Anthropic files to go public: what the S-1 shows and what is still unconfirmed

Anthropic, the maker of Claude, has filed publicly to go public, setting up what could be one of the largest stock offerings on record. The company's S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission says it plans to list Class A shares on the Nasdaq under the ticker "ANT." What the filing does not yet include is a price range, a share count or a valuation. Those numbers, and the exact date, are still coming, and much of what is known about them comes from press reports rather than from the company.

What the filing confirms

Several things are now on the record. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead the deal, with Goldman listed first, at the top of a syndicate that also includes JPMorgan, Citigroup, Barclays, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and more than a dozen other banks. Anthropic first filed confidentially in June, which gave the SEC time to review its financials before they became public.

The financials show extraordinary growth. Revenue rose 1,304% to $16.29 billion in the six months ended June 30, up from $1.16 billion a year earlier, according to CNBC's review of the filing. Revenue for all of 2025 was $4.59 billion. Cost of revenue was $2.38 billion in the first half, implying a gross margin of about 85%, up from about 12% a year earlier.

Customers are spending more over time. Anthropic said its net revenue retention stood at around 900% as of Sept. 30, meaning existing customers increased their spending roughly ninefold year over year. It reported more than 11,900 customers paying $100,000 or more over the trailing twelve months, and about 250 paying $10 million or more. Consumption-based revenue made up 80% of the total in the first half.

The losses are large too, though mostly on paper. Anthropic lost $80.7 billion in the first half of 2026. About $72 billion of that came from accounting charges tied to the rising value of convertible notes as the company's valuation climbed.

The governance is unusual. A company held by the seven co-founders, called Founder LLC, will hold 50.1% of the voting power of outstanding shares. The filing says the structure "has no direct public company precedent."

What is still reported, not confirmed

Timing and size come from reporting, not from Anthropic. IFR, a capital markets publication, reported that the roadshow is expected to start the week of Nov. 9, with shares set to debut on Nov. 20, and that the offering is likely to be $75 billion to $100 billion. Yahoo Finance, citing reports from the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, said the company is aiming to debut the week of Nov. 16, and calculated that SEC rules make Nov. 16 the earliest possible trading day. Anthropic has not announced a date.

Valuation is the softest number of all. Recent private funding gives a baseline: Anthropic said in May that it had raised money at a $965 billion valuation, CNBC reported. IFR said bankers increasingly acknowledge that a $2 trillion valuation target mooted only weeks earlier "may prove challenging." On CNBC, MIT Sloan professor Sinan Aral pointed to a range of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, which he said works out to about 22 to 30 times revenue. None of those figures is a price the company has set.

Why the market is watching so closely

The IPO lands at a shaky moment for AI stocks. Some AI infrastructure companies have pulled or delayed listings, and IFR reported that several of Anthropic's suppliers saw their shares and bonds sell off before the filing amid concerns about the compute deals Anthropic has signed with them. Daily covered the wider funding pullback this week, including OpenAI trimming its private raise.

Compute is the central question. IFR reported that Anthropic has $431 billion of compute agreements starting this year and next that cannot be cancelled. "Anthropic has about US$25 committed to compute for every dollar a customer has locked in," said Brian Hopkins, an analyst at Forrester. The filing itself warns that if Anthropic fails to secure enough compute, "we risk falling behind the technological frontier."

The stakes go beyond one company. "If Anthropic wobbles, if it doesn't go well, it's not good for ECM in 2027," a New York-based equity syndicate banker told IFR, referring to equity capital markets.

Why it matters for people building things

For founders, the filing is the clearest public look yet at the economics of a frontier AI lab. It shows that enterprise customers will expand spending quickly once a product works inside their workflows. It also shows how much capital is needed to keep up: revenue is growing fast, but compute commitments now run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The lock-up design is worth noting for anyone holding startup equity. Employees and early investors will be able to sell some shares on the first day of trading, with further releases 27, 48, 62 and 76 days after the IPO, rather than the usual 180-day wait. Founders and key executives agreed to a longer 365-day lock-up, IFR reported.

What to watch

The next milestone is an amended S-1 with a price range and share count, which typically comes before the roadshow. After that, watch where the deal prices against the $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion talk, whether the timeline holds through market volatility, and how the stock trades as the staggered lock-ups expire. One banker told IFR that many investors have asked banks not to bring other offerings ahead of this one, so its outcome will shape what comes next for other large listings.

Sources

• Anthropic's IPO plans: 900% revenue retention, but $80 billion in first-half losses, CNBC
• Anthropic takes to stormy waters with US$100bn sink-or-swim IPO, IFR
• When is the Anthropic IPO? The stock could start trading as soon as Nov. 16., Yahoo Finance