Anthropic sets $70-$78 IPO range, valuing it above $1T

Anthropic set a price range of $70 to $78 a share for its initial public offering on Tuesday, Nov. 10, and started marketing the deal to investors. The range values the maker of Claude at more than $1 trillion, but well below the $2 trillion figure that circulated earlier. In an amended S-1, the company said it will offer 825 million Class A shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker "ANT." At the top of the range, the offering would raise up to $64.4 billion.cnbc.com+1

Of those shares, Anthropic is selling about 801.4 million and existing shareholders are selling the remaining 23.6 million. Underwriters have an option to buy up to 123.75 million more shares. Anthropic expects to set the final price on Wednesday, Nov. 18, and begin trading on Thursday, Nov. 19.nytimes.com+1

Tech giants commit $26 billion

Seven technology companies have agreed to buy a combined $26 billion of nonvoting Class N stock at the IPO price through a private placement. Google and Nvidia are putting in $10 billion each and AMD $2.5 billion. Broadcom, Micron and Microsoft are each investing $1 billion, and TSMC Partners is adding $500 million. Together, the IPO and the placement could raise about $90.4 billion. That would top SpaceX, which raised $86 billion when it went public in June.foxbusiness.com+2

How the valuation adds up

The prospectus does not give a single valuation. If underwriters use their full option, Anthropic will have about 13.09 billion shares of all classes outstanding. That works out to a market value of around $1.03 trillion at the top of the range. Counting stock options and other equity that could become shares, the fully diluted value would be about $1.4 trillion. That is still higher than the company's last private valuation of $900 billion.axios.com+1

The amended filing also says Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate reached about $81 billion at the end of October, up from about $71 billion in late September. The company reported a $104 billion net loss for the first nine months of the year, mostly from accounting for convertible debt. It has committed to as much as $895.4 billion in computing spending through 2045.nytimes.com+1

A roadshow amid AI jitters

The roadshow starts during a sell-off in AI stocks. Investors are worried about debt-funded AI buildouts and about weak trading in AI companies that went public this year. Morgan Stanley hosted a meeting with Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao on Tuesday. JPMorgan Chase will hold a fireside chat on Friday with its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Anthropic plans to offer about 20% of the shares to individual investors.nytimes.com+1

The listing is shaping up as a test of the AI boom. Axios noted that the shares are likely to start trading "amidst wild volatility in the AI trade".axios.com