Anthropic's Record IPO Faces a Lower Valuation or Delay as AI Stocks Slide

The Claude developer had been aiming for a valuation of about $1.5 trillion and has said it could raise up to $100 billion. Three major investors who plan to take part told The Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter, that the figure would probably have to come down. One of them put it closer to $1 trillion. Prospective buyers are now discussing a range of $1 trillion to $1.3 trillion, according to reporting by the Journal and Bloomberg. Last month, when markets were higher, investors had talked of as much as $2 trillion.

How the deal is priced will matter well beyond Anthropic. The listing is being watched as a test of whether public investors will still pay for the scale of spending behind frontier AI. A cut of several hundred billion dollars, or a postponement, would show how quickly the mood around the AI trade has turned since early October.

No valuation has been cut so far. Anthropic declined to comment, according to 24/7 Wall St., which reported the investor doubts citing people familiar with investor discussions.

The Timetable

Anthropic is aiming for the week of November 16. An earlier report had its roadshow, the round of marketing meetings with large investors, starting the week of November 9. Four people familiar with investor discussions told 24/7 Wall St. that buyers doubt the roadshow can be held in time. Executives and advisers were expected to meet in the coming days to weigh their options, which include going ahead on schedule, delaying the listing or selling fewer shares.

Anthropic filed its prospectus publicly in late October. An amended filing on November 2 updated the financials but still left the price range and the number of shares blank. The company plans to list Class A shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead a group of 22 banks on the offering.

Prediction markets have moved too. The odds of an Anthropic IPO before December 1 fell from about 80% to near 50% on Polymarket and Kalshi, according to Yahoo Finance.

Growth, Losses and a Missing Month

The amended filing shows third-quarter revenue of $17.0 billion, up from $1.4 billion a year earlier, and an operating loss of $567 million. Anthropic had $146.6 billion in cash on September 30. The filing covers results only to the end of September, and two people said investors want to see October revenue before committing.

The pressure follows the US midterm elections on November 3. Investors read the results as a setback for AI and data centre construction, and the new Democratic majority in Congress is expected to push for tighter rules. On November 5, Nasdaq Composite companies lost about $2.5 trillion in market value. More than 50 technology stocks in the S&P Composite 1500 fell 10% or more over the two days after the vote. Keith Lerner, chief investment officer of Truist Advisory Services, described the market as a buyers' strike in technology shares.

Anthropic's private valuation has risen fast. Its funding round in May valued it at $965 billion, and it announced on June 1 that it had filed confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission. OpenAI, its main rival, has pushed its own listing from the end of 2026 to early 2027.

The next signals to watch are whether a price range appears in a further amendment to the prospectus and whether the roadshow begins this week.