Analysis
Anthropic Files Confidential IPO — $965B Valuation, $47B Revenue Run-Rate
The Claude maker has submitted a draft S-1 to the SEC, setting up one of the largest AI listings in history. With a $965 billion valuation and revenue that grew fivefold in a year, Anthropic is racing OpenAI to the public markets.
By Elvin C ·
Anthropic, the AI safety company behind the Claude family of models, has confidentially filed a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company announced on June 1, 2026. The filing sets the stage for what would be one of the largest initial public offerings in technology history — and the first major AI lab to reach the public markets.
The company, which describes itself as a Public Benefit Corporation, is currently valued at approximately $965 billion following a $65 billion Series H funding round completed just days earlier. That round, co-led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, Sequoia Capital, Capital Group, Coatue, and D1 Capital Partners, attracted a broad coalition of institutional and strategic investors who were positioning ahead of an anticipated listing.
Revenue Growth That Defies Precedent
The financial profile that Anthropic brings to the public markets is extraordinary by any measure. The company recently disclosed that its annualised revenue run-rate has surpassed $47 billion — up from approximately $9 billion at the close of 2025. That represents a more than fivefold increase in a single year, a growth trajectory that few technology companies of any scale have matched.
The growth has been driven primarily by enterprise adoption of Claude. Anthropic has positioned its models as the safety-conscious alternative in a market where concerns about AI reliability and alignment are increasingly influencing procurement decisions. Major financial institutions, healthcare providers, and government contractors have signed multi-year agreements, providing a recurring revenue base that investors typically value at a premium.
A Confidential Filing Buys Time
A confidential IPO filing allows a company to begin the regulatory process without publicly disclosing detailed financial information, risk factors, or governance structures. Anthropic will evaluate market conditions privately before deciding whether to proceed. If it does, the company will file a public S-1 that will contain a full breakdown of financials, legal matters, and voting structures.
The timing is notable. Anthropic's filing lands in an already heated IPO season that includes SpaceX, which is targeting a $2 trillion valuation and seeking to raise more than $75 billion in what would be the largest public offering ever attempted. The parallel processes create a competitive dynamic for investor attention and capital allocation that will define the AI investment landscape for years.
The Race Against OpenAI
Anthropic's move to the public markets represents a significant escalation in its competition with OpenAI, which has also signalled intentions to go public but has not yet filed. By filing first, Anthropic gains the ability to set the narrative around AI company valuations and establish a public market comparator before its rival. The company that goes public first in a nascent sector often defines how investors price the entire category.
Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers including CEO Dario Amodei and President Daniela Amodei, Anthropic has raised more than $100 billion in total funding. Its backers include Amazon, Google, and Spark Capital, alongside the institutional investors who participated in the Series H. The company has used that capital to build and deploy successive generations of Claude, with the most recent Opus 4 series competing directly with OpenAI's GPT-5 family and Google's Gemini Ultra.
The proposed IPO will depend on market conditions and other factors, Anthropic said. No timeline, share count, or price range has been set. The company has not yet reported filing initial IPO paperwork with the SEC publicly, meaning the confidential process could still be withdrawn if conditions deteriorate. But the direction of travel is clear: the AI industry's most consequential private company is preparing to become a public one.