Business 3 min read By Bethany Hadley
Anthropic Sets $70-$78 Share Price Range for Nasdaq IPO
Anthropic has launched its IPO with a price range of $70 to $78 per share, which would value the company at up to $1.4 trillion, amid a sell-off in artificial intelligence stocks.
Anthropic has launched its investor roadshow ahead of its initial public offering, with a price range of $70 to $78 per share. At the top of this range, the AI startup would be valued at $1.4 trillion on a fully diluted basis, an amount below the $2 trillion mentioned by some media outlets a few weeks earlier.
The company plans to sell 825 million shares, which could raise up to $64.4 billion. The confidential filing was submitted in June, and the public prospectus was published on October 26. The shares will be listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol ANT, possibly as early as next week, and the final price is expected to be set on November 18. According to information published by the Romanian press, the total size of the transaction, including the over-allotment option, could reach about $100 billion.
Seven strategic partners, including Google and Nvidia, are also set to acquire $26 billion worth of non-voting shares. This IPO comes a few months after that of SpaceX, which was listed in June and targeted a valuation of about $1.75 trillion.
Financially, Anthropic reported an annualized revenue of about $81 billion at the end of October, compared with nearly $71 billion at the end of September. Its third-quarter revenue approached $17 billion, compared with $1.4 billion a year earlier. At the same time, the company recorded an operating loss of about $567 million in the third quarter, on total charges of $17.5 billion.
Anthropic also disclosed contractual commitments close to $895 billion, mainly related to computing capacity and electronic chips. About $70 billion of these commitments must be honored within the next twelve months.
The announcement comes as artificial intelligence stocks have fallen sharply. Following Democratic gains in the midterm elections, fears of tighter regulation and stricter scrutiny of data centers have weighed on investors. The Nasdaq lost 5.5% last week, wiping out about $2.5 trillion in market capitalization in a single session.
Nvidia also faced market pressure, with its stock falling more than 4% on Monday after its board of directors opened an independent internal investigation. This process follows reports that Chinese intelligence services attempted to target its CEO, Jensen Huang. Nvidia says Huang fully supports the review, while Beijing has described the allegations as unfounded.
Anthropic's prospectus also contains warnings about security risks. The company writes that developing AI through AI could present considerable security risks, and that its models could soon reach the threshold defined by its policy for accelerated progression. It states that none of its current models has crossed this threshold and is considering changes to its policy in order to maintain human oversight.
Source: fortune.com
3
