Anthropic, the San Francisco‑based AI firm, announced on November 10 that its initial public offering is set to start trading as early as Thursday or Friday next week. The company will list Class A common stock on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker “ANT”. The IPO price range is $70 to $78 per share, which would give Anthropic a market valuation of up to $1.4 trillion, according to the New York Times. This would place it among the most valuable publicly traded firms worldwide, second only to a handful of tech giants.
The offering consists of 825 million shares. Anthropic itself is selling about 801.4 million shares, while existing shareholders are offering roughly 23.6 million shares. The company will not receive any cash from the shares sold by the existing shareholders. Underwriters have a 30‑day option to buy an additional 123.75 million shares, which could raise the total float further if exercised.
Anthropic is a public benefit corporation, meaning it must balance profit goals with a stated mission to develop AI safely for humanity. To enforce that mission, it created a Long‑Term Benefit Trust that can appoint a majority of its board through a special class of non‑voting, non‑economic stock. The founders also hold a special Class F share that gives them just over 50 percent of voting power, but no economic rights. These governance structures are designed to keep AI safety at the forefront even after the company becomes public.
Why the IPO matters now
Anthropic’s valuation is close to that of its rival OpenAI, which Reuters notes was valued at $1.25 trillion last week. The market’s appetite for AI‑focused listings shows investors still expect strong growth in the sector, despite recent volatility in tech stocks. By going public, Anthropic will gain a larger pool of capital to fund its next generation of language models and safety research, while also subjecting its governance to public scrutiny.
Why it matters
For everyday investors, the IPO offers a new way to own a piece of a leading AI company, but the high share price means only large investors may buy in initially. For AI users, the fresh capital could speed up Anthropic’s development of safer, more capable models, though the complex voting structure means the founders retain tight control over decisions that affect the public.
