Anthropic Begins Investor Meetings for Potential October IPO

AI listing boom draws another contender, with a debut as early as October under consideration

Company could reach public markets before OpenAI and DeepSeek

Anthropic, the developer of the Claude artificial intelligence model, is arranging meetings with institutional investors ahead of a potential initial public offering, Bloomberg reported. The move would position the company to join the recent wave of AI listings.

IPO underwriters are setting up meetings between Anthropic and investors in the coming weeks, Bloomberg reported on July 16. Bloomberg previously reported that Anthropic is preparing for an IPO in October this year.

Some in the AI industry argue that companies may win higher valuations by listing sooner, amid concerns that enthusiasm for the sector could fade on worries about a bubble or a market peak. If the listing goes ahead, Anthropic would reach the stock market before rival OpenAI. OpenAI had initially targeted a listing this fall, but recently pushed that timeline back to 2027, according to reports. Both companies have already confidentially filed for IPOs with US securities regulators.

If Anthropic lists this fall, it would also beat China’s DeepSeek to market. DeepSeek is also preparing for an IPO and could submit documents for a preliminary listing review as early as this year, according to reports.

Anthropic has moved toward a listing after posting steep revenue growth on rising demand for AI models. Its coding-assistant AI tools, which automate parts of the software development process, have been well received in the market.

Political uncertainty remains. The Trump administration at one point imposed measures restricting overseas access to Anthropic’s core AI models. Anthropic also sued after the US Department of Defense designated the company as a risk factor in the US supply chain.

Anthropic has selected Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan as joint lead underwriters for the offering. The company was valued at $96.5 billion during a May fundraising round, according to people familiar with the matter, the first time it had surpassed OpenAI.

The AI boom has also energized the IPO market this year. Companies have raised a total of $227.5 billion through IPOs so far this year, excluding special purpose acquisition companies and other financial products, according to Bloomberg data. That is the highest total since 2021, even with more than half the year still remaining.

SpaceX, which carried out the largest IPO in history in June, also highlighted AI as a central investment theme. The company outlined a plan to capture the AI infrastructure market through space-based data centers, a market it estimated at about $26.5 trillion.

SK hynix, which listed American depositary receipts on the US stock market last week, is also viewed as a major beneficiary of the AI investment boom. The US listing was the company’s third-largest ever, and expectations for rising demand for high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, tied to expanding AI infrastructure investment helped drive the strong reception.

Park Shin-young, New York correspondent, Hankyung.com, nyusos@hankyung.com