Background
Anthropic, PBC — the San Francisco-based public-benefit corporation behind the [claude] large language model (LLM) family — is preparing to make one of the most closely watched stock market debuts in history. <cite index="20-3,20-4">The company expects its initial public offering (IPO) to match or exceed the size of SpaceX's recent offering, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, with a potential public filing as soon as the end of August.</cite> <cite index="18-7">The company could begin trading as early as October.</cite>
The IPO Process So Far
<cite index="1-3">The [claude] developer confidentially submitted a draft Form S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on June 1, beginning the formal process that could eventually take the company public.</cite> <cite index="7-3,7-4">"This gives us the option to go public after the SEC completes its review," Anthropic said in a statement. "The proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors."</cite>
<cite index="5-12">Two days after the S-1, on June 3, Anthropic selected Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase as lead underwriters, with Wilson Sonsini — the firm that managed Google's 2004 IPO — assisting on public-market readiness.</cite>
<cite index="26-2">At recent investor briefings, Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao avoided committing to a valuation figure.</cite>
Valuation and Fundraising Context
<cite index="18-8,18-9">Anthropic is targeting a valuation of around $2 trillion, above SpaceX's reported $1.77 trillion valuation; SpaceX raised $75 billion at its listing, with the final amount reaching $86.2 billion after an over-allotment option.</cite> <cite index="26-6">If Anthropic's IPO surpasses SpaceX's record, it would push 2026 to the highest annual U.S. IPO volume on record; companies that debuted on public markets have already brought in $160.6 billion as of August 19, putting 2026 within striking distance of the 2021 peak of $195.2 billion.</cite>
<cite index="3-1">The confidential S-1 filing came after Anthropic announced a $65 billion Series H funding round at a $965 billion post-money valuation.</cite> <cite index="1-8">The round followed its February Series G, when the company raised $30 billion at a $380 billion post-money valuation.</cite> <cite index="10-11">The $65 billion Series H is the largest private venture capital round in history, closing May 28, 2026, led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital.</cite>
Revenue Growth
<cite index="15-1">Anthropic is on track to generate annualized revenue of more than $65 billion based on its current performance, according to people familiar with the matter, up more than sevenfold from its pace at the end of last year.</cite> <cite index="9-4">The model maker's annualized revenue run rate — a projection of a full year's revenue based on a recent, shorter period — surpassed $65 billion at the end of July, up from $47 billion in May and just $9 billion at the end of last year.</cite>
<cite index="25-10,25-11">Anthropic's second-quarter revenue was $11.5 billion, up 14.6-fold from a year earlier; it also posted its first-ever adjusted operating profit of $559 million since its founding.</cite>
<cite index="9-1">The company's investors expect it to continue to grow at approximately the same rate for the remainder of the year, finishing 2026 between $100 billion and $120 billion, the Financial Times reported.</cite>
Enterprise Adoption and Product Lines
<cite index="10-8">Eight of the Fortune 10 are [claude] customers, and over 1,000 enterprises spend more than $1 million per year on Anthropic products.</cite> <cite index="11-9,11-10">The February 2025 launch of [claude-code] as a standalone product further strengthened this position; [claude-code] became generally available in May 2025, hit $1 billion in annualized revenue by November 2025, and reached $2.5 billion in annualized revenue in February 2026.</cite>
Risks and Competitive Landscape
<cite index="20-13">Anthropic posted a net loss of nearly $42 billion in 2025, roughly five times the $8.3 billion loss recorded a year earlier, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg.</cite> <cite index="4-7,4-8">The offering will serve as a major test for investor appetite for AI companies that are growing rapidly but face substantial capital expenditure requirements; Anthropic, like its primary competitors, spends heavily on computing infrastructure and research talent.</cite>
<cite index="26-4">Anthropic is expected to go public ahead of OpenAI, which has pushed its own listing timeline to 2027.</cite> <cite index="3-12">In June 2026, Anthropic said the U.S. government directed it to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by foreign nationals, including foreign-national employees</cite> — a reminder that frontier AI companies face a complex and evolving regulatory environment that could affect future disclosures.