Anthropic IPO talk slides to $1.2-1.3T from $1.5T

Prospective buyers in Anthropic’s IPO are now discussing a valuation of $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion after a punishing post-election selloff, Bloomberg reported on November 6, citing people familiar with the matter. One of those people said some are weighing as little as $1.1 trillion. All of these numbers are buyer talk, not a price. Formal IPO marketing only starts next week, and even the $1.1 trillion figure sits above the $965 billion post-money valuation from Anthropic’s Series H round, which closed on May 28.

Three cuts since September

In September, two Reuters sources said Anthropic wanted to raise as much as $100 billion at a valuation of around $2 trillion. Then came the October 14 investor day in San Francisco, where Anthropic walked investors through its financials, and three Reuters sources said attendees discussed about $1.5 trillion. According to Bloomberg, bankers had been hearing $1.4 trillion to $1.5 trillion only days before the latest drop. The new range is the third step down.

The Wall Street Journal reported on November 5 that three major prospective investors said the offering would need a lower price. One of them suggested a valuation closer to $1 trillion, which would be just above the May round.

The latest drop came after Thursday’s market rout. The Nasdaq 100 fell 6.4%, its largest single-day decline on record, and about $2.3 trillion in market value disappeared. The Cboe Volatility Index climbed to its highest level since April 2025. Bloomberg’s reporting suggests that investors and bankers are still working toward an offering rather than abandoning the timetable.

What the filing shows

The numbers investors are pricing come from Anthropic’s amended S-1, filed November 2. Third-quarter revenue was $17 billion, and revenue for the first nine months came to $33.24 billion. The annualized run rate is about $68 billion. At the operating level the quarter was roughly break-even: about $17.5 billion in operating expenses against $17 billion in revenue. Gross margin is around 85%.

The net loss was $23.3 billion in the third quarter and $104 billion for the nine months, but most of it is an accounting effect. In the first half, $72.4 billion of the $80.5 billion loss came from revaluing convertible notes, debt that turns into shares, mostly held by Amazon. The value of those notes on the books rises as Anthropic’s valuation rises. The effect largely disappears after the IPO, when the notes convert to equity. Operating cash flow was a positive $3.9 billion in the first half.

The cash need comes from the compute bill. The filing lists $895.4 billion in purchase and lease agreements, “substantially all” of it for compute and infrastructure. About $447.5 billion of that is due by the end of 2030, and $69.8 billion falls due in the 12 months after September 30, roughly four times the third quarter’s revenue.

Those obligations help explain the size of the deal. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leading it with 20 other banks, and the offering aims to raise at least as much as SpaceX’s record $86.2 billion debut. The shares would trade on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT.