Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei takes part in a session on AI during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on Jan. 23, 2025.FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images
Details of Anthropic’s blockbuster IPO, including plans by the AI company to raise nearly US$70-billion, were briefly circulated to banks before being retracted late on Monday, according to emails seen by Reuters.
A representative of Anthropic sent a copy of a securities filing that showed it aimed to sell about 867 million shares at a price range of US$70 to US$80 per share, then followed up with an e-mail saying details about the pricing were inaccurate. Anthropic said in the second e-mail it would update the filing later.
Anthropic declined to comment. The e-mail did not specify to bankers what was erroneous, and Reuters was unable to determine what was incorrect.
The original e-mail whose details were retracted showed Anthropic planned to sell 866.7 million Class A shares, including a secondary offering. Anthropic itself would sell about 843.3 million shares, while existing shareholders would sell an additional 23.3 million shares. The IPO would raise US$69.3-billion at the top of the range.
Separately, the original filing showed that Anthropic had lined up US$26-billion in investments from some of the world’s biggest technology companies alongside its IPO, underscoring the increasingly intertwined financial ties underpinning the AI boom.
Alphabet’s Google GOOGL-Q, Nvidia NVDA-Q, Advanced Micro Devices AMD-Q, Broadcom AVGO-Q, Micron Technology MU-Q, Microsoft MSFT-Q and TSMC TSM-N had agreed to participate in the private placement of Anthropic’s Class N common stock at the IPO price, which would close immediately after the IPO, the original filing showed.
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Anthropic is expected to formally launch the road show on Tuesday, with pricing expected in the following week.
The Anthropic IPO comes at a time when other companies in the AI infrastructure and data centre sectors have delayed or withdrawn their planned listings, facing a rise in interest rates that has helped fuel a punishing selloff in shares and bonds of AI operators such as CoreWeave Inc CRWV-Q and broader questions about the sustainability of AI spending.
Investors had previously discussed a valuation of as much as US$2-trillion for Anthropic, but expectations have since come down, with the US$1.5-trillion figure viewed as the high end of the range, Reuters previously reported.
Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives including Amodei and his sister Daniela Amodei, who is now Anthropic’s president, Anthropic has emerged as one of the leading generative AI developers with its Claude family of models.
The company’s rapid growth has been underpinned by Google and Amazon AMZN-Q, which are simultaneously investors, suppliers of computing power and important distribution partners, as well as AI competitors.
Anthropic had nearly US$900-billion in computing commitments with partners including Amazon and Google, underscoring how its rapid growth depends on vast amounts of future capacity, some of it reliant on financing beyond the company’s control.
Anthropic’s quarterly growth rate has declined sharply even though revenue stood at almost US$17-billion for the three months ended Sept. 30, the company revealed in an amended filing earlier in the month.