Anthropic Sets Share Price for Trillion-Dollar Wall Street Float

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic plans to price its shares between $70 and $78 each to raise up to $64bn when it lists on New York's Nasdaq stock exchange this month. The maker of the Claude chatbot expects to reach a valuation of up to $1.4tn, according to a US regulatory filing. That figure falls short of the $2tn target some backers predicted earlier in the year as investors grow cautious about the financial sustainability of the AI boom.

Financials and Private Placement

Anthropic will also raise a further $26bn through a private placement deal with cornerstone investors including Google parent Alphabet and chipmaker Nvidia. The California-based company's revenues jumped to $16.2bn in the six months to June, compared to $1.1bn in the same period last year. However, its pre-tax loss widened to $80.7bn from $12.9bn. An updated filing also showed annual revenue running at $81bn as of 31 October. Trading in the shares under the symbol ANT could start as soon as next week.

Market Jitters and Risks

The share float comes during a volatile period for technology firms. The Nasdaq fell sharply following US midterm elections that produced victories for datacentre opponents, raising fears that a Democrat-led Congress could slow industry development. Fiona Cincotta, a senior market analyst at City Index, noted that the fundraising plan is fairly bullish despite recent market volatility. Forrester Research principal analyst Brian Hopkins explained that the election results gave investors an excuse to correct soaring valuations. Meanwhile, Anthropic previously warned investors that advanced AI systems could pose catastrophic risks to humanity if operated without proper safeguards, and stated that its future success depends on developing the most advanced models.

Context

Anthropic is just five years old, having been co-founded in 2021 by brother and sister Dario and Daniela Amodei alongside five other former OpenAI employees. The company will be the first fully AI-focused firm to go public, making its stock market debut a key test for the future of the entire sector.