Anthropic PBC (ANT.US) has attracted orders roughly six times the number of shares available in its initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter, as interest continues to build for what could become the largest IPO in history.
The Claude AI model company and its co-founders plan to raise up to $64.4 billion in the IPO and an additional $26 billion through a private placement, according to the prospectus. Combined, the offering would exceed the IPO of SpaceX (SPCX.US) and become the largest listing ever.
Some of the people said underwriters have told potential investors that Anthropic will prioritize existing backers, and that some interested buyers will ultimately receive fewer shares than they had hoped for.
The IPO details, including share subscription demand, may still change, the people said. They asked not to be identified because the information is not yet public. A representative for Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Investors' enthusiastic subscription for Anthropic shares stands in sharp contrast to their current cooling attitude toward Nvidia (NVDA.US), following reports that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was removed from his position amid multiple extramarital affair allegations.
Anthropic's prospectus shows that the chipmaker has agreed to subscribe for about $10 billion of Anthropic shares in the $26 billion private placement running alongside the Anthropic IPO. Anthropic views Nvidia as a strategic partner and has committed to spending tens of billions of dollars on related deals to secure supply of its most advanced chips.
One of the people said Anthropic is stoking IPO demand through a series of roadshow events for potential investors, including a livestreamed event on Friday featuring its CEO Dario Amodei and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.
The company is targeting a fully diluted valuation of about $1.4 trillion, lower than some investors had expected, according to reports. Still, many companies adopt conservative pricing when officially launching their roadshow, hoping strong subscription demand will drive the final pricing higher and ensure a strong first-day performance.
The documents Anthropic disclosed on Tuesday also confirm the growth logic of AI computing investment, as the company's revenue continues to rise. The filings show that as of October 31, the company's annualized revenue was $81 billion, up $10 billion from the end of September. According to previous reports, Anthropic's annualized revenue was $65 billion at the end of July. The company defines the metric as annualizing usage-based revenue over the past 28 days plus single-month subscription revenue.
In addition, reports noted that some investors are transferring part of their Anthropic IPO allocations to other potential backers in order to collect extra fees and reduce risk before trading begins, while other investors holding pre-IPO shares are marketing those shares to buyers through special purpose vehicles.
The filings show that Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley are leading the IPO, with another 20 banks participating as underwriters. The stock is expected to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT.
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