Anthropic weighs shareholder stock sales ahead of potential $1.5 trillion IPO

Anthropic is considering letting existing shareholders sell some of their stock in its upcoming initial public offering, an unusual move that could let employees and early investors cash in before facing tighter restrictions on future sales.

The AI startup is weighing a secondary component in its IPO that would let current shareholders sell shares alongside new stock issued by the company, The Information reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the discussions. Anthropic is also considering lockup periods longer than the customary 180 days for at least some shareholders after the listing.

The plans are still under discussion and could change. It remains unclear how much stock existing shareholders would be allowed to sell or whether the group would include early investors, executives, employees, or a combination of holders.

Bankers have discussed an IPO valuation of roughly $1.5 trillion for Anthropic, according to The Information. At that price, the Claude maker would enter the public market as one of the most valuable companies on the planet.

“Anthropic is considering an unusual move ahead of what could be one of the biggest IPOs ever: letting existing shareholders sell stock in the offering, while potentially imposing longer-than-usual restrictions on when some can sell more. With Anthropic valued privately at $965 billion and bankers discussing a potential $1.5 trillion IPO valuation,” The Information reported.

The proposed structure creates an unusual tradeoff. Anthropic could give long-time shareholders liquidity at the IPO, then limit how quickly more privately held shares hit the market once trading begins. That could ease pressure from employees and investors seeking liquidity without leaving the newly public company facing a large wave of selling six months later.

From $380 billion to a potential $1.5 trillion IPO

The discussions come after an extraordinary rise in Anthropic’s valuation.

Anthropic raised $65 billion in May at a $965 billion valuation, Reuters reported, more than doubling the $380 billion valuation it received just months earlier in February. The financing pushed Anthropic past OpenAI’s reported private valuation at the time and gave the company more capital for the enormous computing bill behind Claude.

A $1.5 trillion IPO valuation would represent another increase of roughly 55% from that May valuation.

The company has already filed a U.S. IPO confidentially and is moving closer to opening its books to public investors. Anthropic plans to make its prospectus public shortly after Labor Day, according to a report from The Information cited by Reuters. A listing could follow in late September or early October, though the timetable could still slip.

The numbers investors may soon see are unlike those of a typical software IPO.

Anthropic’s annualized revenue has reportedly climbed from about $9 billion to more than $65 billion in less than eight months. The Financial Times has cautioned that annualized revenue figures used by AI companies can paint a more flattering picture than traditional recurring-revenue metrics. Usage-based AI revenue can fluctuate, so a single month’s revenue multiplied by 12 can differ from contracted annual recurring revenue.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Anthropic could pitch investors on a potential market exceeding $30 trillion and may seek to raise as much as $100 billion in its IPO. Those figures remain subject to change.

Anthropic faces a shareholder balancing act

Secondary shares could make Anthropic’s IPO particularly interesting.

Shares newly issued in an IPO bring fresh capital into the company. Secondary shares are different. The money goes to existing shareholders selling their holdings.

Tech companies have taken different approaches. Figma and CoreWeave allowed existing holders to sell shares in their IPOs. SpaceX and Cerebras went public without secondary shareholder sales, according to The Information.

Anthropic could pair limited IPO liquidity with tighter rules afterward. The company is considering lockups extending beyond 180 days for some holders and could require ordinary employees to make post-IPO sales through preset trading plans, The Information reported.

That distinction matters. Letting shareholders sell at the IPO can easily be interpreted as insiders heading for the exits. A longer lockup points to another possible strategy: give long-time holders a controlled opportunity for liquidity at the offering, then reduce the amount of stock that can flood the market after the listing.

For Anthropic, the stakes are enormous.

The company went from a startup valued at less than $20 billion two years ago to $965 billion in May. Its next valuation could put it in the trillion-dollar club before public investors have traded a single share.

The prospectus expected after Labor Day should finally give investors something they have had little access to during the AI investment boom: a detailed look at the economics behind one of the industry’s biggest private companies.

And at a potential $1.5 trillion valuation, those numbers will face scrutiny from day one.

Anthropic