Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude chatbot, could be worth $1.3 trillion (£1 trillion) when it lists its shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York. The company will offer shares at a price between $70 and $78 per share, and plans to raise up to $64bn this month.
That would value Anthropic at between $1.1 trillion and $1.3 trillion. The estimated valuation of $1.3 trillion is lower than the $2 trillion some analysts predicted weeks earlier. At that valuation, Anthropic would be lower than SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and AI company, which listed its shares in June and was valued at nearly $1.8 trillion.
The listing comes during a volatile period for AI companies. Following last week’s US midterm elections, the Nasdaq fell sharply due to concerns that a Democrat-led Congress could slow AI development and data centre construction. There are also broader fears about the billions of dollars being spent on AI and whether it will pay off.
Despite this, the latest results for the six months to the end of June show strong revenue growth. Anthropic’s revenue jumped to $16.2bn from $1.1bn in the same period last year. However, the pre-tax loss jumped to $80.7bn from $12.9bn, confirming that the company is operating at a loss.
Fiona Cincotta, a senior market analyst at City Index, told Reuters that the $64bn Anthropic wants to raise is 'quite bullish' within the 'volatility [and] concern towards AI that we have seen particularly last week'. She added: 'It shows that they are still somewhat optimistic about the outlook regarding AI and that they clearly think demand will be present.'
Anthropic is only five years old. The company was co-founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei along with five other people. All the co-founders worked at OpenAI, the rival AI giant behind ChatGPT.
