Zhidx (WeChat public account: zhidxcom)
Author | Jiang Yu
Editor | Xinyuan
Zhidx reported on November 11 that last night, Anthropic officially launched the roadshow for its initial public offering (IPO), announcing an offering price range of $70 to $78 per share (approximately RMB 466.9 to 520.2), and plans to offer 825 million shares.
Calculated at the upper end of the offering price, the IPO would raise a maximum of $64.35 billion (approximately RMB 429.24 billion), and Anthropic’s fully diluted valuation could reach as high as $1.405 trillion (approximately RMB 9.3 trillion).
According to CNBC, citing people familiar with the matter, Anthropic plans to determine the final offering price on November 18 US Eastern Time and begin trading on Nasdaq on November 19.
Besides the public offering of shares, Anthropic will also sell shares through a $26 billion (approximately RMB 173.43 billion) private placement to Google, Nvidia, AMD, Microsoft, Broadcom, Micron, and TSMC, the seven technology companies. The two transactions would raise a combined maximum of approximately $90.4 billion (approximately RMB 603 billion).
Among them, Google and Nvidia each plan to invest $10 billion (approximately RMB 66.7 billion), together accounting for approximately 77% of the private placement and making them the two investors with the largest subscription amounts.
As the IPO roadshow kicked off, Anthropic also disclosed its latest revenue figures. As of October 31, the company’s annualized revenue run rate had reached $81 billion (approximately RMB 540.3 billion), up $10 billion from the end of September.
Meanwhile, according to the UK’s Financial Times, Goldman Sachs, the lead underwriter for the IPO, expects Anthropic’s annual revenue to exceed $600 billion in 2030 (approximately RMB 4 trillion), reaching approximately 130 times the 2025 level, and for full-year free cash flow to turn positive in the same year.
I. Peak valuation of $1.4 trillion; could officially list on November 19
According to the offering plan announced by Anthropic, of the 825 million Class A common shares it plans to offer, approximately 801 million will be issued by Anthropic, while the remaining approximately 23.65 million will be sold by existing shareholders.
Based on the offering price range of $70 to $78 per share, the IPO is expected to raise a total of between $57.75 billion and $64.35 billion.
Of these, Anthropic can raise approximately $62.51 billion (approximately RMB 416.96 billion) by issuing new shares, while up to approximately $1.84 billion (approximately RMB 12.27 billion) will go to the existing shareholders selling their shares, and Anthropic will receive no proceeds from this portion of the share sale. None of the above amounts accounts for underwriting fees or other offering costs.
The existing shareholders selling shares in this offering are none other than Anthropic’s seven co-founders.According to TechCrunch, Anthropic’s seven co-founders plan to sell 3.3784 million shares each, for a total of approximately 23.65 million shares. Based on the offering price range of $70 to $78 per share, each is expected to receive approximately $236 million to $264 million (about RMB 1.57 billion to RMB 1.76 billion), with the seven co-founders cashing out a combined maximum of approximately $1.845 billion (about RMB 12.3 billion).
The seven are Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, President and Chair Daniela Amodei, Chief Compute Officer Tom Brown, Head of Public Benefit Jack Clark, Chief Science Officer Jared Kaplan, Chief Architect Sam McCandlish, and Head of Interpretability Research Christopher Olah.
Although the seven founders plan to sell some of their shares, they will retain voting power over the company. After the IPO, each will hold approximately 3.2% of the Class A common stock, for a combined total of approximately 22%. In addition, Founder LLC, jointly established by the founders, will also hold Class F shares carrying special voting rights, collectively controlling approximately 51.1% of Anthropic’s voting power.
Meanwhile, Anthropic board member and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings said he intends to subscribe for approximately $300 million worth of stock through his donor-advised fund. Another director, Christopher Liddell, also plans to subscribe for approximately $3 million worth of stock.
Anthropic also plans to grant the underwriters a 30-day over-allotment option, allowing them to purchase up to an additional 123.75 million shares.
In terms of valuation, at the upper end of the $78 offering price, Anthropic’s fully diluted valuation could reach approximately $1.405 trillion. The fully diluted valuation accounts for potential shares from stock options, restricted stock, and other securities;excluding these securities, Anthropic’s market capitalization would be approximately $1 trillion.
This valuation is higher than the $965 billion valuation at which Anthropic raised funds in May this year, but lower than the approximately $2 trillion target previously discussed in the market.
▲Anthropic’s historical single-round fundraising amounts and corresponding post-money valuations (in billions of dollars)
Anthropic’s IPO will also become one of the largest technology company listings of the year. In June, Musk’s SpaceX already completed its IPO. SpaceX raised approximately $75 billion, valuing the company at close to $1.75 trillion at the time of its listing.
However, Anthropic’s listing is coming at a time when U.S. technology stocks are undergoing an adjustment. With investors concerned about excessive spending on AI infrastructure, rising financing costs, and whether massive investments can translate into sufficient revenue, AI-related stocks have recently come under pressure.
For Anthropic, the roadshow will test how much the public market is willing to pay for an AI company’s growth prospects.
II. Nvidia Plans a $10 Billion Investment; Seven Technology Companies Subscribe Collectively
Another major highlight of the IPO is Anthropic’s introduction of seven technology companies to participate in the private placement.
According to Anthropic’s updated prospectus, AMD, Broadcom, Google, Micron, Microsoft, Nvidia, and TSMC will subscribe for a total of $26 billion worth of Class N common stock at the same price per share as the IPO.These shares are not registered securities in the public offering and are not subject to underwriter lock-up agreements.
