Anthropic sets IPO price range of $70 to $78, implying up to $1.4 trillion valuation

Anthropic prices its IPO between $70 and $78

Anthropic has set a price range of $70 to $78 per share for its upcoming initial public offering, according to an updated filing reported by TechCrunch. The company is selling 825 million Class A shares, a sale expected to bring in between $57.75 billion and $64.35 billion.

If the stock lists at the top of the range, Anthropic would be worth roughly $1.404 trillion on a fully diluted basis. That would make the offering one of the largest ever, as The Verge notes, and a significant step up from the $965 billion valuation Anthropic reached in a May funding round. It is, however, well short of the $2 trillion the company was reportedly targeting a couple of months ago, a figure The Verge attributes to Reuters.

Anthropic is proceeding with the listing despite shakier markets and a broader pullback in AI investing, TechCrunch reports.

Chip and cloud giants buy $26 billion privately

Alongside the public offering, Anthropic has struck a deal to privately sell $26 billion of non-voting Class N stock at the IPO price to AMD, Broadcom, Google, Micron, Microsoft, Nvidia and TSMC. According to TechCrunch, Google and Nvidia are contributing $10 billion each.

Counting both the public sale and the private placement, Anthropic estimates total net proceeds of $84.6 billion to $93.7 billion. Underwriters, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, also hold an option to purchase up to 123.75 million additional shares at the IPO price.

Trading expected around November 19

Anthropic has applied to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol ANT. The Verge, citing sources at the Wall Street Journal, reports that the company is aiming for shares to begin trading on Thursday or Friday of next week. TechCrunch, citing CNBC, similarly puts the expected start of trading close to November 19.

Huge revenue, bigger losses

The filing also laid out Anthropic's financial position. According to TechCrunch, the company generated $17 billion in revenue in the third quarter and $33.2 billion over the first nine months of the year. Over that same nine-month period it posted a net loss of $104 billion, and its compute and infrastructure commitments now stand at $900.9 billion. Anthropic holds nearly $132 billion in cash and short-term investments.

The gap between revenue and spending explains the scale of the raise: the IPO and private placement together are among the largest capital raises any company has attempted, and they are largely earmarked for compute.

Governance stays firmly founder-controlled

Anthropic is structured as a public benefit corporation, and that structure carries through to the listing. The founders hold a Class F share carrying 50.1% of the voting power, and the Long-Term Benefit Trust will continue to elect a majority of the board. As TechCrunch points out, that means buyers of Class A shares in the IPO will have limited influence over how the company is run.

Why it matters

At $1.404 trillion, Anthropic would instantly rank among the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world, and it would edge out its biggest rival: OpenAI was reportedly valued at $1.25 trillion last week after raising $11 billion, roughly half of the $20 billion it originally sought, according to TechCrunch.

The IPO is also a stress test for the AI sector. Anthropic is pushing ahead at a moment when markets are wobbling and investors are pulling back from AI bets, and the final price will show how much appetite public markets have for a business that is growing fast but losing enormous sums while committed to nearly a trillion dollars of infrastructure spending. Finally, the governance structure tests whether shareholders will accept minimal voting power in exchange for exposure to one of the industry's leading companies.