Anthropic Is Heading to Wall Street. Now Its AI Economics Have to Deliver
Anthropic’s planned IPO is about to give public investors a look inside one of AI’s most expensive businesses. The company could reportedly raise as much as $100B at a valuation near $2T.
Claude’s growth will command attention. So will the bill for the computing power behind it. Anthropic’s prospectus could reveal how cloud financing, chip access, infrastructure commitments, and accounting affect the economics investors are being asked to value.
Timing could help the pitch
Anthropic confidentially filed IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June. A public filing would come before the investor roadshow and listing.
Launching in October could put preliminary third-quarter results in front of prospective investors. Better numbers would certainly help when bankers start pitching a valuation near $2T.
Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley have been working with Anthropic and its lawyers on the filing, with both expected to secure top roles.
Nasdaq could offer another consideration. SpaceX chose the exchange after a rule change allowed large new public companies to enter the Nasdaq-100 faster than usual, potentially bringing index-fund demand sooner.
Keeping the moat gets expensive
At least 95 investors have backed both Anthropic and OpenAI, according to PitchBook data cited by The New York Times. Few large funds appear willing to risk missing both.
Anthropic has raised more than $130B from roughly 300 investors. OpenAI has raised more than $180B from around 230. Facebook, by comparison, raised $2.4B before its 2012 IPO.
All that fundraising has left individual investors with smaller pieces. Menlo Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Iconiq Capital each own roughly 1% to 2% of Anthropic. Near a $2T valuation, those stakes would still be worth tens of billions of dollars.
Computing power and energy rank among Anthropic’s largest hurdles, according to PitchBook senior analyst Harrison Rolfes.
“If the compute capacity is not there, Anthropic cannot sell the intelligence.”
Harrison Rolfes, PitchBook
Claude cannot grow much faster than the infrastructure supporting it. Power shortages, permitting problems, and construction delays can slow new capacity regardless of customer demand.
Anthropic has spread its compute needs across Amazon.com, Alphabet, Microsoft, SpaceX, and other providers. Rolfes says investors should watch how much 2027 and 2028 capacity is contracted, under construction, and expected to have power.
Cloud arrangements will deserve a close read in the prospectus as well. Rolfes wants details on cost-of-revenue accounting and how partner financing flows through Anthropic’s financials.
Public markets raise the bar
Anthropic was valued at $965B in its latest funding round, according to Rolfes in Morningstar’s interview. At $2T, the IPO would value Anthropic at roughly 31 times July’s annualized revenue.
Rolfes estimates gross margin at 44% and says it needs to move toward 70%. Revenue can keep racing ahead, but the economics become harder to ignore once quarterly results start landing.
Retail investors are already interested. A Boring Money survey found 48% of UK investors would be keen to buy Anthropic’s rumored IPO, compared with 28% for OpenAI.
Zoom Communications offers one route in before the listing. Its $3.13B Anthropic stake is worth about 11% of Zoom’s market value.
Anthropic and OpenAI remain unprofitable while spending heavily on computing capacity. An IPO would put those costs in front of investors every quarter.
Private funding rounds have spent years setting eye-popping values for AI companies while leaving much of their underlying economics out of public view.
Anthropic could soon put both on the same page. At a possible $2T valuation, Claude’s growth is already priced like a giant business. Its margins still have to get there.