Anthropic is presented confidentially papers for the initial public offering on Monday, the first step in what could be the beginning of a blockbuster for 965 billion dollar company. The presentation by the American managers is another entry in what appears to be a A historic year for IPOs like artificial intelligence laboratories compete to fund their expensive research.
Anthropic announced the submission in an unsigned, two-part paragraph blog postnoting that the amount of money it seeks to raise—and for what value—has not been set. The company said the timing of the IPO “will depend on market conditions and other factors.” The announcement comes just days after Anthropic launched a 65 billion dollars fundraising cycle.
The company declined to comment beyond its blog.
Anthropic, led by CEO Dario Amodei, joins a crowded space. OpenAI is said to be targeting its public release as soon as September. SpaceX, which owns the Elon Musk-founded xAI, secretly filed its IPO paperwork in April and published it on May 20. It is now aiming for a June 12 IPO and seeking a $1.75 trillion valuation. Reuters has reported.
The three companies are racing to gain access to funding that would help pay for the computing resources needed to train the frontier AI models. Anthropic’s annual revenue, based on sales from an undisclosed period last month, is $47 billion, the company said last week. But it spent more money on cloud computing and thousands of employees, causing losses.
Monday’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allows regulators to comment on the lengthy document, which discusses Anthropic’s goals, finances and challenges. (The company can then make changes based on that feedback.) Preparing for an IPO is complex, requiring companies to improve their accounting, strengthen various internal policies, and have a clear sales pitch to investors.
That much-anticipated debut could spark a wave of wealth across San Francisco, where Anthropic is based. Some Anthropic employees previously converted part of their stock into cash by selling it to investors privately before the IPO. But more Anthropic employees may cash out or sell large shares as part of the IPO process, turning tens or even hundreds of paper millionaires and billionaires into real ones.
The IPO could also be a boon for large shareholders such as Amazon and early investors, including Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn.
If all goes well, Anthropic’s IPO could rival SpaceX’s as the biggest ever. But Anthropic’s complex corporate and governance structure, including its status as a public benefit corporation that answers in part to a committee the company calls the Long-Term Benefit Trust, could cause delays and lower valuations.
Anthropic has set itself apart from other AI labs by focusing heavily on appealing to enterprise customers. His coding style, Claude Code, is considered best in class.
But the company has faced obstacles. Earlier this year, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth authorized Anthropic under two separate federal procurement laws to remove the company’s Claude AI prototypes from the military and other federal agencies. Hegseth saw the company’s ethical stances—including its opposition to the uncontrolled use of Claude in high-risk situations—a threat to national security. In particular, Anthropic executives have maintained that the government’s desire to potentially deploy nascent AI models for tasks such as weapons targeting and internal surveillance is not a use case the company will allow.
The designation threatens to cost billions of dollars in sales this year, executives have said. Anthropic has sued to overthrow them ongoing court cases.
