Anthropic targets valuation of up to $1.4tn in stock market flotation

Anthropic is seeking a valuation of up to $1.4tn (£1.05tn) in its imminent stock market flotation, short of the $2tn that had been expected before investors started to question the durability of the AI boom.

The developer of the Claude chatbot was widely reported to be targeting a $2tn initial public offering on Wall Street but its sights have been set lower, according to a US regulatory filing on Tuesday.

Anthropic is aiming to raise up to $64.4bn by selling 825m shares in the IPO priced up to $78 a share, giving the company a valuation of up to $1.4tn. The California-based company will also raise a further $26bn via a separate private placement deal ⁠with cornerstone investors including the Google parent, Alphabet, and the chipmaker Nvidia. Trading in Anthropic shares could start as soon as next week.

Investor jitters over the AI boom were crystallised last week when the US midterm elections produced victories for datacentre opponents. This has added to already existing concerns, such as how quickly – or if at all – companies can generate a return on their spending on AI infrastructure.

Brian Hopkins, a principal analyst at Forrester Research, said the midterm elections gave investors the chance to correct valuations that they were beginning to have concerns about, because of worries about the financial sustainability of the AI build-out. The election results brought those concerns to a head, Hopkins said.

“The market needed an excuse to correct itself a little bit in terms of valuations,” he said. “The US election spook is what has caused it.”

As a consequence, Anthropic’s valuation has also been lowered from an anticipated $2tn, he added. The largest ever stock market listing is Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which joined the US stock market with a valuation of $1.78tn. The company, whose assets include Musk’s rocket launch business and the X social media platform, is now worth just under $2tn.

A Chinese spying scandal enveloping Nvidia, a cornerstone company for AI investors, also threatens to overshadow the industry but has not affected share prices so far – other than Nvidia’s.

The updated Anthropic filing stated that the company’s annual revenue is now running at $81bn as of 31 October, up $10bn from the previous month.