Anthropic’s $1.5 Trillion IPO Faces $1 Trillion Valuation Push

By Grace Kim

Anthropic is reportedly targeting up to $100 billion in a November IPO at a $1.5 trillion valuation, but three major investors now want a lower entry price. The target week of Nov. 16 remains unsettled as roadshow questions circulate.

All three investors plan to participate. One investor told The Wall Street Journal that the valuation could end up “closer to $1 trillion.” A different investor raised the possibility of postponing the listing completely. These are investor views expressed before pricing. Anthropic has set no price range and announced no delay.

What could change before pricing?

The proposed raise would exceed SpaceX’s $86 billion June offering by $14 billion and set a record for the largest IPO if completed at the reported size. The Journal reported that a smaller offering remains possible. Dealroom, citing earlier Journal reporting, said some investors discussed a $2 trillion debut earlier this year. That discussion cooled before this week.

Stock Titan’s review of an amended S-1 filed Nov. 2 found the price range, share count and amount raised still blank. FinanceFeeds says the proposed listing belongs on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under ticker ANT. Reuters reported questions about whether the roadshow can start on schedule. Anthropic declined to comment to Reuters.

Why did investors demand a lower price?

Companies in the Nasdaq Composite lost $2.5 trillion in market value on Nov. 5, AFP reported, while the CBOE Volatility Index, Wall Street’s fear gauge, rose to 28.18 from 16.61 in the prior session.

The Invesco QQQ Trust traded at $658.11 at 2:38 p.m. ET Friday. It was up 1.71% intraday but down 8% over the preceding week.

That selloff gave large investors room to press for better terms. NVIDIA serves as Anthropic’s compute partner. Under their agreement, Anthropic will initially adopt 1 gigawatt of Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems. NVIDIA traded at $186.64 late Friday. The stock was down 21.4% over the past month despite a 2.78% rebound that day.

The decline in NVIDIA, the anchor of the AI trade, strengthened the buyers’ position and gave institutions room to demand a lower entry price. Retail buyers would still receive the price negotiated by the large funds.

What do Anthropic’s numbers show?

FinanceFeeds puts Anthropic’s last private valuation at $965 billion following its May Series H round. Stock Titan reports revenue of $17.0 billion from July through September. That figure was more than 12 times the amount recorded in the same months a year earlier.

Stock Titan also reports a nine-month net loss of $104.0 billion. Most of the loss came from a $94.3 billion paper charge tied to the rising value of convertible notes. FinanceFeeds reports purchase commitments and leases totaling about $895.4 billion. Cash figures differ across published accounts. Stock Titan cites $131.8 billion, while Investing.com, citing The Wall Street Journal, reports $146.6 billion.

OpenAI provides a current test for the same public-market pressure. It secured $11 billion of a targeted $30 billion round at an adjusted $1.25 trillion valuation, according to Investing.com citing The Wall Street Journal. It has also moved its listing plans into next year.

Who will negotiate the final terms?

Stock Titan says part of Anthropic’s offering will reach individual investors through six brokerages, including Fidelity, while Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead a group of 22 underwriting banks. Large funds will negotiate the price. Individual buyers would take that price as given. A lower valuation would reduce what retail investors pay for the same revenue and contractual commitments.

A smaller transaction could reduce the number of shares available to retail investors. A postponement would leave prospective buyers’ cash waiting while the market resets. Three signals will determine the next step:

• Whether Anthropic files a price range.
• Whether the week of Nov. 16 holds for the offering.
• Whether the proposed offering size shrinks.

The next pricing test is whether Anthropic can preserve the proposed $100 billion offering size while three participating investors push the valuation toward $1 trillion.