery Partner of Record. They span wealth management, superannuation, capital markets, energy, media, investigative software, health, property and construction, and the not-for-profit sector.
• Our Fern Group customer story is published and public: a five-day AI Growth Sprint, governance-first guardrails and a custom Claude plugin took a boutique advisory firm from AI-curious to AI-native in eight weeks.
• 16 Propel consultants and engineers hold current Claude certifications such as Claude Certified Architect: Foundations.

Beyond the tier criteria, there is a number we are prouder of. Propel has now trained more than 3,000 people in how to work with Claude and generative AI safely and productively, from board members and executive teams to analysts, engineers and front-line staff.

That is not a marketing statistic. It is 3,000 individual moments where someone sat with a Propel practitioner, worked on their own real task, and left able to do something they could not do that morning. It is also why our deployments stick: the tooling is only half the job, and the half most firms skip is the people.

What Select means for our clients

Partner tiers are easy to dismiss as vendor theatre. This one changes what you get when you engage us.

Your risk is lower. Anthropic has independently verified that we put Claude into production for real customers and that those customers are actually using it. You are not the firm we learn on.

Our people are examined, not self-described. Every Claude certification on a Propel CV was earned in a proctored, identity-verified exam that is not open to the general market. When we say someone is a certified Claude architect, a third party has tested that claim.

We hear about product changes before you need to react to them. Select partners join Anthropic’s product update calls and receive partner briefings on new models, safety features and enterprise capabilities as they land. When Anthropic ships a change that affects your governance posture, your cost profile or your roadmap, we have usually already read the material and formed a view.

We can prototype at no cost to you. Select partners have access to Anthropic sandbox credits, which means we can test an approach on your problem before you commit budget to it.

We have a direct line to Anthropic. When something is unclear about a model’s behaviour, an enterprise control, or a licensing question, we ask Anthropic’s partner operations team rather than guess. That is faster and safer than either of us reading forum posts.

We are not a reseller. Propel earns nothing from your Claude subscription or API spend. Our advice on when Claude is the right tool, and when it is not, is the same advice we would give if Anthropic did not exist.

What it means for the people who work here

Being a Select partner obliges us to keep certifying, keep deploying and keep publishing. For our people that means:

• Access to the Claude certification program, which is partner-only, with the exam discount that comes with our tier. Every consultant and engineer at Propel is expected to hold a current credential relevant to their role.
• Anthropic Partner Academy courses on the Claude API, the Model Context Protocol, Agent Skills and Claude Code, taken under a Propel email so the completion counts toward the firm.
• Partner-only briefings, model documentation and sales enablement material as it is released.
• Sandbox credits to build and break things without asking a client to fund the experiment.

If you want to work somewhere that treats AI capability as an examined professional standard rather than a line in a LinkedIn headline, this is the point.

Where this goes next

Select is where partner status begins, not where it ends. The tiers above it are earned the same way, on the same three dimensions, and we intend to earn them the same way we earned this one: by putting Claude into production for customers who are willing to say so publicly.

If you are weighing up a Claude deployment and want a partner whose credentials Anthropic has checked, talk to Ben at ben.ross@propelventures.ai

Propel Ventures is a Select partner in the Claude Partner Network Services Track. The Claude Partner Network is how Anthropic works with the firms that put Claude into production for customers. Learn more at claude.com/partners.