What Do We Know About Anthropic Before Its Historic IPO?

In late 2020, a group of senior employees at OpenAI left to found "Anthropic" (Anthropic PBC), after expressing dissatisfaction with what they considered a failure by the company to give sufficient priority to AI ethics and safety.

Just a few years later, the younger company has transformed into an AI giant, expected to execute one of the largest and most attention-grabbing initial public offerings in history.

Anthropic filed its IPO prospectus publicly with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on October 26, in a document that revealed its financial details and strategic plans. The developer of the chatbot Claude is expected to list its shares on the "Nasdaq" exchange during November.

The company is moving forward with its planned IPO despite the turbulent phase the AI sector is experiencing. In recent months, multiple incidents where AI models went out of control and attacked other institutions have heightened concerns about this technology's potential ability to escape human control.

At the same time, AI companies, including Anthropic, are beginning to see a slowdown in growth, despite generating huge revenues.

How did Anthropic become such a high-value and influential company so quickly?
Despite its relative youth, the company quickly became a pivotal player in the AI boom thanks to its flagship chatbot, "Claude."

Since then, Anthropic has seen a massive leap in revenues thanks to "Claude Code," a system targeted at enterprise users. "Claude Code," designed to simplify the process of writing code and debugging it, gained widespread adoption among software developers in an early and lucrative market for AI services.

Meanwhile, the company largely refrained from offering flashy AI products, such as video generators that caused a stir among competitors like "OpenAI," but which also proved to be extremely costly.

Anthropic also worked on building on its early success by expanding into a wider range of sectors, including legal and financial services. Earlier in 2026, it unveiled "Claude Cowork," a multi-purpose AI agent designed to handle a broader set of professional tasks. Recently, the company developed models with advanced capabilities in the field of cybersecurity.

What do we know about Anthropic's financial situation?
Anthropic's filing revealed limited information about the company's financial status. Notably, Anthropic did not provide a target figure for the amount it seeks to raise from the public offering, nor the number of shares it intends to sell. The company plans to disclose these figures as the public listing date approaches.

"Wall Street" will closely watch whether Anthropic expects to raise more than $86.2 billion, the record amount raised by Elon Musk's "SpaceX" during its public offering in June. Some investors expect Anthropic's market capitalization at the IPO to range between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion.

Anthropic generates huge revenues from sales of AI software to corporate clients, recording revenues of $16.3 billion in the first six months of 2026, compared to $1.2 billion in the same period of 2025.

But the scale of its losses is escalating sharply as the company spends enormous sums to support its AI business. Anthropic recorded a net loss of $80.7 billion in the first half of 2026, compared to a net loss of $13 billion in the same period of 2025, according to the filing.

However, the company was achieving positive operating cash flows during the first six months of 2026, giving investors greater confidence that its business has the capacity to generate profits in the long term.

Why does Anthropic want to go public now?
Demand for shares is expected to be strong, and Anthropic will seek to raise as much money as possible to fund its operations. Entering public markets will open the door to faster and cheaper financing through issuing debt and equity instruments, to fund its data centers which require significant liquidity.

For Anthropic, the feeling of competition with its old rival "OpenAI" likely played a role in the decision, as Wall Street may view the company that goes public first as ahead in the AI race.

Anthropic is entering public markets despite growing fears that humans are at risk of losing control over AI. In its IPO documents, Anthropic warned that AI poses "catastrophic and existential risks to humanity" if its technologies are not developed under sufficient safeguards and oversight.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei had previously called for slowing down AI development across the entire industry. In a 3,800-word article published in September, Amodei said that development of the most advanced systems should be slowed to prevent AI from escaping human control.

But if Anthropic wants to execute a successful IPO, it will have to find a way to continue developing AI technology while limiting its risks.

Is popular opposition to AI expected to impact the business?
This is a possibility. Anthropic stated in the filing that the public climate surrounding AI could harm the company's reputation and increase its costs.

It added: "Many of the risks we face are interconnected, and may exacerbate or cause a chain reaction of negative impacts on our business, which may double their total effect."

Are there downsides to becoming a publicly traded company?
One of the main trade-offs accompanying a public offering is that the company becomes subject to much greater financial scrutiny and pressure to deliver returns in the shorter term, compared to when it was a private company.

All its financial data will have to be disclosed publicly, and the company will be required to announce quarterly earnings results and answer questions from Wall Street analysts.

There are also the fluctuations associated with having a stock price that is closely watched and moves in response to any news development, however minor.

Another risk mentioned by Anthropic is that the IPO will generate significant financial gains for early employees and those with longer tenure, which may reduce their incentive to stay with the company later.

In addition, the company revealed that increased interest in AI has led to rising threats targeting the physical safety of employees and the security of their information, developments that may affect hiring and morale.

What risks will investors bear?
The main risk for share buyers in the IPO is the possibility that expectations regarding AI's profitability are exaggerated.

It is also unclear how much room for growth remains for companies like Anthropic and "OpenAI," which are expected to enter public markets after achieving exceptional valuations as private companies.

The two companies also face intensifying competition from Chinese AI firms, as well as from "Google" under "Alphabet," and "Meta Platforms."

This represents a notable shift compared to previous massive IPOs, such as "Google" or "Facebook" (the company that preceded Meta), as those two companies dominated their specialized fields when they went public.

How does Anthropic plan to use enhanced voting power shares?
Anthropic plans to grant Amodei and the six other co-founders shares with enhanced voting power, which are shares that grant additional voting rights, allowing the group to retain control over voting rights in the company.

This share structure has become common in the tech sector, designed to ensure founders have greater influence in determining their companies' directions.

What might Anthropic's classification as a Public Benefit Corporation mean?
In adopting ethical principles in AI, Anthropic was founded as a Public Benefit Corporation, or "PBC" for short.

This classification, legally recognized in more than 30 U.S. states, means that the profit-oriented entity is expected to balance shareholder interests with achieving a positive impact on society.

The IPO would add Anthropic to a very small group of Public Benefit Corporations that have sold shares to the public, including eyewear company "Warby Parker Inc," footwear company "Allbirds Inc," and education company "Coursera Inc."

Corporate governance experts say this classification is unlikely to affect the pricing of Anthropic's IPO, given that the company still enjoys wide latitude to pursue profits.

But they said other governance issues may have a greater impact. Anthropic established a long-term public benefit trust, an oversight body aimed at ensuring the company is accountable to its public mission.

The trust operates independently of shareholders, raising the possibility that board members may make decisions that do not please investors. Jesse Fried, a Harvard Law School professor specializing in corporate governance, said this may lead shareholders to expect a discount in the IPO share price.

"Asharq."