Report: Anthropic Plans to Raise Issuance Price, Seeks $1.5 Trillion Valuation, and Aims to Raise Over $100 Billion

Anthropic’s IPO underwriters are considering raising the offering price due to overwhelming investor demand received less than a day after the roadshow began.

On November 10, according to the Financial Times citing five sources familiar with the matter, the underwriters are expected to raise the offering price above the previously announced range of $70 to $78 per share, which could push the IPO’s valuation target to $1.5 trillion or even higher in the coming days.

An increase in the offering price would also boost the total amount raised in the IPO to over $100 billion. Meanwhile, three Anthropic shareholders said the company’s main goal right now is to raise as much capital as possible to support its massive computing power spending plans, rather than simply seeking the highest valuation.

This news comes as the market has just experienced extreme volatility, with the US midterm election results dragging down technology stocks, resulting in $3.2 trillion in market value evaporating. Although the market subsequently stabilized somewhat, the degree of volatility has kept Wall Street on high alert.

Wallstreetcn mentioned that, according to the prospectus submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday, Anthropic is seeking to raise up to $90.4 billion in total through the IPO and private placements.

The core IPO issuance could reach as much as $64.4 billion, lower than the $69.3 billion shown in the previously withdrawn version; in addition, seven tech giants—Alphabet (Google’s parent company), NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom, Micron Technology, Microsoft, and TSMC—will invest a total of $26 billion via private placements.

The offering price range is set between $70 and $78 per share, with approximately 801.4 million shares to be issued, and some existing shareholders selling an additional 23.6 million shares.

At the upper end of the offering price, $78 per share, Anthropic’s valuation is about $1.02 trillion, slightly higher than its $965 billion private placement valuation. The stock is expected to be listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the code ANT, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as lead underwriters and participation from 20 other banks.

To ease investor concerns about the AI industry’s profitability sustainability, Anthropic revealed to potential shareholders that its annualized revenue reached $81 billion in October, with third-quarter revenue alone at $17 billion.

However, the company plans to spend about $900 billion over the next few years on computing power and infrastructure construction. Whether its revenue can keep pace with its spending remains a key market concern.

Morningstar analysts believe Anthropic’s "fair equity value" is around $1.7 trillion, but due to significant uncertainty about AI tool adoption rates, the actual pricing range could fall between $500 billion and $3 trillion, reflecting the market’s highly divided views on the industry’s long-term prospects.

Wallstreetcn mentioned that, according to reports, Anthropic’s main competitor OpenAI told investors on the same day that its third-quarter revenue grew 50% year-on-year to reach $10 billion.

The surge in investor demand has also led to off-exchange share transfers ahead of the IPO. Some investors who have been allocated shares have begun selling their positions to other buyers, similar to what happened with SpaceX before its listing in June this year.

According to the Financial Times, a New York brokerage said on Tuesday it was selling "up to $500 million" of Anthropic shares on behalf of a venture capital firm, with the sale price carrying a 4% premium over the final IPO price.

Another venture capital firm sold $1.25 billion worth of shares via a special purpose vehicle (SPV), with a valuation of $1.5 trillion.

Anthropic has made it clear that it opposes this, warning that certain off-exchange secondary market offers before the IPO will not be recognized by the company.