Anthropic IPO: What the S-1 Filing Reveals for Investors

Anthropic, the San Francisco artificial intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot and coding tools, took its biggest step yet toward becoming a public company on Monday.

The company's registration statement, accepted by the Securities and Exchange Commission's EDGAR system at 9 a.m. ET on Oct. 26, says Anthropic has applied to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol "ANT." Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley head the list of underwriters on the cover, followed by J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Barclays and 18 other banks.

Anthropic first filed confidentially in June, CNBC and Fox Business reported, which gave SEC staff time to review its financials before they became public. Bloomberg had reported that the public filing would come around 9 a.m. ET Monday.

Key blanks remain. The preliminary prospectus leaves the price range, the number of shares and the offering date empty, and it says the shares cannot be sold until the registration becomes effective.

What the S-1 shows about revenue and losses

According to the S-1, Anthropic's revenue was $41 million in 2023, $386 million in 2024 and $4.6 billion in 2025. For the six months ended June 30, 2026, revenue reached $16.3 billion, which the company describes as growth of about 1,300% from the same period a year earlier. The company also warns in the filing that it does not expect growth to continue at that pace.

The filing reports a net loss of $42.0 billion for 2025 and $80.7 billion for the first half of 2026. Most of those losses came from accounting charges tied to the rising value of the company's convertible notes, derivative liabilities and SAFEs (simple agreements for future equity): $34.3 billion in 2025 and $72.4 billion in the first half of 2026. The S-1 says the charges were driven mainly by increases in Anthropic's enterprise valuation.

The S-1 says the company had about 5,300 employees as of Sept. 30, up from about 940 at the end of 2024.

The exact third-quarter revenue figure is left blank in the public filing, but the S-1 says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 was 86 times the $197 million recorded in the last three months of 2024, which works out to roughly $17 billion. Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that Anthropic told prospective investors at an Oct. 14 investor day that third-quarter revenue rose 45% from the prior quarter to $16.8 billion and that it was profitable on an adjusted basis. Anthropic has not confirmed those figures publicly.

What valuation could Anthropic go public at?

The company has not set one. Here is what has been reported, all of it unconfirmed by Anthropic:

• **About $1.5 trillion:** Some current and prospective investors discussed this figure after the Oct. 14 investor day, Reuters reported on Oct. 15, citing people familiar with the matter. That was down from roughly $2 trillion that investors had expected earlier.
• **$1.8 trillion to $2 trillion:** Some prospective investors considered that range fair, according to reports in early October citing Bloomberg.
• **$965 billion:** The valuation in Anthropic's most recent private round, in May, when it raised $65 billion, according to CNBC and Fox Business.

MIT professor Sinan Aral told CNBC that a valuation of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion would mean paying roughly 22 to 30 times revenue, so investors would be paying ahead for growth and future profits.

Reuters has reported that Anthropic could seek to raise as much as $100 billion. Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the plans, that the company expects the deal to match or beat the size of SpaceX's record IPO.

Could it flop like other recent tech and AI IPOs?

Recent listings show that a strong debut does not guarantee gains afterward:

• **SpaceX:** It priced its IPO at $135 a share in June, in the largest IPO on record, raising $85.7 billion, according to CNBC. On July 15, the shares dipped below the IPO price during trading before closing at $135.27, Reuters reported. CNBC said the stock ended last week slightly below where it opened in June.
• **Cerebras Systems:** The AI chipmaker priced its IPO at $185 a share in May, and its shares slid to a new low on Oct. 14 as lockup restrictions expired, StreetInsider and Investing.com reported. The stock closed at $110.82 on Friday, Oct. 23, about 40% below its IPO price, according to Yahoo Finance market data.
• **CoreWeave:** The AI cloud provider listed at $40 a share in March 2025 and closed at $54.24 on Oct. 23, still above its IPO price but down from $87.12 at the end of September, Yahoo Finance data show. CNBC reported that AI cloud stocks such as CoreWeave and Nebius have lost more than 30% of their value in October.
• **The 2026 class:** The weighted average return for this year's U.S. IPOs had fallen to 6% through mid-July, behind the S&P 500's 11%, according to Bloomberg data reported at the time.

