Anthropic files for IPO ahead of rival OpenAi in race to go public
Anthropic confidentially filed for a US initial public offering on Monday, the company announced.
It submitted a draft registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO of its common stock.
The number of shares and their price have not been set, and the offering will "depend on market conditions and other factors," the company said.
According to Reuters, Anthropic closed a funding round in late May at a post-money valuation of US$965bn, up from US$380bn in February.
That figure tops rival OpenAI, last valued by private investors at US$852bn in March, CNBC reported.
The company's revenue run rate hit US$47bn in May, up from US$10bn in annual revenue the year prior.
Anthropic has told investors it expects to turn a profit in the first half of this year, the BBC News reported, though it is unclear whether it has done so; neither OpenAI nor SpaceX are currently profitable.
At a valuation approaching US$1tn, Anthropic would enter the top tier of the S&P 500, Reuters reported.
Its latest funding round drew backing from Blackstone, Brookfield, D1 Capital Partners, GIC, General Catalyst and Insight Partners.
The filing arrives as SpaceX and OpenAI also prepare to go public.
SpaceX has already filed its prospectus and is preparing for a roadshow, pursuing a US$75bn offering at a US$1.75tn valuation and could begin trading within two weeks, according to CNBC.
Reuters reported in May that OpenAI is also preparing a confidential filing.
Harrison Rolfes, a senior analyst at PitchBook, told CNN the two filings "represent the largest concentration of pre-IPO capital ever brought to market simultaneously."
He warned the 2026 IPO window could either rival the dot-com era in significance or become the costliest lesson in narrative-versus-fundamentals public markets have seen.
Analysts said the sequence of filings carries strategic weight.
Troy Hooper of Mergermarket told the BBC that neither Anthropic nor OpenAI wants to be last among major AI companies to go public, arguing the first mover will define how markets value generative AI and set the benchmark for all that follow.
Rolfes added to CBC News that while Anthropic seized the narrative by filing first, OpenAI may benefit from watching how institutional investors react to Anthropic's audited financials before committing to its own price.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, speaking on CNBC after Anthropic's announcement, said the company would go public "when we think it makes sense" and denied the two firms are in a race to list.
Gil Luria of D.A. Davidson cautioned that the combined capital demands of SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic "will be so considerable that it is likely to create disruptions in the capital markets, so going early will be a great advantage," Reuters reported.
The broader IPO market has already regained momentum, with global year-to-date issuance reaching US$87.5bn through May 26, the highest since 2021, according to Dealogic data cited by the same outlet.
Anthropic's growth has been driven largely by its AI coding tools, particularly Claude Code, which gained early traction among software developers, according to CNBC.
Claude also climbed to the top of Apple's US free app chart earlier this year, CNN reported, though ChatGPT and Google's Gemini command significantly larger user bases overall, according to analysis firm Emarketer.
The company signed a deal with SpaceX to use computing capacity at its Colossus 1 data centre in Memphis, Tennessee.
Under the agreement, Anthropic will pay SpaceX US$1.25bn per month through May 2029, with either party able to exit with 90 days' notice, according to SpaceX's prospectus as cited by CNBC.
Anthropic's path to IPO has not been without turbulence.
The Pentagon labelled the company a "supply chain risk" and effectively blacklisted it after negotiations over a US$200m government contract collapsed earlier this year.
Anthropic subsequently sued the Trump administration, and that litigation remains ongoing.
US President Donald Trump told CNBC in April that a deal between Anthropic and the Department of Defense is "possible."
An IPO would give public investors their first detailed look at Anthropic's financials, including which products generate the most revenue and whether its cost structure can support its valuation, the BBC reported.
