Anthropic, the company that develops the Claude AI models, today filed a second amendment to its IPO prospectus (Form S-1) and said it is launching the investor roadshow ahead of the offering. According to the prospectus, the company will offer 825 million shares of Class A common stock at a price range of $70 to $78 a share, and will trade on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT.
At the top of the range, the offering would bring in about $64.35 billion before underwriting discounts, an amount that puts it among the largest IPOs in history. The valuation implied by the range depends on how it is calculated: according to calculations published in the media, at the midpoint and including options and unvested shares, Anthropic would be worth about $1.1 trillion, and at the top of the range on a fully diluted basis, about $1.4 trillion. In its last private funding round, in May, it was valued at $965 billion.
That means public investors are being asked to pay a premium of tens of percent over the valuation of six months ago, at a time when the market is especially nervous about AI stocks. Last week chip stocks plunged, Nvidia's stock was hit this week by the affair surrounding its CEO, and software companies are punished for any sign of slowdown. Anthropic is coming to market at exactly the moment when the question of whether AI investment will pay off is being asked out loud.
In an earlier amendment to the prospectus, the company disclosed its third-quarter revenue and growth rate, which form the basis for the pricing. The roadshow will decide where within the range, or outside it, the final price lands: strong demand may raise it, and weak demand may lower it or delay the offering.
Israel's market has a direct interest in this. A successful offering of this size would open the IPO window for more tech companies, including Israeli ones that have been waiting for it for years, and serve as a gauge of investors' appetite for AI. An offering that struggles would send the opposite signal, to the whole industry.
