Anthropic begins countdown to IPO with prospectus filing

Anthropic has fired the starting gun on one of the largest-ever initial public offerings, unveiling its pitch for a listing that is set to be the biggest test so far of investor appetite for the AI boom.

The developer of Claude published its highly anticipated prospectus on Monday, detailing for the first time how it plans to sustain the exponential growth that propelled the company from a US$183 billion valuation just over a year ago to US$965 billion in its last private funding round in May.

The group recently told backers that its third-quarter revenue had jumped nearly 50 per cent on the previous three months to US$16.8 billion and that the company was profitable on an adjusted basis.

The nearly 240,000-word prospectus showed that in the first half of the year, Anthropic’s net loss was US$81 billion, with more than US$72 billion related to changes in the value of convertible notes as the company’s valuation increased. The bulk of the remaining losses come from a near-US$9 billion outlay on computing power and infrastructure.

The document also said that Anthropic plans to aggressively increase its spending in the years to come, with commitments totalling close to US$800 billion over the coming decade.

Goldman Sachs was listed as having secured the coveted “lead left” role in Anthropic’s IPO.

Anthropic’s founders said AI could “raise productivity across every sector of the economy” but also noted warned its models “have become better able to circumvent” systems designed to make sure they act as intended. It added that it has documented cases where models “manipulate or subvert” monitoring.

The company also pointed to risks stemming from a small number of high-value clients that account for a large slice of its revenues. While it noted that “no single customer” represented more than 10 per cent of its revenue in the nine months to September, Anthropic said that a quarter over the period came from its “top five” clients.

The San Francisco-based group is pressing ahead with the IPO at a critical juncture for the AI industry, as a furious debate rages over the safety of the technology and concerns grow over whether the increasingly debt-fuelled investment boom will pay off.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 has fallen just over seven per cent from a record high touched on October 6.

In a sign of the more testing backdrop, existing Anthropic investors expect the company to seek a valuation of between US$1.5 trillion and US$1.75 trillion. In August, several of Anthropic’s backers had said they expected the group to list at a valuation of US$2 trillion or more.

In its prospectus, the company’s founders said the advice they had received from multiple partners was: “Never let your company be worth a dollar more than it is actually worth.”

The publication of the prospectus puts Anthropic on track to list after the United States midterm elections on November 3, in which the benefits and costs of the AI boom have emerged as a central issue for voters, but before the Thanksgiving holiday on November 26.

Disclosing the prospectus is likely to ease the nerves of investors who feared that Anthropic’s window to go public was rapidly closing. It is rare for companies to list between the Thanksgiving holiday and the end of the year.

Anthropic has emerged from the shadow of arch-rival rival OpenAI this year, surpassing the creator of ChatGPT in revenues and traction with business customers.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of seven former OpenAI researchers and engineers after they became disillusioned with the approach to AI safety at Sam Altman’s AI lab.

Chief executive Dario Amodei and other AI leaders including Altman and Elon Musk have called for a slowdown in AI research to ensure the technology does not run catastrophically out of control.

Investment banks including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs will fix Anthropic’s valuation following conversations with investors over the coming weeks.

Anthropic said it would issue five different classes of shares, including Class T shares that would give its Long-Term Benefit Trust the right to appoint the majority of its board and Class F stock that would hand its seven founders 50.1 per cent of the voting power.

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