AI giant Anthropic, developer of Calude AI model, launches IPO filing, reveals $16b. revenue

Anthropic's public IPO filing moves the AI developer closer to a Wall Street debut as investors weigh soaring AI costs, rising debt and market volatility.

Anthropic made its US IPO filing public on Monday, edging toward what could be the first stock market debut by a frontier AI lab and laying out the promise, costs, and risks of building AI meant to transform the global economy.

According to initial reports on the filing, Anthropic's revenue jumped during the first half of the year and reached $16 billion, which represents a big jump from the initial reports of 2023, when yearly revenue was $386 million.

The IPO comes at a time when market volatility has thinned the fall listing calendar and rising borrowing costs have sharpened investor concerns over the debt-fueled AI investment boom.

US stock index futures got a brief boost after the IPO filing, with Wall Street's main indexes opening higher.

Investors comment on Anthropic's IPO filing

Josh Stevens, Chief Investment Officer for Cresalta Investment Management, said that the Monday announcement was "exciting," but that his firm would not be rushing to buy stocks from Anthropic.

"Even great ideas or business models end up seeing their share prices come down to attractive levels during times when investors are reassessing demand and supply. And then, you've got an opportunity to go in and buy," he told Reuters.

"I think it's a significant milestone in the development of artificial intelligence. And the outcome of this IPO will be fairly indicative of the sentiment for continuing to support capital expenditures in the development of artificial intelligence," added Peter Andersen, founder of Andersen Capital Management.

Thomas Hayes, Chairman at Great Hill Capital, said that "in the general sense of a business doing $16 or $32 billion annualized revenue, and losing $80 to $160 billion a year, a $1.5 trillion valuation seems rich. The offering is for the faithful, that sooner or later, they're going to get some return on that invested capital."

"The price could go up because they'll control the supply of stock that they issued, but in the long term, it's a weighing machine and losing that amount of money on that investment until they turn the corner, which is many years out, you'll have better places to buy it than at the initial public offering,"

"If people are raising cash for the Anthropic IPO with funds from the current hyperscalers in Mag Seven, that could be a headwind in coming weeks. It will be dependent on what we see in earnings from Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon this week."