San Francisco, 10 November. Anthropic is continuing preparations to list on the stock market: the company intends to set a valuation range this week and begin trading on Thursday or Friday of next week, The Wall Street Journal reported, TechCrunch relayed.
Some institutional investors, by the same report, are pushing for a valuation below 1.5 trillion dollars, which was discussed as recently as last week. That figure was already well below the 2 trillion dollars mentioned a few months ago. The valuation will serve investors as a gauge of the strength of the AI boom. The main rival, OpenAI, was reportedly valued at 1.25 trillion dollars after raising 11 billion dollars, short of the 20 billion it wanted.
In TechCrunch’s view, launching a large offering now is risky: Nasdaq recently had one of its biggest sell-offs, and the industry is discussing the Nvidia chief’s link with a suspected spy. But Anthropic is not deterred, the outlet writes. The agency AP also reported the company’s intention to list this month and called the offering potentially the biggest in history.
What is known about the company itself we have already reported. It filed its offering documents at the end of October; in the updated filing, as Fortune wrote, revenue growth slowed in the third quarter while costs jumped. The price range, the size of the offering and the number of shares have not yet been named; TechCrunch’s relay contains no confirmation from Anthropic itself.
What it means: Anthropic is going to market despite volatility, and the main question is no longer whether it lists but at what price: the valuation benchmark fell over a few months from 2 trillion to 1.5 trillion dollars, and some investors are asking for less. All dates and sums so far rest on the newspaper’s report.
Who benefits: The decision lies with the company and the banks organising the offering. Institutional investors, according to the newspaper, are pushing for a lower valuation, and so a cheaper entry. What current shareholders would receive at different valuations, the report does not say.
Background: An IPO is the first public sale of shares on a stock exchange; the valuation is the price at which the market values the whole company.
