Anthropic advances IPO amid selloff at lower valuation
Anthropic is reportedly targeting a pre-Thanksgiving IPO, seeking up to $100 billion while accepting a valuation below earlier investor hopes.
Anthropic is moving ahead with plans for a public offering before U.S. Thanksgiving, even as a technology selloff pressures the market and reduces investor appetite for long-duration AI bets.
A larger raise, a lower ceiling
Investors cited by the Financial Times said the Claude developer could seek between $80 billion and $100 billion in the offering. That would make it one of the largest IPOs ever, but the implied valuation—roughly $1.25 trillion to $1.75 trillion—is below the $2 trillion level some backers had previously anticipated.
The lower range reflects a sharply less forgiving market. Rising borrowing costs and concerns about the scale and profitability of AI infrastructure spending have weighed on technology stocks. The Nasdaq 100 fell 6.4 percent on Thursday before recovering part of the loss on Friday, according to reporting summarized by The Decoder.
Anthropic’s financial profile nevertheless remains unusually strong for a private AI company. Its reported annualized revenue has risen to about $81 billion, from approximately $65 billion at the end of July. The company is therefore presenting investors with both rapid commercial growth and an enormous future spending requirement.
Why it matters
The offering would turn Anthropic’s private-market narrative into a public-market test. Investors would have to price not only Claude’s model and enterprise momentum, but also the cost of training successive frontier systems, dependence on cloud and chip suppliers, and the possibility that AI revenue growth will not outpace infrastructure commitments.
The timing also matters for the wider sector. OpenAI has reportedly reduced its own funding target to $1.25 trillion after raising only part of an earlier plan. If Anthropic proceeds at the lower end of its range, the outcome could reset expectations for every major AI lab seeking capital at frontier scale.