Anthropic's IPO is Just Ahead. Here's What You Need to Know.

This year may turn out to be a colossal one for market debuts, particularly in the hot area of artificial intelligence (AI). Cerebras Systems recently launched its initial public offering, space and AI giant SpaceX has one planned for the coming days -- and just this week Anthropic said it confidentially filed for an IPO.

Cerebras' operation was the biggest so far this year, and SpaceX's, with a potential value of almost $2 trillion, may become the largest IPO ever. And now, investors may have the opportunity to soon invest in a third AI giant with a valuation approaching $1 trillion. Anthropic's IPO is just ahead. Here's what you need to know.

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The Anthropic story

So, first, let's consider Anthropic's story. In 2020, siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei and a small group of OpenAI researchers left the AI lab -- and they went on to create Anthropic, with Dario Amodei serving as chief executive officer. In an interview with Fortune back in 2023, Amodei said the belief that the AI growth story would be never-ending and that safety must be a key part of any scale-up inspired him and his co-founders to launch the company. Anthropic is the name behind next-generation AI assistant Claude, as well as related products such as popular coding assistant Claude Code.

The start-up is a rival of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, and against that backdrop, investors have been watching both as they release new products, raise funds, and aim for an IPO. OpenAI may file confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the coming days or weeks, according to press reports last month.

But it was Anthropic that reached this milestone first, when it announced its confidential filing this week. A confidential filing means the company has filed a draft registration statement with regulators, so it may move forward with an IPO once the SEC completes its review -- but it doesn't make this filing public. Before actually setting an IPO in motion, however, Anthropic must make its complete prospectus publicly available at least 15 days ahead of a roadshow.

Anthropic says it made its confidential filing on June 1. The number of shares to be offered and the price haven't been set.

We also don't know when the IPO will take place. "The proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors," Anthropic said in a statement.

Anthropic's valuation surpasses that of OpenAI

Just days ago, Anthropic said it had raised $65 billion in Series H funding, bringing the company's valuation to $965 billion. The company said it will use the funding to support its safety research, increase compute, and scale its products. Anthropic's valuation compares with OpenAI's valuation of $852 billion following a $122 billion funding round in March, so it clearly has surpassed its rival here, at least for the moment.

We don't yet have detailed financial information from Anthropic -- we'll have to wait for the prospectus to be made public for that -- but the company said its annual revenue run rate recently reached $47 billion as more and more global enterprise customers adopted its products.

This is what we know about the IPO so far. Now, investors should watch for the release of the prospectus or even potential roadshow dates -- if Anthropic aims for a particular date, we know that the company must make its filing public at least 15 days prior to that, as mentioned above.

It's also important to watch for any particular plan concerning the availability of offering-price shares. Generally, about 5% to 10% of IPO shares are allotted to retail investors, while institutional investors claim the rest. In the case of SpaceX, however, press reports indicated that founder Elon Musk aimed to earmark 30% of shares for retail investors.

It's too early to say whether Anthropic is a buy, as it will be crucial to take a look at the company's financial performance -- and consider this in relation to the offering price. Finally, does this filing and Anthropic's higher valuation set it ahead of OpenAI? Not necessarily. To answer that question, we'll have to wait for detailed financial information from both of these exciting AI players.

Adria Cimino has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.