Anthropic is set to be one of the biggest IPOs in history. The frontier AI lab revealed plans to sell 825 million shares of Class A stock at a share price between $70 and $78. At the high end of that range, it’ll raise $64 billion and imply a fully diluted valuation of $1.4 trillion.
Separately, Anthropic is raising $26 billion in a private placement of the company’s Class N shares, which carry no voting rights (but convert to Class A shares if sold to an unaffiliated buyer). That share class allows strategic business partners, including Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Micron Techology (NASDAQ:MU), and others, to invest in the company without conflict of interest. Indeed, all four companies are on the roster of investors in the private placement, buying shares at the same price as the IPO.
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The question investors need to ask is: Are the big tech companies getting yet another deal on Anthropic shares? And if so, should you join them now that average investors finally have an opportunity to buy the stock?
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What happened to the $2 trillion IPO?
Just a few weeks ago, many analysts speculated that Anthropic could make its public debut with a $2 trillion valuation. That’d be a huge jump from the $965 billion valuation it garnered in its last fundraising round in May. Even so, the bottom of the company’s IPO range represents an increase of about 30% in value in less than six months.
Anthropic is going public just as investors are expressing heightened concerns about artificial intelligence stocks. There’s growing skepticism that the huge amounts being spent on new data centers will produce a meaningful return on investment. What’s more, the midterm elections clearly show the public’s opposition to building more data centers, with new officials who could slow the development of the so-called “AI factories.”
Meanwhile, Anthropic disclosed commitments of nearly $900 billion in spending, about half of which will occur before the end of 2030. As such, the continued build-out of data centers is integral to Anthropic’s growth. So, the current environment has weighed on its value.
Nonetheless, Anthropic is moving forward with its IPO despite the market pullback in AI investments. That’s in contrast to rival OpenAI, which has delayed its public debut until at least next year.
