Artificial intelligence developer Anthropic, considered one of OpenAI's primary competitors, is moving closer to a public listing. Four months after submitting confidential filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company behind the Claude AI model published a public IPO prospectus ahead of its planned listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
Market estimates suggest Anthropic could raise approximately $100 billion at a valuation of around $2 trillion. If these projections materialize, it would mark the largest initial public offering in history, surpassing the record set earlier this year by Elon Musk's SpaceX, which raised roughly $85.7 billion at a valuation of about $1.77 trillion. However, the company itself has yet to confirm the target amount or requested valuation.
Anthropic plans to trade under the ticker symbol ANT, with the offering potentially going forward as early as next month. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will lead the process alongside approximately 20 additional investment banks.
Huge revenues alongside accounting losses
The prospectus disclosure offers investors their first official look at the company's financial condition. In the first half of 2026, Anthropic recorded revenues of $16.29 billion, alongside a net loss of $80.75 billion. The company clarified that a significant portion of the loss stems from non-cash accounting items and therefore does not reflect actual cash flow.
The company's rapid growth is driven in part by increasing demand for its Claude Code development tool, which allows developers to write and edit code using AI, as well as broad expansion among enterprise clients. Conversely, the company faces ongoing massive investments in computing infrastructure and model training to maintain its standing against the growth engines of OpenAI and Google.
First to go public
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of researchers who departed OpenAI, led by CEO Dario Amodei and his sister Daniela Amodei, who serves as company president. In just five years, the company has grown into one of the industry's most powerful players.
If the offering goes forward as planned, Anthropic will become the first publicly traded company focused primarily on developing advanced AI models. Competitor OpenAI, which also submitted confidential filings earlier this year, has indicated it is not expected to go public before 2027 and is currently working to raise about $30 billion in the private market.
The move comes amid growing concerns on Wall Street regarding the scale of investments in artificial intelligence infrastructure and the ability to generate returns on them. Under these circumstances, Anthropic's IPO is expected to serve as a key test of investor confidence in the entire sector.