Anthropic quietly submitted a draft registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 1 for a potential initial public offering. The filing, made confidentially under the JOBS Act, comes days after the AI company closed a $65 billion Series H funding round at a $965 billion post-money valuation.
The IPO Filing
Anthropic's confidential S-1 submission signals its intention to test public-market demand for an AI pure-play. The company hasn't disclosed the number of shares it plans to sell or a target valuation, but the move aligns with a broader rush by AI and tech firms to list on U.S. exchanges. Under SEC rules, companies with less than $1 billion in annual revenue can file confidentially, then publicly release the document closer to the roadshow.
Revenue and the Enterprise Push
Anthropic's annualized revenue run-rate recently exceeded $47 billion, fueled by enterprise adoption of its Claude family of models. The company has signed long-term contracts with major corporations for customized AI deployments, a shift from the earlier reliance on consumer subscriptions. That revenue figure dwarfs most pre-IPO startups and puts Anthropic in rare company — even among late-stage unicorns.
The Race to Public Markets
Anthropic isn't the only high-profile firm eyeing a 2026 listing. SpaceX filed its public S-1 on May 20 and targets a June 12 debut on the Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX. The rocket and satellite company expects a valuation between $1.75 trillion and $1.8 trillion and could raise up to $75 billion, which would be one of the largest IPOs in history.
OpenAI also confidentially filed around May 22, aiming for a September 2026 listing at a valuation exceeding $1 trillion. The three companies — all tied to artificial intelligence or space — are competing for investor attention in what could be the busiest IPO window since the 2021 boom.
The SpaceX Compute Agreement
Anthropic's relationship with SpaceX goes beyond being fellow IPO candidates. The AI company agreed to pay SpaceX $1.25 billion per month through May 2029 for dedicated AI compute capacity, a deal that underscores the enormous infrastructure costs of training and running large language models. The capacity begins ramping up this May and June at a reduced fee, meaning SpaceX is already providing compute power before the full monthly payments kick in.
The arrangement makes SpaceX a critical supplier for Anthropic's operations — and a potential competitor for compute resources if demand surges. How the public offering might affect this deal, or whether it requires regulatory scrutiny, remains an open question.
Anthropic hasn't set a date for its roadshow. With OpenAI targeting September and SpaceX less than two weeks from its Nasdaq bell, the window for AI IPOs is narrowing. Investors will be watching to see whether Anthropic accelerates its timeline or waits for the market's appetite to settle.
