Anthropic Targets October IPO Ahead of OpenAI at $965 Billion Valuation

$965 Billion Valuation in View

Anthropic, the developer of the artificial-intelligence model Claude, is meeting with institutional investors ahead of an initial public offering. The company is pressing ahead with its listing plans even as rivals including OpenAI delay their own IPOs.

Bloomberg reported on July 16 that the banks leading the deal plan to arrange meetings between investors and Anthropic in the coming weeks. Bloomberg had previously reported that Anthropic is preparing for an IPO in October.

If the listing goes ahead, Anthropic would reach public markets before rival OpenAI. Concerns that AI valuations may have peaked have fueled expectations on Wall Street that the first company to list could command a higher valuation. OpenAI had initially targeted an IPO this fall, but has recently pushed that timeline back to 2027. Both companies have already submitted confidential IPO filings to US securities regulators.

An Anthropic listing would also put it ahead of Chinese rival DeepSeek. DeepSeek is also preparing for an IPO, though it is currently expected only to submit documents for a preliminary listing review this year.

Anthropic has stepped up its IPO preparations as revenue rises sharply on growing demand for AI models. Its coding-assistance AI tools, which automate parts of software development, have been particularly well received.

Political uncertainty remains. The Donald Trump administration at one point imposed restrictions on overseas access to Anthropic's core AI models. Anthropic also filed a lawsuit after the US Defense Department 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 IPO. In a May funding round, the company was valued at $965 billion, a level above OpenAI's. While Big Tech shares have recently lost momentum, the market for AI-related IPOs remains active. Bloomberg reported that companies have raised a total of $227.5 billion through IPOs this year, excluding special purpose acquisition companies and other financial products. That is the largest amount since 2021.

SpaceX, which carried out the largest IPO on record in June, also pitched AI as a core investment theme. The company outlined a plan to capture the AI infrastructure market, which it estimates at $26.5 trillion, by building space data centers. SK Hynix, which listed American depositary receipts in the US last week, is also cited as a major beneficiary of the AI investment boom.

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