Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) is preparing to go public later this fall in a debut that will come as a crucial test for the artificial intelligence boom.
The initial public offering could mint riches for the AI model maker's unusually broad base of private investors, while putting its intertwined financial relationships with some of its biggest investors on full display.
From tech giants and Wall Street money managers to hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, and over a hundred Silicon Valley venture capital firms, Anthropic has raised $130 billion from 300 institutional investors, according to PitchBook data.
The exact size of their potential windfalls won't be clear until Anthropic's IPO paperwork becomes public in the coming weeks, but existing corporate filings and private-market data already offer a useful glimpse into who has billions riding on the listing.
Anthropic notched a $965 billion valuation in May. It hasn't disclosed its financials. The terms and timing for the listing could still shift. Bankers, however, have discussed a deal that could surpass SpaceX's (SPCX) June listing as the world's largest, according to an August Wall Street Journal report, with the company raising as much as $100 billion at a $2 trillion valuation.
The mega listing is also facing a moment where data center backlash and AI safety concerns have been building, and calls to rein in the industry have been growing louder ahead of November's US midterm elections.
The most recent safety concerns arose earlier this week when an Anthropic researcher quit over concerns that the AI race is pushing the company and its competitors to build systems they won't be able to control, putting humanity in jeopardy. In July, hundreds of AI agents belonging to Anthropic rival OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) went rogue and broke into external systems, including the AI open-source model platform Hugging Face.
So far, the growing scrutiny doesn't appear to have dented investor appetite.
"As of now, it continues to be, and has been for the last year, one of the hottest companies we've ever seen," said Greg Martin, managing director with Rainmaker Securities, when asked about institutional demand for Anthropic.
He added, "We've never seen anything like this."
Some of Anthropic's biggest investors are already sitting on stakes that have increased by several billion dollars, according to Pitchbook data.
Amazon (AMZN) and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) are the largest publicly traded companies with disclosed stakes in Anthropic.
Amazon has deployed approximately $18 billion into the AI startup via preferred stock and convertible notes, while retaining access to an additional $15 billion contingent on Anthropic reaching certain commercial milestones, according to public filings. The carrying value of its various Anthropic investments totaled $190.4 billion, Amazon said in July.
But the potential payoff for Amazon and Anthropic's other corporate backers is far more than their investment stakes. For instance, the AI model maker is a major customer of Amazon Web Services.
"Amazon is going to be the biggest beneficiary because it can win twice. It wins on compute sales, it wins on investment," said Harrison Rolfes, a senior analyst with PitchBook.
Meanwhile, Alphabet has invested $13.3 billion in Anthropic with another $30 billion in commitments contingent on the private company hitting certain commercial milestones. Anthropic has committed to purchasing five gigawatts of computing from Google Cloud.
Marc Benioff's Salesforce (CRM) also holds a stake in Anthropic worth billions in addition to a longer-term business partnership that could prove even more consequential as the enterprise software company navigates a shifting AI paradigm. The carrying value of Salesforce's Anthropic stake was worth approximately $5.1 billion as of July 31, up by $3 billion since February.
Nvidia (NVDA) and Microsoft (MSFT) both were part of Anthropic's Series G funding round in February and have committed to investing up to $10 billion and $5 billion, respectively. However, it's unclear how much capital either company has deployed.
Other big investors known to have billions riding on the major listing include venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth fund affiliate ATIC, and the venture arm of video meeting platform Zoom (ZM).
Anthropic's swift climb in value in recent years also entails a lengthy list of repeat Silicon Valley and Wall Street backers.
Altimeter Capital, Coatue Management, Fidelity, Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, and Sequoia Capital each participated in at least three funding rounds.
Finance is looking to win more than once from the listing too.
Alternative asset giant Blackstone (BX), which has repeatedly upped its exposure to Anthropic, stands out as a major Wall Street example. The firm hasn't disclosed the total amount it has invested through its various funds, but estimates by Pitchbook's Rolfes point to a base case in which the money manager will make several billion dollars from the AI firm's public debut.
Along with that exposure, Blackstone's Anthropic ties include its financing of AI infrastructure used by frontier model developers and the co-founding of an enterprise services business designed to help its portfolio companies deploy Claude.
David Hollerith covers a range of developments throughout the financial sector, from Wall Street to banking and asset management to crypto and fintech. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @DsHollers.
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