Anthropic moves closer to mega-IPO as bankers line up investor meetings
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- Anthropic confidentially filed its IPO prospectus with the SEC last month, and bankers are now sounding out investor demand ahead of a formal roadshow, per a person familiar with the plans.
- Bloomberg first reported the investor meetings, with a potential public market debut as soon as October — timing the source cautioned could change.
- Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase — the three biggest Wall Street banks by revenue — are leading the IPO planning.
- Anthropic closed a $65 billion funding round at a $965 billion valuation in May, surpassing rival OpenAI's $852 billion valuation for the first time.
- OpenAI also confidentially filed for an IPO with the SEC in June but has disclosed no additional details, positioning Anthropic to potentially beat its rival to public markets.
- Anthropic was founded in 2021 by executives and researchers who defected from OpenAI, with its Claude Code coding assistant driving much of its enterprise sales success.
Why it matters: If Anthropic lists in October, it would become the second major private company to go public this year after SpaceX, giving it a first-mover advantage over OpenAI in monetizing AI-investor enthusiasm through public markets. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase — the top three Wall Street banks by revenue — directly benefit from IPO fees as the AI spending boom fuels a resurgence in their profits.
