Anthropic is pressing ahead with a planned mid-November IPO at a potential valuation it is believed to put at $1.5 trillion, while other AI-linked companies delay listings, CNA reported on 22 October, citing people familiar with the matter. The company behind the Claude model is expected to begin marketing shares to investors during the week of 9 November. The people cautioned that its plans and dates could change.
Key points
- Anthropic could publish its prospectus as early as late October, ahead of a planned mid-November offering.
- Switch, Nscale and SB Energy have postponed their IPO plans.
- Rising interest rates and market volatility have made attractive IPO valuations harder for prospective issuers to secure.
Anthropic’s November marketing timetable
Anthropic could make its prospectus public as early as late October. The planned mid-November float would follow the marketing period expected to start in the week of 9 November. Its timing remains subject to change.
The proposed offering would give public-market investors access to a company that large investors continue to favour despite turbulence in AI-related shares. Two people familiar with the plans said other issuers were reluctant to compete with Anthropic for institutional investors’ attention and capital.
The offering would also follow Anthropic’s efforts to secure the computing capacity it needs. AI Affairs previously reported on its cloud-capacity negotiations ahead of a reported November IPO. The timetable now places Anthropic’s share marketing alongside questions about the cost of expanding that capacity.
Anthropic’s revenue, losses and valuation expectations
Anthropic generated approximately $16.3 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, compared with $1.1 billion a year earlier, while a draft prospectus put its net loss for the same six months at $80.7 billion, Fortune reported on 21 October. Investors considering the float would therefore be pricing rapid revenue growth alongside a much larger reported loss.
A long-time Anthropic investor, who asked not to be named, told Fortune he expected the shares to be priced at a valuation of roughly $1.8 trillion. Fortune put Anthropic’s target at $2 trillion, while the investor predicted a post-IPO trading value of up to $2.4 trillion. CNA separately reported that Anthropic was believed to consider a potential $1.5 trillion valuation appropriate for the offering.
The investor’s projected $2.4 trillion trading value would exceed SpaceX’s $2.1 trillion market capitalisation at the end of its first trading day. SpaceX raised $75 billion in its June public offering. Those figures provide a comparison for the scale of Anthropic’s possible market value, although its offering price remains a prospective figure in the reports.
Anthropic’s newest borrowing from Blackstone is expected to carry an interest rate above 10%, Semafor reported on 19 October. That borrowing would add a financing cost as the company pursues computing capacity. AI Affairs previously reported on investors weighing a $1.5 trillion IPO valuation after Anthropic’s revenue growth slowed.
Switch, Nscale and SB Energy postpone listings
Switch, a data-centre operator, and AI infrastructure provider Nscale have pushed their IPO plans back to later in 2026, people familiar with the matter said. They said those plans could change. SB Energy, which is backed by SoftBank, has also postponed its listing. Rising interest rates and market volatility have made attractive valuations harder for prospective issuers to secure.
CNA reported that South Korean AI chip company Elice had shelved its listing plans. Fortune, in its account published a day earlier, reported that Elice Group had fallen 32% on its first day of trading. AI Affairs previously reported on Elice’s South Korean debut and three stalled data-centre IPOs.
Blackstone-backed AirTrunk REIT and Nvidia-backed Firmus have also pulled or paused their offerings. The pullback has affected companies seeking capital for AI infrastructure as investors examine the spending required to build data centres and the demand needed to support it.
Nscale’s postponement was partly driven by the need to address comments from US Securities and Exchange Commission staff, a person familiar with the matter said. Nscale publicly filed its IPO registration statement in September, while Switch submitted its filing confidentially.
