Anthropic Files Confidentially for US IPO, Valuing AI Company at $965 Billion
Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the Claude family of models, said on Monday it has confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in preparation for an initial public offering. The announcement came after Anthropic last week closed a funding round at a $965 billion valuation, topping rival OpenAI, which was valued at $852 billion in late March. The company did not disclose the size or terms of the proposed offering. CNBC
What the Filing Means
Confidential IPO filings allow companies to solicit feedback from securities regulators before sharing their information with prospective investors. If Anthropic moves forward, it will file a publicly available S-1, which would include financial data, risk factors, and more. The actual IPO would come around a month later. tradingeconomics
Anthropic said in a statement on Monday: “This gives us the option to go public after the SEC completes its review. The proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors.” CNBC
Reuters described the move as setting up what could become the watershed moment for Wall Street’s AI frenzy, and a high-stakes test of whether investor appetite for the AI revolution can match the sky-high expectations surrounding the booming sector. Yahoo Finance
Revenue and Growth
Anthropic is best known for its family of AI models called Claude, which power products like its popular coding assistant, Claude Code. The company has experienced explosive growth this year, announcing in May that its revenue run rate has ballooned to $47 billion, up from $10 billion in annual revenue last year. CNBC
The company is on track to post its first-ever operating profit — approximately $559 million — in the second quarter of 2026, according to a person with knowledge of the financials cited by CNBC. itiger
Eight of the Fortune 10 companies are Claude customers, and more than 1,000 business customers now spend at least $1 million annually with Anthropic. tradingeconomics
The Race to Go Public
Three companies could enter the public markets with valuations of at least $1 trillion — something that never before had even happened once. SpaceX is expected to be first, with its IPO anticipated later this month. Both Anthropic and OpenAI are racing to be second. tradingeconomics
SpaceX filed its public S-1 on May 20 after a confidential submission in April, targeting a June 12 Nasdaq listing under the ticker SPCX. OpenAI confidentially filed around May 22 and is targeting a September 2026 debut at a valuation of more than $1 trillion. tradingeconomics
With its announcement, Anthropic is getting out ahead of rival OpenAI, which is readying its own confidential filing. CNBC
The Valuation Trajectory
Anthropic’s rise to near-trillion-dollar status has been rapid even by the standards of the AI boom. The company’s latest valuation of $965 billion more than doubled its previous valuation of $380 billion from February, when it raised a then-record $30 billion in a single funding round. Investing.com
The Series H round that closed on May 28 was co-led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, Sequoia Capital, Capital Group, Coatue, and D1 Capital Partners, among others. Institutional investors including Baillie Gifford, Blackstone, Brookfield, D.E. Shaw Ventures, DST Global, and Fidelity Management & Research also participated. Yahoo Finance
TechCrunch described the Series H as what could be the AI startup’s final private fundraise before debuting on public markets.
Strategic Infrastructure and Compute
A key driver of Anthropic’s valuation escalation is its compute infrastructure. Anthropic has agreed to pay SpaceX $1.25 billion per month through May 2029 for AI compute capacity, with capacity ramping in May and June 2026 at a reduced fee. The deal gives Anthropic access to more than 300 megawatts of capacity and over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs, according to an earlier Anthropic announcement cited by CNBC. tradingeconomics
Anthropic has raised billions of dollars in private markets, securing massive investments from tech titans including Amazon and Google. These partnerships have provided the immense computing power necessary to train frontier AI models. An IPO would add a further capital base on top of those strategic relationships. Investing.com
Political Backdrop and Claude Mythos
Earlier this year Anthropic was caught in a public feud with the White House and Defense Department over the use of its technology. Its powerful AI model Mythos has also raised cybersecurity concerns in the government and on Wall Street. EFG International
Anthropic captivated Wall Street and officials in Washington this year by announcing Claude Mythos Preview, which has advanced cybersecurity capabilities. The company released the model to a select group of companies as part of a cybersecurity initiative called Project Glasswing, and has been engaging in conversations with senior members of the Trump administration about its capabilities. CNBC
Background
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, and a group of researchers who departed OpenAI. The company built its reputation on a safety-focused approach to frontier AI development alongside its Claude model family, which has grown to serve enterprise customers at scale. Anthropic hired Krishna Rao, a former Airbnb executive who played a key role in that firm’s 2020 IPO, as chief financial officer — an appointment seen as aligning the company with public-market standards. It also engaged law firm Wilson Sonsini in late 2025 to begin IPO groundwork, according to the Financial Times. As recently as December 2025, an Anthropic spokesperson told Reuters the company had “not made any decisions regarding when or even if it will go public.”
What Happens Next
The SEC will now review Anthropic’s confidential draft registration statement. Once the agency completes its review and Anthropic decides to proceed, the company will file a publicly available S-1 prospectus containing full financial data, risk disclosures, and the proposed share price range. The actual IPO would come around a month after the public S-1 filing. Anthropic has not yet disclosed the number of shares it plans to sell or the expected listing exchange. The company’s timeline will be closely tracked against SpaceX’s planned mid-June debut and OpenAI’s targeted September listing. Goldman Sachs analysts, as cited by Reuters and Nasdaq, have projected 2026 IPO proceeds could reach approximately $160 billion — a fourfold increase from 2025 — and that estimate was made before the current wave of trillion-dollar listings fully materialised. tradingeconomicsitiger
