Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, has taken the first formal step toward selling shares to the public. On June 1 it told the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency that polices stock markets, that it had confidentially submitted a draft S-1, the registration paperwork a company files before an initial public offering. Filing it confidentially means the regulator reviews the document in private first, so the financial details stay hidden until much later.
OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT and Anthropic's closest rival, is preparing its own confidential filing but hasn't turned one in yet. That puts Anthropic out front in a race the two have been running all year. They are not alone either. Other heavily funded companies, including Elon Musk's SpaceX, are expected to head for the public markets this year too.
Anthropic is not a small startup making a long-shot bet. Last week it raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation, just short of a trillion dollars and higher than OpenAI's. The company says its revenue is running at an annualized $47 billion based on a recent month. A valuation that size would put its eventual IPO among the largest a tech company has ever attempted.
So does filing guarantee a stock sale? No. Anthropic said the draft only gives it the option to go public once the regulator finishes its review, and that any offering will depend on market conditions. The company has opened the door without committing to walk through it. No share price, date, or size has been set.
For everyday investors, this is the first real chance to eventually own a slice of Anthropic, a door open until now mostly to deep-pocketed funds and insiders. That chance is still months away at best. An offering this big will draw hard questions about how much money Anthropic actually makes and how fast its costs are rising. The paperwork is in. Now the hard questions.
Anthropic Confidentially Submits Draft S SEC, Series H, CNBC Anthropic Confidentially Files IPO Prospectus Sec,
