Anthropic files for IPO, setting up public-market test of AI boom

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot, said Monday it has confidentially filed for an initial public offering.

The move catapults Anthropic ahead of its rival OpenAI, which Wall Street analysts expect could announce its own IPO sometime this year. The filing also comes less than two weeks after SpaceX, which owns Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, filed for its own IPO.

“We believe this represents an opening of the floodgates for the IPO market, which has been relatively dormant for a few years, with these three major conglomerates set to go public later this year, but this has turned into a race to reach public markets over the coming months,” Wedbush Securities analysts said in a research note Monday.

A confidential filing allows the AI company to gather feedback from regulators before it submits a public filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

“This gives us the option to go public after the SEC completes its review,” the company said in a statement. “The proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors.”

Last week, Anthropic announced that it raised $65 billion during a recent round of funding, bringing its valuation to $965 billion. 

Dario Amodei, the company’s current CEO, formed Anthropic alongside several other ex-OpenAI employees in 2021.