Bloomberg also reported Monday that a planned IPO for Australian data center company Firmus collapsed, and that data center operator AirTrunk delayed a planned Singapore listing until next year.

Where the money comes from, and who else big tech is backing

The S-1 says Anthropic had raised a total of $141.1 billion as of June 30 and held $112.4 billion in cash and cash equivalents plus $19.3 billion in short-term investments.

Two of its biggest backers are also cloud suppliers. Once their preferred stock and convertible notes convert, Amazon and Google will each hold more than 5% of the company's outstanding stock, largely in non-voting shares, the filing says. As of June 30, Anthropic's $6.2 billion in total debt consisted of convertible notes issued to Amazon, and a 2026 agreement with Amazon makes more financing available in $5 billion steps tied to compute milestones. Google also signed a new note purchase agreement in March 2026, the S-1 says.

Microsoft announced plans to invest $5 billion in Anthropic last November, and Anthropic now intends to spend at least $44.9 billion with Microsoft from November 2026 to May 2033, CNBC reported. The May round was led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital, CNBC reported.

The same companies are hedging their bets. The S-1 warns that the cloud providers Anthropic depends on also compete with it, and it names Google and OpenAI as its primary competitors among frontier AI model developers. OpenAI was valued at $852 billion after a $122 billion round in March, CNBC reported, and it expects to list by early 2027, Fox Business reported. Elon Musk's SpaceX is now a supplier too: CNBC reported that Anthropic agreed to pay SpaceX around $3.1 billion a month for computing capacity once all promised capacity is delivered, up to $120.5 billion through 2029.

What it means for regular investors

*This article is for information only and is not financial or investment advice. NewsCubby does not recommend buying or selling any security.*

• **No shares yet.** Shares cannot be bought until the SEC declares the registration effective and the IPO prices. Until then, "ANT" is only a proposed ticker.
• **IPO allocations are limited.** Most IPO shares usually go to big institutions; some brokerages offer small allocations to customers, with no guarantee. The S-1 also describes a separate retail offering in some European countries under a European prospectus.
• **Voting power stays with insiders.** A single Class F share held by a "Founder LLC," whose initial members are Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei and the company's five other co-founders, will carry 50.1% of the total voting power on most shareholder matters, the S-1 says. A Long-Term Benefit Trust generally has the power to elect and remove a majority of the board. Anthropic is a Delaware public benefit corporation and will be a Nasdaq "controlled company."
• **Lockups.** Co-founders and certain holders of more than 0.5% of fully diluted shares agreed to selling limits lasting up to 365 days, the S-1 says. For most others, the limit is up to 180 days. The release of certain quarterly results can end either period early, and the lead banks can grant releases. Unlocks often weigh on new stocks, as the Cerebras example shows.
• **Risks named in the filing.** The S-1 lists, among others: keeping pace at the frontier of AI; securing enough computing power; reliance on a small number of cloud providers that are also rivals; dependence on chipmaker TSMC in Taiwan; customer concentration; AI models behaving in unintended ways or being misused; liability and regulation; and a governance structure that limits outside shareholders' influence. CNBC counted more than 90 pages of risk factors.

What's next

NewsCubby will update this story as the offering moves forward, including when Anthropic files an amended S-1 with a price range, when the roadshow begins, when the shares are priced and on the first day of trading.

*Credits: reporting from the SEC's EDGAR filing system, CNBC, Fox Business, Reuters, Bloomberg, StreetInsider, Investing.com and Yahoo Finance market data. NewsCubby articles are produced with AI assistance and reviewed by humans.*

*Want more? Explore today's headlines on NewsCubby and join My Day free to make NewsCubby part of your day.*