Of these, Google and Nvidia each plan to invest US$10 billion (approximately RMB 66.7 billion), with the two companies subscribing for US$20 billion in total, accounting for approximately 77% of the full private placement size.Based on an assumed offering price of US$74 per share, the midpoint of the proposed IPO price range, Google and Nvidia will each subscribe for approximately 135 million shares of Class N common stock.
The subscription amounts of the other five companies have also been finalized: AMD plans to invest US$2.5 billion, while Broadcom, Micron and Microsoft will each invest US$1 billion, and TSMC Partners, a subsidiary of TSMC, plans to invest US$500 million.The corresponding numbers of shares subscribed for are approximately 33.78 million for AMD, 13.51 million each for Broadcom, Micron and Microsoft, and 6.76 million for TSMC Partners.
For Nvidia, it not only generates revenue by selling AI chips to Anthropic and its cloud service partners but will also become a shareholder of Anthropic. Previously, Anthropic's relationship with Nvidia was not as close as its relationships with other AI companies. However, as Anthropic continues to expand its demand for computing capacity, the two parties' commercial interests are becoming increasingly intertwined.
In addition to Nvidia, Google and Microsoft are also important players in AI infrastructure, while AMD, Broadcom, Micron and TSMC cover areas including AI chips, custom accelerators, memory and semiconductor manufacturing.
A common feature of these investors is that their businesses are all closely tied to AI compute infrastructure.
Anthropic, meanwhile, is still procuring computing capacity on a large scale. According to its IPO documents, Anthropic's future commitments to purchase and lease computing capacity from partners such as Amazon and Google total approximately US$895.4 billion (approximately RMB 5.9 trillion).
This amount is far greater than the funds that can be raised through this IPO and private placement. Anthropic's ability to continue securing external financing and ensuring compute supply has also become an important factor for investors assessing its long-term growth prospects.
3. Annualized Revenue Surges to US$81 Billion; Goldman Sachs Expects Revenue to Exceed US$600 Billion in 2030
Before the IPO roadshow began, Anthropic updated its latest revenue performance.
As of October 31 this year, Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate had reached approximately US$81 billion (approximately RMB 540.3 billion), up US$10 billion from approximately US$71 billion on September 30, an increase of roughly 14% in one month.
An annualized revenue run rate is calculated by extrapolating recent revenue levels to a full-year scale and does not equal annual revenue that has actually been realized.According to data previously disclosed in the prospectus,
Anthropic actually generated revenue of US$33.24 billion in the first three quarters of this year (approximately RMB 221.72 billion), representing year-on-year growth of approximately 1,200%. Revenue in the third quarter reached approximately US$17 billion (approximately RMB 113.39 billion), more than 1,100% growth from approximately US$1.4 billion in the same period last year, while revenue in the first and second quarters of this year was approximately US$4.7 billion (approximately RMB 31.35 billion) and US$11.6 billion (approximately RMB 77.37 billion), respectively.
▲Anthropic's quarterly revenue growth (unit: US$ billions; source: Reuters graphic)
However, this rapid growth also comes with enormous losses on the books. In the first three quarters of this year, Anthropic recorded a net loss of approximately US$104 billion (approximately RMB 693.72 billion), a large portion of which stemmed from fair-value changes in convertible notes and derivative liabilities; these were not all cash expenditures generated by day-to-day operations.
Before Anthropic's listing, Goldman Sachs also presented potential investors with its forecasts for Anthropic's future revenue and profitability.
According to information disclosed by the UK’s Financial Times, Goldman Sachs expects Anthropic’s revenue to continue growing rapidly in the coming years: revenue this year will reach US$52 billion, more than a tenfold increase from US$4.6 billion in 2025; it will rise further to US$136 billion in 2027 and US$442 billion in 2029, and surpass US$600 billion by 2030 (approximately RMB 4 trillion), equivalent to more than 130 times the 2025 figure.
However, Goldman Sachs also expects Anthropic’s cash-flow pressure to persist in the coming years.
Goldman Sachs forecasts that Anthropic’s operating loss will peak at US$40.4 billion in 2027 (approximately RMB 269.48 billion), and will not turn positive on an operating-profit basis until 2029, when it will generate approximately US$65.2 billion in operating profit (approximately RMB 434.91 billion) by 2030.
The improvement in free cash flow will come later still.
Although Anthropic’s free cash flow was positive in the first three quarters of this year, Goldman Sachs expects a US$12.8 billion free-cash-flow outflow in the fourth quarter, with the full-year free-cash-flow outflow widening to US$65.7 billion in 2027.
Goldman Sachs does not expect Anthropic’s full-year free cash flow to turn positive until 2030, when it will reach US$33.6 billion (approximately RMB 224.12 billion).
According to Goldman Sachs’ forecast, even if Anthropic’s revenue continues to grow rapidly in the coming years, its spending on computing power and infrastructure will continue to place considerable pressure on cash flow.
Conclusion: US$90 Billion in Financing Against US$900 Billion in Compute Commitments
Judging from the IPO offering plan, Anthropic is attempting a large-scale fundraising. But compared with its future compute commitments of nearly US$900 billion, the financing will still cover only a small portion of its funding needs.
Anthropic has demonstrated the commercialization potential of its Claude product, with its annualized revenue run rate increasing by another US$10 billion in one month. Goldman Sachs also forecasts that the company’s annual revenue could exceed US$600 billion in four years.
However, this forecast depends on Anthropic continuing to expand its customer base, maintain rapid growth, and secure sufficient computing power to support that growth.
As Anthropic enters the public markets, investors will be able to continually test these growth expectations. If it successfully lists next week, a valuation of more than US$1 trillion will merely be its first test on Wall Street.
Sources: The New York Times, Financial Times, Goldman Sachs, Anthropic, Reuters, TechCrunch, CNBC
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