Anthropic advances its plans for an IPO, intensifying competition with OpenAI
AI giant Anthropic has filed confidentially for a U.S. initial public offering, the company announced on Monday, moving ahead of rival OpenAI in a closely monitored race to enter public markets.
The move establishes an initial examination of whether investor interest in artificial intelligence, which has driven high private valuations and discussions of possible trillion-dollar listings, will withstand public scrutiny. It also raises the question of which company will define the standard for valuing this rapidly expanding sector.
Anthropic, the creator of the agentic coding assistant Claude Code, has not revealed the size or terms of the offering. In late May, it successfully raised $65 billion, achieving a post-money valuation of $965 billion, thereby surpassing OpenAI.
The listing would signify one of the most significant stock market debuts in years, potentially altering benchmark indexes, investor flows, and the overarching narrative influencing U.S. equities.
In May, Reuters reported that OpenAI was preparing to confidentially file for a U.S. IPO in the upcoming weeks. That follows SpaceX’s significant IPO filing, which is set to break records as the Elon Musk-led company aims for a $75 billion offering at a $1.75 trillion valuation and could start trading within two weeks.
Confidential submissions enable companies to progress with IPO preparations while protecting sensitive financial information from competitors and the public.
Filing shortly after SpaceX enables Anthropic to take advantage of the robust investor interest in AI and growth stocks while the opportunity is still favorable,” stated Kat Liu, vice president at IPO research firm IPOX. “Anthropic’s valuation goals seem considerably more moderate in comparison to SpaceX than they might have appeared on their own.
Competition for supremacy in artificial intelligence
OpenAI and Anthropic have emerged as prominent leaders in the AI boom, reshaping corporate strategies, igniting a global competition for computing power and talent, and elevating AI-related companies to some of the highest valuations in the market. “Harrison Rolfes, a senior analyst at PitchBook, noted, ‘For OpenAI, the conventional read is that Anthropic just seized the narrative advantage by filing first.’ The unconventional perspective is that OpenAI has come out ahead in this situation: Anthropic has willingly taken on all the disclosure risk initially, while OpenAI now has the opportunity to observe how institutional investors respond to audited frontier AI financials before deciding on its own pricing.
On prediction markets, where traders wager on the outcome of future events, most participants had anticipated that OpenAI would file for an IPO before Anthropic.
He stated that the company will pursue going public at the appropriate time.
Anthropic’s valuation has increased significantly, surpassing $380 billion in February, following a $30 billion funding round.
The company’s swift ascent in early 2026 unsettled markets, prompting significant selloffs in software and IT stocks as investors feared that its increasingly autonomous AI tools might disrupt traditional business models and hasten upheaval across various industries.
The most recent funding round attracted support from a diverse group of investors from both Silicon Valley and Wall Street, including Blackstone, Brookfield, D1 Capital Partners, GIC, General Catalyst, and Insight Partners.
A significant achievement in the market
As numerous blockbuster listings approach public markets, companies ranging from SpaceX to AI giants are vying for a limited pool of investor capital.
Analysts, such as Gil Luria from D.A. Davidson, indicated that the two companies were in a competitive rush to go public before Wall Street’s capital dwindled. They aimed to establish the framework for how a frontier AI model—one that expands the limits of machine capabilities in language, reasoning, or coding—reports financials in a manner that benefits their financial model.
The collective demand for capital from SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic is expected to be substantial enough to potentially disrupt the capital markets, making early action a significant advantage,” Luria stated.
With a valuation nearing $1 trillion, Anthropic would ascend to the upper echelon of the S&P 500, joining a select group of elite companies that command the global equity markets.
The IPO market has shown renewed vigor in recent weeks, with companies securing $87.5 billion through May 26, marking the highest year-to-date global total since 2021, as reported by Dealogic data.
Several sizable U.S. IPOs are poised to enter the market later this week, including Honeywell-backed quantum computing firm Quantinuum, Blackstone-backed Liftoff, and gas engine manufacturer Innio.
