Anthropic is targeting a market capitalization of approximately 1.02 trillion US dollars for its IPO, and the scale of issuance and placement may reach 90.4 billion US dollars.

①Anthropic plans to issue and sell 825 million shares at an offering price range of $70 to $78 per share, and is expected to list on the Nasdaq this month;

The company's revenue in the third quarter increased more than tenfold year-on-year, but it still recorded operating losses. Its huge future computing power procurement commitments and ongoing model price competition will continue to test its profitability.

On local time Tuesday (November 10), artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic updated its prospectus. The company plans to issue and sell a total of 825 million shares at a price of $70 to $78 per share, with the maximum IPO financing scale reaching approximately $643.5 billion. Among them, Anthropic will issue 801.4 million new shares, and existing shareholders will sell 23.6 million shares.

In addition, Anthropic also plans to raise $260 billion through a separate private placement transaction. Technology companies participating in the investment include Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom, Micron Technology and TSMC.

Including the private placement, the total size of Anthropic's share issuance and related transactions can reach up to $904 billion, which is higher than the $862 billion financing record set by SpaceX in its IPO in June this year. However, the maximum financing size of Anthropic's public offering part is about $644 billion, which has not broken SpaceX's IPO financing record.

Anthropic has launched a roadshow for investors. According to media reports, the company is expected to determine the final IPO offering price on November 18 and start trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on November 19 under the stock ticker "ANT". Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will lead the offering, with 20 other banks participating in the underwriting.

IPO Valuation Target Sharply Lowered

Calculated at the upper limit of the offering price range of $78 per share, Anthropic's basic market capitalization after the completion of the IPO and private placement is approximately $1.02 trillion. Including stock options, restricted stock units and other potential shares, its fully diluted valuation can reach a maximum of about $1.4 trillion.

This target is significantly lower than previous market expectations. Earlier this year, some investors expected Anthropic to go public as early as October and seek a valuation of up to $2 trillion. Since then, the market's valuation expectation for it has gradually dropped to around $1.5 trillion, but some investors still believe this level is too high.

In May this year, Anthropic announced the completion of a $650 billion Series H financing, with a post-money valuation of $965 billion. Its main investors include institutions such as Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and HSG.

The downward adjustment of Anthropic's valuation expectation comes as Wall Street is re-examining the AI investment boom.

Against the backdrop of sustained high interest rates, investors are increasingly concerned that the huge capital expenditure required for AI infrastructure construction and rising financing costs may not be fully rewarded by future revenues.

In addition, the market also has doubts about the circular financing arrangement in the AI industry, overcapacity of data centers, and the speed at which enterprises convert AI investments into actual revenue.

The political environment has further exacerbated uncertainties. In last week's US midterm elections, the Democratic Party won full control of Congress, and multiple states passed referendum measures that may restrict AI infrastructure construction. The market is worried that stricter data center regulations may push up construction costs and slow down the progress of related projects.

Revenue Grows Rapidly, But Huge Computing Power Expenditure Tests Profitability

According to the prospectus, Anthropic's revenue in the third quarter reached $16.96 billion, up 47% quarter-on-quarter and more than tenfold from $1.4 billion in the same period last year. However, its quarter-on-quarter revenue growth rate slowed down significantly from 144% in the second quarter.

In the first nine months of this year, Anthropic's cumulative revenue reached $33.24 billion, a year-on-year increase of about 1200%, reflecting the growing demand from enterprise customers for the Claude series of AI models.

According to the prospectus, in September this year, more than 90% of code contributions in Anthropic's codebase were written by Claude, highlighting the application level of AI programming tools in the field of software development.

However, the surge in revenue has not eliminated the company's profitability pressure.

Anthropic recorded an operating profit of $974 million in the second quarter, marking its first quarterly operating profit after at least five consecutive quarters of losses. But in the third quarter, the company fell back into losses, with an operating loss of $567 million.

During the same period, Anthropic's operating expenses reached $17.5 billion, up 292% year-on-year. Among them, the computing power cost generated by short-term contract commitments is about $50 billion, and the non-cash expense related to the charitable donation matching plan is about $20 billion, which are important factors affecting the quarterly profitability.

In the first nine months of this year, Anthropic reported a net loss of about $1.04 trillion, far higher than the $251 billion in the same period last year. However, about $943 billion of this came from changes in the fair value of financial instruments such as convertible notes, which are non-cash accounting losses. During the same period, the company's operating loss was about $1.26 billion.

A greater challenge lies in future capital expenditures.

According to the prospectus, the total amount of procurement and lease contract commitments currently undertaken by Anthropic is about $9.009 trillion, the vast majority of which are related to computing power and infrastructure. Calculated for the 12 months ending September 30, about $707 billion of relevant commitments need to be fulfilled.

These expenditures involve computing power suppliers such as Amazon and Google, and some projects also rely on external financing arrangements that Anthropic cannot directly control.

It is worth noting that Google, Amazon and Microsoft are not only investors of Anthropic, but also its customers and important computing power suppliers. This complex business relationship is also one of the reasons why the market is concerned about the circular financing risks in the AI industry.

Intensifying Model Price Competition

In addition to huge computing power expenditures, Anthropic is also facing increasingly fierce industry competition.

On Monday, the company launched two new models, Claude Fable 5.2 and Claude Mythos 5.2. The output speed of the two models is increased by up to 30% compared with the previous generation, and the usage price is also reduced.

However, the price reduction of models has also begun to affect revenue performance. According to the prospectus, the price reduction of some new models and discounts on customer contracts offset about $600 million in incremental revenue brought by usage growth in the third quarter.

Previously, Anthropic had lowered its pricing when launching Opus 5.5 in September. Competitor OpenAI has also launched lower-priced models in recent months.

In addition, low-cost open-weight models from Chinese developers and other enterprises are also intensifying market competition. Enterprise customers can download relevant models and fine-tune them according to their own needs, thus reducing their dependence on high-priced closed-source models.

This article is from "CLS.cn", written by Xia Junxiong, and published with authorization from 36Kr.