Anthropic, the developer of the AI model Claude, filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on the 26th for a Nasdaq listing. The company plans to raise $100 billion and will begin trading next month under the ticker "ANT." Its valuation is expected to reach as much as $2 trillion, twice the market capitalization of Samsung Electronics (005930.KS). The listing is seen as a massive public-market test of AI's growth potential and as evidence that in the AI race, the ability to raise capital matters as much as technology.
Alongside the astronomical valuation, Anthropic's governance structure stands out. Of the roughly 400-page registration statement, 94 pages are devoted to risk factors, including the potential misuse of AI models and conflicts of interest. The company has also established an independent Long-Term Benefit Trust to check the influence of shareholders focused on short-term returns. Most notably, it granted its seven co-founders dual-class shares that let them exercise 50.1% of the voting power on ordinary shareholder meeting agenda items regardless of their equity stakes, allowing them to retain control. The result is a double safeguard: the trust underwrites the public-interest mission, and the dual-class structure underwrites management stability.
In the United States, innovative companies such as Meta and Alphabet have used dual-class shares to protect founders' control and lay the groundwork for long-term investment. South Korea, by contrast, allows multiple voting rights — up to 10 votes per share — only for unlisted venture companies, and on a limited basis. Even that privilege disappears three years after a listing. Nor are there defenses such as a poison pill to fend off hostile mergers and acquisitions. How can companies that must constantly fight off threats to management control invest for the long term in future technologies?
Even so, regulations that constrain fundraising keep tightening. Solidigm, SK hynix's U.S. subsidiary, recently shelved plans for an initial public offering amid controversy over parent-subsidiary listing overlap. The National Assembly is pushing a bill that would require disclosure of "bear hug" approaches, which can threaten management control. Protecting shareholders is an indispensable value under capitalism. But the answer cannot be to multiply the tools that destabilize management control and make fundraising harder. For South Korea to produce world-class innovative companies, it must move quickly to build safeguards for corporate control alongside efforts to invigorate the capital market.