Xinzhiyuan reports
Just now, Anthropic officially launched its IPO roadshow!
This time, theyplan to issue 825 million shares, with an expected offering price of $70.00 to $78.00 per share.
If calculated at the upper end of the pricing range, the deal will easily raise more than $60 billion.
Anthropic also has a $26 billion private placement. Based on the 13.1 billion shares outstanding disclosed in its filing, this will give it a valuation of $917 billion to $1.02 trillion.
Although its valuation has already been halved from $2 trillion, it will still be one of the world's largest IPOs in recent years.
Although the SEC's registration statement has not yet taken effect and the bell-ringing date remains uncertain, the market is already eager.
Breaking Down the Prospectus: Sky-High Fundraising and A's Ambitions
The key IPO figures disclosed this time are highly informative and worth examining closely.
The announcement shows that, of the825 million Class A sharesAnthropic plans to issue this time, the vast majority (about 801 million shares) are "new shares" issued by the company itself. The enormous proceeds will fuel the compute race among large AI models.
But it is worth noting that the remaining 23.648 million shares were sold by the company's existing shareholders.
The key here is the “flow of funds.” Anthropic has stated in black and white: The company will not receive any proceeds from the 23.64 million shares sold by existing shareholders.
Those who know the ropes have surely understood the implication.
This sale of these shares is essentially a “partial cash-out” by early investors, executives, or the core team on the eve of the IPO.
After all, after three years of hard work, with the IPO on the horizon, they need to cash in while they can. But the selling pressure from these tens of millions of shares will ultimately have to be absorbed by retail investors in the secondary market.
Second, to prevent the opening-day share price from “going on a roller-coaster ride”, Anthropic also had an ace up its sleeve——“greenshoe mechanism”.
They plan to grant a 30-day option to the underwriters led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, two of Wall Street's top investment banks. The option allows the underwriters to purchase up to an additional 123.75 million shares if necessary.
This amounts to buying a massive insurance policy for the stock price; whether it breaks below the issue price or goes parabolic, there is still something to play for.
Finally, the pricing range——$70 to $78.
This price range is extremely delicate, clearly with management and the investment banks testing the market's appetite.
It has to be high enough to support the company's enormous expenses, while still leaving room for investors to “turn a profit.”
This is a game of psychological warfare.
When it comes to the IPO, what everyone cares about most is, of course, the valuation.
Anthropic's valuation this time can be described as a stark mix of “ice and fire.”
Based on the 13.1 billion shares outstanding disclosed in its filing, the $70–$78 pricing range puts Anthropic's base valuation at $917 billion to $1.02 trillion.
If all stock options and unvested stock awards are included,that figure will rise to between $1.12 trillion and $1.24 trillion!
This is the largest IPO in the world, a business miracle that will go down in history.
However, this trillion-dollar valuation,
actually very “bitter.”
Here, the pie-in-the-sky vision Wall Street painted for Anthropic is—$2 trillion! Even in earlier reports, the upper end of the reasonable valuation expected by the market was also $1.5 trillion.
From the $2 trillion expectation to the $1.12 trillion ultimately reached, it was nearly“halved”.
If the public offering of 825 million shares is for the general public, then the separate $26 billion private placement disclosed in the prospectus is a ‘divide-the-spoils affair’ among the tech titans.
According to Anthropic’s updated SEC filing, the world’s seven top tech and chip giants have already locked in $26 billion worth of Class A common stock, all calculated at the IPO price.
• Google: $10 billion
• Nvidia: $10 billion
• AMD: $2.5 billion
• Broadcom: $1 billion
• Micron: $1 billion
• Microsoft: $1 billion
• TSMC: $500 million
This is hardly an investment; it’s practically like bringing half of Silicon Valley and half of the global semiconductor supply chain over!
First come Google and Nvidia, tied at the top, each committing $10 billion.
Next come AMD, Broadcom, Micron, and TSMC—a group of “hardware heavyweights.” Both upstream and downstream players across the entire AI compute supply chain want a ticket aboard.
Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest financial backer, also made a move to hedge its risk.
The Most Dramatic, Twist-Filled IPO in History
And just before the roadshow, another over-the-top drama unfolded.
Internal emails obtained by Reuters show that on Monday evening, an Anthropic representative sent a confidential securities document to major banks.
The document showed that the company planned to sell approximately 867 million shares at $70 to $80 per share (including 843.3 million shares sold by the company itself and 23.3 million shares sold by existing shareholders), with maximum proceeds reaching $69.3 billion.
The moment the email went out, Wall Street erupted. Everyone was frantically calculating how the market would be turned upside down.
But then, something dramatic happened.
Not long afterward, the Anthropic representative sent a second email: “The detailed pricing information in the document we just sent is inaccurate. Please disregard it. We will update the document shortly.”
Only when the final official document was released did everyone realize that the initial email had overstated not only the number of shares but also the upper price limit.
Perhaps the parties were still engaged in intense negotiations at the last minute.
Behind the Glamour: The Terrifying Bottomless Pit of Compute
Why Can't Anthropic Wait, and Why Is It Pushing So Hard for an IPO Now?
The answer is—compute.
The prospectus reveals that Anthropic, along with partners including Amazon and Google, has entered into compute-resource commitment agreements worth nearly $900 billion!
This is an iceberg of hidden debt.
The harshest truth about the foundation-model industry is—it's a capital-intensive black hole that swallows electricity and chips.
Anthropic's rapid growth depends overwhelmingly on a massive future expansion of compute capacity.
The providers of this compute (Amazon and Google) are also Anthropic's investors and distribution partners, as well as competitors that could turn against it at any time.
The primary market can no longer feed this beast.
Even if Silicon Valley's venture capitalists gave everything they had, they could not plug the compute black hole that costs tens of billions of dollars every year. Stop purchasing compute, and iteration grinds to a halt; the moment iteration stops, a valuation of 100 billion is instantly wiped out.
Anthropic has no retreat and can only press ahead despite the odds.
Public Protests: Stop the IPO!
During the roadshow, another storm was also brewing outside the New York headquarters building.
Today, radical activists directly blockaded the doors of Anthropic's New York headquarters. The protesters' demand is direct: Stop Anthropic's IPO.
They believe this wealth-creation frenzy is threatening ordinary people's savings, jobs, and the survival of their communities.
“The AI bubble is destroying our lives.”
This anger is not groundless.
Financial commentators have pointed out that, given Anthropic's current financial metrics and immense uncertainty, it should not be allowed to pursue an IPO at all.
At the core is the “sacred social contract”——If the public must bear the risks brought by technology, the public must also share in the prosperity, rather than merely foot the bill.
In the past, IPOs of large tech companies were often accompanied by mature business models and clear profit expectations.
But Anthropic's IPO is completely different.
Rampant misinformation, mass unemployment, and pressure on the public power grid are all enormous risks. These risks are being borne by society as a whole.
Now, Anthropic is trying to use its IPO to shift the high costs and risks onto retail investors in the secondary market.
If it succeeds, it will create a new generation of super-rich; if the bubble bursts, countless ordinary people will be the ones left to foot the bill.
Now, the AI war has entered the battle royale stage.
Will this IPO spectacle create the next Microsoft/Apple, or will it be fireworks before the AI bubble bursts?
References:
https://www.anthropic.com/news/roadshow-launchhttps://www.reuters.com/business/anthropic-aims-raise-up-693-billion-blockbuster-ipo-2026-11-10/
Editor: David Aeneas
Catch up on ASI in seconds
⭐Like, share, and recommend—all in one click⭐
Hit the star to stay tuned for Xinzhiyuan’s breaking news!
