Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI models, has set a price range for its Nasdaq listing that values the company at roughly $1 trillion to $1.4 trillion. That’s well below the $2 trillion figure once floated, a sign of how last week’s AI sell-off has reset expectations.
After months of speculation, Anthropic has put a number on its IPO.
In an amended registration statement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, the San Francisco AI company set a price range of $70 to $78 a share for its initial public offering.
It plans to sell 825 million Class A shares: about 801 million new shares from the company and about 24 million from existing shareholders. Underwriters have an option to buy up to 123.75 million more.
At the top of the range, the base offering would raise about $64 billion, roughly ₹6 lakh crore at current exchange rates (our calculation). At the midpoint of $74, it would raise about $61 billion. The shares are set to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT.
Implied valuation
The implied valuation depends on how the shares are counted. Based on shares outstanding, the range values Anthropic at about $1 trillion. Including stock options and other securities that could convert into shares, the figure rises to about $1.4 trillion, according to analyses of the filing.
That’s well above Anthropic’s last private valuation of $965 billion in May, but below the $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion figures reported in earlier months.
The gap reflects last week’s sharp sell-off in AI stocks after the US midterm elections, which led some prospective investors to question the higher valuations, according to Reuters and the Wall Street Journal.
Alongside the IPO, the filing sets out separate agreements for investors to buy $10 billion each of a special class of shares at the IPO price. Google and Nvidia are the two buyers.
The marketing tour for investors began on Tuesday. Pricing is expected after the US market close. Anthropic has not publicly confirmed those dates.
Another big AI listing
A listing of this size would be a major test of investor appetite for AI. Strong demand could steady sentiment after a turbulent fortnight in which the Nasdaq fell into correction territory and Nvidia lost about 9.5% in two days amid an investigation into its chief executive.
The timing is delicate. Hotter-than-expected US inflation data on Tuesday raised the odds of a half-point Federal Reserve rate increase in December, which tends to weigh on high-growth technology stocks.
For India, the effects run through global money flows. Foreign investors bought ₹53,739 crore of Indian shares in the first nine days of November, according to NSDL data, partly as they rotated away from AI-heavy markets.
A successful Anthropic listing that revives enthusiasm for AI could pull some money back towards AI-linked assets. An offering of about ₹6 lakh crore also competes for the same pool of global capital that has been flowing into Indian stocks.
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