Anthropic presses on with IPO as other AI listings stall

Anthropic is moving ahead with plans to go public while a run of other AI and data-center companies put their listings on hold. Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ↗ 6.94% reported on October 22 that the fall calendar for tech IPOs, once crowded, "is down to just Anthropic". The offering will test whether investors still want AI exposure after rising interest rates and a selloff in AI stocks scared other issuers away.reuters.com

Filing timeline

According to three people familiar with the plans, Anthropic could make its S-1 prospectus public as soon as Friday, October 23. Reuters said the company plans to start marketing shares to investors during the week of November 9 and hold the IPO in mid-November. Its sources cautioned that the dates could still change. Anthropic submitted its draft registration confidentially in June. SEC rules require companies that file this way to publish the document at least 15 days before their roadshow begins. Anthropic has not confirmed the date.finance.yahoo.com+2

The Wall Street Journal News Corp ↗ 2.03% reviewed a draft of the prospectus. It showed an $80.7 billion net loss for the first half of 2026, along with risks that include a narrow customer base and uncertain access to computing power. First-half revenue was $16.3 billion. Most of the loss came from a $72 billion accounting charge tied to convertible bonds, not cash spending. According to the Financial Times, Anthropic told investors that third-quarter revenue reached $16.8 billion, up from $11.5 billion in the second quarter.au.finance.yahoo.com+2

Other listings delayed

People familiar with the matter told Reuters that data-center operator Switch and AI infrastructure provider Nscale have pushed their IPOs back to later this year. Part of Nscale's delay comes from needing to answer comments from SEC staff. SoftBank-backed SB Energy has also postponed its listing. Blackstone ↗ 8.38%-backed AirTrunk REIT and Nvidia ↘ 4.40%-backed Firmus have pulled or paused their offerings.reuters.com

Higher interest rates have fed a steep selloff in the shares and bonds of AI operators such as CoreWeave ↘ 10.06%, and investors are asking whether AI spending can last. Shares of South Korean data-center provider Elice fell 32% on their first day of trading.au.finance.yahoo.com+1

Testing demand

Many large investors still see Anthropic as one of the few ways into a sector they cannot afford to ignore. Other issuers don't want to compete with it for institutional capital, Reuters reported. Its sources said the company may see itself as worth as much as $1.5 trillion. Earlier reports put the possible valuation at $2 trillion, with as much as $100 billion raised. The company's last private funding round, in May, valued it at $965 billion.finance.yahoo.com+2

Even so, wearable maker Oura's recent IPO drew little interest from long-only investors, Reuters reported. That has raised concern about how deep institutional demand for new listings really is.reuters.com