As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Anthropic has set its IPO window for November 2026, later than the October listing investors had initially expected. Advisers indicate this delay allows the company to present third-quarter financial results to prospective investors before the roadshow begins. Reuters reports that the listing could slip past the November midterm elections, with the company's annualized revenue expected to top $100 billion by year's end, up from approximately $65 billion by July. The company is reportedly in discussions with Nvidia about a potential investment of as much as $10 billion as part of the IPO, with the company seeking to raise as much as $100 billion. A valuation at that level would put Anthropic above SpaceX's reported $1.75 trillion valuation at its Nasdaq listing, making it one of the largest public offerings ever.
Anthropic has reportedly told a limited group of investors that it expects positive adjusted operating income for a second consecutive quarter, according to the Financial Times. The reported improvement comes alongside rapid revenue growth, with the company's annualized revenue reaching about $65 billion by July, compared with roughly $9 billion at the end of the previous year. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, investors expect the annualized total to rise above $110 billion by the end of 2026. The company also reportedly generated $11.5 billion in revenue during the second quarter. However, the profitability figure requires some qualification as adjusted operating income excludes certain costs, including stock-based compensation. Reported gross margins above 80% also do not represent a final measure of profitability because they do not account for all model-training expenses and revenue-sharing arrangements with distribution partners. Anthropic has projected revenue of roughly $190-200 billion for 2028, though long-range internal forecasts can change with product demand, pricing and computing expenses.
According to Reuters, Anthropic is evaluating a new model after OpenAI released Astra on September 3, with a safety review forming part of that decision process. This development comes as OpenAI's Astra has seen strong enterprise adoption, taking about 13% of enterprise AI spending tracked by Ramp, while Claude Fable held roughly 8%. OpenRouter also reported that its users spent more on OpenAI than Anthropic last week, marking the first time this had happened in over two years. CEO Dario Amodei has continued to advocate for slowing the pace of AI model improvements through his 3,800-word essay titled "We Must Pace the Frontier," arguing that "we must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models." However, investors who expect to buy into both offerings told Reuters that Astra has not dented Anthropic's lead, with the company's position remaining settled after a long stretch of dominance in enterprise AI.
The Anthropic IPO preparations are unfolding against a challenging backdrop for AI companies, as recent market reactions demonstrate. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has continued to call for tighter controls on advanced AI even as the company prepares to sell shares to public investors. As reported by The New York Times, Amodei kicked off a fresh wave of calls from top AI firms to slow down the progress of future artificial intelligence models on Saturday. His position creates questions for prospective shareholders because slower model releases could affect the speed of commercial growth while reducing risks linked to deploying systems without adequate testing. The market reaction illustrates how closely investor expectations have become tied to continued AI expansion, with any reduction in model training pace potentially affecting demand for GPUs, memory chips, networking equipment, and data centers. The latest developments include Anthropic and Accenture announcing a commitment of at least $2 billion over five years to support independent evaluation of frontier models, with Faculty conducting evaluations and red-team testing under the arrangement.
The dramatic acceleration in Anthropic's revenue bolsters the company's plans for a public listing, with Anthropic and OpenAI having filed confidential paperwork to go public. As reported by Reuters, Anthropic was expecting to begin marketing its initial public offering in mid-October at the earliest and complete the listing days before the US midterm elections in November. The Wall Street Journal similarly reported that Anthropic planned to stage its IPO in November. This week, Anthropic hosted a venture capital forum to discuss developments in its AI work, with several investors in attendance, according to social media posts. Questions in the public poll for the event included how to determine whether firms have reached a more powerful form of AI known as artificial general intelligence, indicating growing investor interest in the company's AI capabilities. According to Reuters, Anthropic could release its offering documents publicly within weeks, though the plans could still change.
