Anthropic's underwriters consider raising IPO issue price, target valuation may rise above $1.5 trillion
Beating AI News Flash: According to the Financial Times citing people familiar with the matter, Anthropic's IPO roadshow has received strong subscription interest, and the underwriting team led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley is considering raising the issue price to above $78 per share, with the target valuation potentially rising to $1.5 trillion or higher in the coming days. Anthropic is expected to list next week, and the final issue price has not yet been determined.
Anthropic's filing on Tuesday showed an initial issue price range of $70 to $78 per share, corresponding to a valuation of $1.26 trillion to $1.41 trillion on a fully diluted basis. Under the original plan, the IPO's base fundraising size was up to about $64 billion, and if the over-allotment option is exercised, it could raise nearly another $10 billion. Strategic partners such as Google, Nvidia and Microsoft will also participate in a private placement at the IPO issue price, investing a combined $26 billion. The report said that if the issue price is raised, the total fundraising amount including the accompanying financing could exceed $100 billion.
Three Anthropic investors said the company is currently more focused on raising as much money as possible through the listing to support computing power spending, rather than pursuing the highest valuation. Anthropic plans to invest about $900 billion in computing power and infrastructure over the next few years, and has disclosed to investors that annualized revenue reached $81 billion in October, with third-quarter revenue of $17 billion. A Morningstar analyst believes its fair equity value is about $1.7 trillion, but depending on the pace of AI tool adoption, the valuation could range from $500 billion to $3 trillion.
Some investors have also begun pitching part of their IPO allocation shares to other buyers. Messages seen by the Financial Times show that a New York broker is representing a venture capital firm in offering up to $500 million of shares at a price 4% above the final IPO issue price. Another venture capital firm is offering $1.25 billion of shares through a special purpose vehicle (SPV), corresponding to a company valuation of $1.5 trillion. Anthropic previously warned that it would not recognize resale offers made by some pre-listing secondary market brokers.