Anthropic Retracts Reported $70–$80 IPO Price Range, Says Pricing Update Is Coming; Listing Expected Next Week

Anthropic could list its shares on Thursday or Friday next week, according to The Wall Street Journal.

• In the retracted IPO filing, Anthropic said it plans to sell 867 ​million shares at $70 to $80 apiece, targeting a fund-raise of up to $69.3 billion.
• Anthropic’s market listing will be a crucial test of investor confidence in the broader AI trade, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said.
• Anthropic’s Fable 5.2 scored high in SemiAnalysis’ tests.

Anthropic’s highly anticipated stock market debut is approaching, but the AI startup has reportedly thrown a fresh curveball in its IPO preparations. According to a Reuters report, the Claude maker emailed bankers on Monday, saying it is pricing its IPO shares between $70 and $80 apiece before redacting the communication and saying it will announce the correct pricing soon.

In the retracted copy of the IPO filing, Anthropic said it plans to sell 867 ​million shares, targeting a fund-raise of up to $69.3 billion. Based on the math,  Futurum Equities’ chief market strategist Shay Boloor put Anthropic's implied valuation at around $1.4 trillion.

Although these are not final numbers, the development suggests the final IPO pricing could be announced at any moment. Earlier in the day, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Claude maker has meetings lined up with investors this week and is aiming for its shares to start trading Thursday or Friday next week.

Investors had expected Anthropic to target a valuation of around $1.5 trillion a week ago, but after Thursday’s sharp selloff in AI stocks, some major backers are pushing for a lower figure, the Journal reported. 

The Nasdaq has since rebounded, likely bolstering Anthropic’s IPO plans, though its valuation may fall well short of the roughly $2 trillion floated months ago, according to the report.

Valuation expert Aswath Damodaran and “The Big Short” investor Michael Burry have offered their views on Anthropic’s IPO and its potential valuation, Stocktwits reported.

Anthropic IPO To Test AI Market Durability

Anthropic’s market listing will be a crucial test of investor confidence in the broader AI trade, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said on Monday. “Without it, I don’t see how the AI-related stocks can make a real recovery,” the “Mad Money” host said. “I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that this could be one of the most consequential IPOs in history.”

Anthropic’s plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI development, data centers and related infrastructure are driving sales and stock gains across the AI supply chain. With AI stocks under pressure since early October, amid doubts about Big Tech’s record data center spending, Anthropic’s IPO could offer a gauge of investor appetite and shape expectations across the AI sector.

To be sure, Anthropic could still decide to delay its plans and wait for more favorable conditions, though doing so would risk sparking panic in the market, according to the Journal.

In a new blog post on Monday, Damodaran said that the recent selloff indicates that the market is becoming much more discerning, stopping the broad practice of marking up or down all AI stocks uniformly.

Damodaran segmented the AI ecosystem into four groups: suppliers (hardware/chips like Nvidia), builders (hyperscalers like Microsoft and Amazon), AI product firms (frontier models like OpenAI and Anthropic), and customers.

"I will argue that while all of these groups benefit, at least in general, from AI’s success at creating large and profitable markets, we are at a point in the AI disruption, where their interests and payoffs will diverge, with implications for both the businesses and investors," Damodaran wrote.

Anthropic’s Financial Position

Anthropic generated roughly $17 billion in third-quarter revenue, according to its S-1 update published last month.

While up about 1,127% from the same quarter last year, revenue growth has slowed quarter over quarter. Sales rose 47% sequentially, a steep drop from 144% growth in Q2 and 132% in Q1.

Anthropic reported a net loss of $23.29 billion during its third quarter. It reported an operating loss of $567 million compared to a $974 million operating profit in Q2.

The company disclosed spending commitments totaling $895.4 billion, which stretch as far as 2045. The company is due to spend nearly half of that amount by December 2030, including about $69.8 billion in the 12 months following Sept. 30 this year. Anthropic said it has $146.6 billion in cash on hand and other liquid assets.

Separately, Anthropic’s new flagship general-purpose model Fable 5.2 scored high in a SemiAnalysis analysis. Fable 5.2 is significantly better at chip design, software engineering, biology, and material science, it said, although its “incomparable to the original Mythos release, and likely far behind what Anthropic has internally.

Anthropic has a private market valuation of $1.46 trillion, according to Nasdaq Private Market. On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for its unlisted shares was ‘bearish’ as of the last check.

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