According to reports from Reuters, Anthropic is pressing ahead to hold its initial public offering as planned in the middle of next month after making its prospectus public as early as late October. The AI lab is expected to begin marketing its shares to prospective investors during the week of November 9, after making its prospectus public as early as late October. However, the company has cautioned that the plan and the dates are subject to change, as reported by people familiar with the matter. The company is believed to deem worthy of a potential $1.5 trillion valuation, positioning itself at the center of the booming AI business. The contrast underscores Anthropic's appeal to investors even as concerns about competition from open-source models and AI safety weigh on the sector, with the planned IPO set to test whether investor appetite for leading AI developers can remain resilient despite mounting market challenges.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Anthropic generated $16.3 billion in revenue in the first six months of 2026, while recording a net loss of over $80 billion over the same period. According to The Financial Times, the company's third-quarter revenue had risen to $16.8 billion from $11.5 billion in the second quarter, with the company reporting it was profitable on an adjusted basis. However, valuation expert Aswath Damodaran warns that IPO investor metrics can be erratic and heavily influenced by market sentiment. He explains that as a young company with growing revenues and big losses, pricing will be based on metrics that are buzzy and unfamiliar, similar to the dotcom era's eyeballs or social media's users. The challenge lies in valuing these companies requires assumptions about future business prospects with little historical or cross-sectional data to base them on.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Iconiq has emerged as the largest beneficiary of Anthropic's rapid growth, having invested more than $6 billion in the company since its initial investment in 2025. The investment firm now owns a stake worth approximately $17 billion based on the AI company's most recent $965 billion private market valuation. The value of Iconiq's investment could double if Anthropic pulls off its public offering at a valuation as high as $2 trillion, as some expect. Spark Capital, which holds the only venture firm board director seat at the startup, invested $75 million in 2023, marking its largest check ever, with its stake now worth $7 billion at current valuations. Sound Ventures, led by talent manager Guy Oseary and actor Ashton Kutcher, invested $35 million in 2023 at a $5 billion valuation and has since invested $400 million across subsequent financings.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Sequoia Capital, the storied venture firm that made early bets on OpenAI, has invested $3 billion in Anthropic starting this year, giving it a roughly 1% stake and setting it up for significant returns. Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC owns about 1% of Anthropic after investing north of $4.5 billion in the company, starting with its first investment last year. In August, Anthropic formed a strategic partnership with GIC and Macquarie Asset Management to build data centers. The company has also secured backing from major technology suppliers, with Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Amazon.com Inc., and Nvidia Corp. investing billions in the startup to fund its costly investments in chips, data centers and talent. Some of these deals have elicited concerns about circular financing arrangements propping up the AI boom, but are set to generate substantial returns for the big tech firms.
As reported by Reuters, the contrast underscores Anthropic's appeal to investors even as concerns about competition from open-source models and AI safety weigh on the sector. The IPO market for AI infrastructure and data centre companies has faced increasing headwinds since September, as higher interest rates and volatile markets have made it more difficult for issuers to secure attractive valuations. Data centre operator Switch and AI infrastructure provider Nscale have pushed their IPO plans to later this year, with Nscale's delay partly driven by the need to address comments from staff at the US Securities and Exchange Commission. SoftBank-backed SB Energy has also postponed its listing, while South Korean AI chip startup Elice was among the latest companies to shelve its listing plans. The delays reflect growing investor caution towards businesses that require substantial upfront capital to build data centres and AI infrastructure, particularly as questions mount over whether future revenues will justify the scale of investment.
