Anthropic files to sell stock in potential record IPO

Investors in the San Francisco area and beyond face a new entry on the Nasdaq exchange as Anthropic prepares to go public. The company behind the Claude chatbot filed documents on Monday for an initial public offering that could set a new financial record. This filing positions the five-year-old startup for a Wall Street debut next month.

The potential raise is massive. Reports indicate the company aims to collect as much as $100 billion US. If successful, this amount would eclipse the $86 billion US raised by SpaceX in June. Such a sum would make this the largest stock sale in history, outpacing all previous corporate debuts.

Anthropic currently operates at a loss, a common trait for high-growth tech firms entering the public market. The 335-page regulatory document reveals a net loss of $80.7 billion US for the first half of 2026. This figure is a sharp increase from the $13 billion US loss reported in the same period a year earlier. Revenue is growing rapidly, but profitability has yet to arrive.

The company’s valuation has climbed steeply in recent months. Private investors valued Anthropic at $965 billion US earlier this year. New estimates suggest the public market could assign a value between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. At the lower end of that range, Anthropic would rank alongside Tesla as one of the most valuable public companies in the world. The final price and valuation have not yet been established.

The move places Anthropic ahead of its rival OpenAI in the race to the public markets. Both companies are expected to launch blockbuster stock offerings, but Anthropic has filed first. CEO Dario Amodei and his sister, co-founder Daniela Amodei, stand to see their personal wealth increase by billions of dollars as a result of the sale.

The timing of the filing follows a period of public discussion about AI risks. Dario Amodei recently published an essay arguing for a pause in the development of the most advanced AI models. He suggested that advanced systems could pose an existential threat to humanity. The company now seeks public capital to fund its continued expansion.

Anthropic will list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. The stock will trade under the ticker symbol ANT. The filing details the mechanics of the sale but leaves the final numbers open until the offering is priced.