Business 4 min read By Bethany Hadley
Anthropic proposes IPO valuation of up to $1,4 billion dollars on Nasdaq
Anthropic has set a Nasdaq IPO range that could value the AI company at roughly $1.4 trillion, with pricing expected on 18 November and bankers reportedly weighing a higher price.
Anthropic has filed for a public listing on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT, with a proposed valuation of up to roughly $1.4 trillion. The offering covers 825 million shares priced between $70 and $78 each. At the top of that range, the offering would be worth about $64.35 billion. The shares being sold belong to existing shareholders, so Anthropic itself will receive no proceeds from the sale. The company is therefore not raising new capital through the listing, but giving investors an opportunity to buy into the business at a valuation set by the market.
The roadshow for the offering launched on Tuesday, and pricing is expected on 18 November. The timing places the listing in the final weeks of the year, when investors will be weighing the company's outlook against broader conditions in technology markets. Weeks before the filing, reports had put the potential valuation nearer $2 trillion. Bankers are now reportedly considering pricing the shares above the filed range, a move that could push the valuation to $1.5 trillion or more. Some analysts caution that the headline figure depends heavily on how it is calculated. Counting only the shares currently outstanding, one analyst put the top of the range at about $1 trillion, a figure that is considerably lower than the widely cited $1.4 trillion.
Alongside the public offering, a group of major technology and semiconductor companies has agreed to buy $26 billion of stock in a private placement that follows the IPO. The buyers are Google, Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, Micron, Microsoft and a TSMC affiliate. The stock they will receive is nonvoting Class N shares, meaning these investors will hold an economic stake without gaining voting control over the company. Combined with the public offering, the total could reach about $90.4 billion, making the financing package one of the larger capital raises tied to the AI sector.
Chief financial officer Krishna Rao, who joined the company in 2024, is not selling any shares in the offering. As of 30 September he held about 9.5 million Class A shares. Most of that stake is in the form of stock options, with a gross value of about $740.8 million at the top of the proposed range. Because he is retaining his holding rather than selling into the offering, his position is a sign of confidence that the filing documents do not further explain.
Analysts are divided on how the market will receive the company. Dan Ives has highlighted a central debate between margins and growth, which he sees as the core question for investors weighing the business. He suggested the direction of the stock may hinge on whether second-quarter profit is followed by a third-quarter loss, a pattern that would test the durability of the company's earnings. Ives favours pricing at roughly $1 trillion, and possibly $1.2 trillion if demand allows. The reporting links the more conservative pricing views to volatility in the technology market, which has made bankers cautious about setting a valuation too aggressively in the run-up to the listing.
Source: fortune.com
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