Anthropic Bankers Consider Higher IPO Price, $1.5T Valuation

Anthropic's bankers are considering pricing the artificial intelligence company's initial public offering above its filed $70 to $78 per-share range, which could lift its fully diluted valuation to $1.5 trillion or more, the Financial Times reported on November 11, citing five people familiar with the matter.

Underwriters led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are weighing the increase one day after Anthropic filed terms implying a fully diluted valuation of approximately $1.26 trillion to $1.41 trillion. Bloomberg reported on November 11 that large institutional orders pushed demand to multiple times the available shares, after orders covered the initial book when marketing began on November 10. Anthropic has not formally announced a revised range or publicly commented on higher pricing.

Valuation methods

Different valuation figures circulating this week reflect two equity counting methods. According to Anthropic's November 10 amended Securities and Exchange Commission prospectus, the company will have approximately 13.09 billion shares outstanding after the transactions, comprising roughly 7.43 billion Class A shares and 5.66 billion Class N shares. FinanceFeeds reported on November 10 that multiplying those outstanding shares by $78 produces an equity value of approximately $1.02 trillion, while $70 produces about $916 billion.

The higher $1.41 trillion estimate at $78, or $1.26 trillion at $70, measures fully diluted valuation by including employee stock options, restricted stock units, convertible securities and other share commitments. The Financial Times' reported $1.5 trillion target also uses this fully diluted basis, which would correspond to approximately $83 per share using a simplified count of roughly 18 billion diluted shares.

Proceeds and private placement

Under current terms, Anthropic is offering approximately 801.4 million Class A shares and existing shareholders are selling 23.6 million, totaling 825 million shares. At $78 per share, gross public proceeds would reach approximately $64.4 billion, with about $62.5 billion going to Anthropic before underwriting costs and $1.8 billion to selling shareholders.

A separate private placement will raise $26 billion through non-voting Class N shares from seven technology companies: Google and Nvidia at $10 billion each, Advanced Micro Devices at $2.5 billion, Broadcom, Micron and Microsoft at $1 billion each, and TSMC Partners at $500 million. Combined base gross proceeds would reach approximately $90.4 billion at $78 per share, or roughly $100 billion if underwriters exercise their option to buy up to 123.75 million additional shares from Anthropic for $9.65 billion. Pricing above $78 would increase public proceeds while keeping the $26 billion private placement fixed in dollar terms.

Demand and schedule

Anthropic's initial $70 to $78 range fell below earlier discussions approaching $2 trillion amid concerns over artificial intelligence infrastructure spending and volatile technology stocks. The Financial Times reported that Anthropic's backers have focused on raising sufficient capital for long-term computing infrastructure, model development and enterprise capacity.

Anthropic is expected to price the offering on Wednesday, November 18, and begin trading on Thursday, November 19, on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT, according to FinanceFeeds' November 11 reporting.