Anthropic Presses Ahead With Mid-November IPO While Other AI Listings Are Delayed, People Familiar Say

Since Anthropic announced in June that it had confidentially filed to go public, the path to the listing has narrowed. As of today, Oct. 23, the fall tech IPO calendar has been reduced to one name.

Anthropic is pressing ahead with an offering in the middle of next month, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The company would make its prospectus public as early as late October and begin marketing shares to prospective investors the week of Nov. 9, one of those people said. They cautioned that the plan and dates could change. Anthropic declined to comment.

The size of the offering

The Wall Street Journal has reported Anthropic could raise as much as $100 billion at a valuation around $2 trillion. Reuters put the figure some investors consider possible at $1.5 trillion.

At $100 billion, the deal would top SpaceX, which raised roughly $86 billion and debuted at a $1.77 trillion valuation. Saudi Aramco's roughly $29 billion raise in 2019 is the next-largest on that list.

What the draft prospectus shows

Reuters, which reviewed the draft prospectus, reported Anthropic had about $4.6 billion in sales in 2025, roughly 12 times its 2024 level. Reuters also reported third-quarter 2026 revenue of $16.8 billion, up 45% from the second quarter.

The spending is just as large. Anthropic spent $7.33 billion on compute and infrastructure in 2025 and posted an operating loss of more than $8 billion, per the same reporting. Its net loss was about $42 billion, roughly $34 billion of which came from an accounting adjustment.

Anthropic reportedly posted a positive adjusted profit in the second quarter of 2026. What costs that adjusted figure leaves out has not been spelled out publicly.

A draft prospectus seen by the Journal puts Anthropic's computing commitments at as much as $750 billion in the coming years.

Why the timing is not optional, according to investors

Investors told Axios the commitments are too large for private fundraising to cover. In their telling, private markets have carried AI investing long enough and the pool of private cash is getting harder to tap.

A separate pressure comes from OpenAI. Reuters reported that OpenAI is trying to speed up its fundraising ahead of Anthropic's listing. An OpenAI spokesperson said the company has "not set a timeline for an IPO" and that its CEO has made clear it will not go public this year.

The New York Post reported that a major Wall Street deal lawyer, unnamed, is advising clients to list before the end of the year over fears of a Democratic Congress after the November midterms. "It will be years of hearings, investigations and nonstop turmoil," the lawyer said. That is one adviser's forecast of the election, not an established outcome.

A market that has turned on AI operators

Other issuers are not following. Switch and Nscale have pushed their listings to later this year, people familiar told Reuters, and Nscale's delay was partly driven by the need to address comments from SEC staff. SoftBank-backed SB Energy has postponed. Blackstone-backed AirTrunk REIT and Nvidia-backed Firmus have pulled or paused offerings.

Reuters said rising interest rates have fueled a selloff in shares and bonds of AI operators such as CoreWeave. CNN reported Holtec Nuclear suspended its IPO, citing poor market sentiment.

Heath Terry, Citi's head of AI investment research, told CNN that "you've got rising rates. You've got the war in Iran. You've got the sort of shakier economy ex-AI." He said IPOs need stable markets and positive sentiment, and spoke about IPOs generally, not Anthropic specifically.

Other issuers are also reluctant to compete with Anthropic for institutional money, two people told Reuters.

The skeptics

The bearish case is blunt. Henry Blodget, founder of Business Insider, has pointed out that Anthropic's month-over-month revenue growth flattened last month. Yahoo Finance's Douglas McIntyre likened the funding environment to 2000, citing CoreWeave paying as much as 13% on new debt and a 33% first-day drop for Korea's Elice, which Bloomberg data show was the worst opening day for a sizable Korean IPO.

McIntyre also flagged a nonprofit trust that controls Anthropic's board, which he said clouds the offering. Others dispute the dot-com comparison. McIntyre acknowledges experienced investors have repeatedly said this is not 2000.

Bulls see it differently. Many large investors remain bullish on Anthropic despite the turbulence, Reuters reported, and view it as one of the few ways to get exposure to a technology they cannot ignore.

Safety questions in the background

The offering also lands amid a safety debate. CNN reported that CEO Dario Amodei and former employees raised concerns in recent weeks, feeding an industry-wide call to slow development. Amodei and other tech leaders signed an accord at the White House last week to "self-police" AI development.

The prospectus is the next document to watch. If it is filed publicly as early as late October, it would put audited numbers, including what "adjusted" profit excludes, in front of investors before marketing begins the week of Nov. 9.