Newsletter
Okay, three important things:
1. Anthropic filed papers on Monday for an IPO.
2. This could become the biggest initial public offering of stock ever.
3. This comes at a time when its top executives are warning that advanced AI could pose an existential threat to humanity.
All about ANT on Nasdaq: Anthropic, the five-year-old company behind the Claude AI assistant, has filed to list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker “ANT.”
The filing does not mean the IPO is confirmed. The company is yet to reveal how many shares it will sell, the final price or exactly how much money it wants to raise.
But reports suggest the company could target a valuation of between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion, while raising as much as $100 billion.
If that happens, Anthropic could overtake SpaceX’s record-breaking $86 billion IPO and pull off the largest stock-market debut ever.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leading the offering, supported by around 20 other banks. Anthropic is reportedly targeting a Wall Street debut as early as November, although the timing could still change.
Numbers: for the first six months of 2026, the company reported:
- Revenue: $16.3 billion, up from $1.2 billion a year earlier
- Operating loss: $693 million, down from $2.1 billion
- Net loss: $80.7 billion, compared with $13 billion last year
That final number needs some explaining:-
Anthropic did not simply burn through $80.7 billion in cash over six months. Around $72 billion of the loss reportedly came from an accounting adjustment linked to bonds that can later be converted into shares.
As Anthropic’s valuation increased, the estimated value of those bonds also rose. Accounting rules required the company to record that increase as a loss, even though most of it did not represent money leaving the business during the period.
The operating numbers therefore offer a clearer look at the underlying business. Anthropic is still losing money from its regular operations, but its operating loss has narrowed sharply despite revenue growing more than thirteenfold. indianexpress.com
Money & then more money: the company could use the proceeds to buy more computing capacity and AI chips, build and train more advanced Claude models, invest in data centres and supporting infrastructure, acquisition and other corporate activities.
Existing shareholders will also sell shares
IPO deets: the IPO is expected to contain two kinds of shares.
First, Anthropic will issue new shares. Money raised from those shares will go to the company.
Second, some founders, employees and early investors will sell shares they already own. Money from those sales will go to the sellers—not Anthropic.
Its seven founders collectively own nearly 500 million shares, although the filing does not yet show exactly what percentage of the listed company that stake will represent.
