Anthropic has filed its registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a proposed IPO, bringing the Claude developer closer to a stock market debut, reportedly targeting the week of 16 November.

The five-year-old company intends to list its Class A shares on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT, although the number of shares to be offered and the price range have yet to be determined. The IPO could give public market investors their first direct opportunity to invest in one of the leading developers of generative AI, potentially ahead of rival OpenAI.

Markets expect it could raise as much as $100bn at a valuation of around $2trn, which would make it the biggest stock market debut in history.

Anthropic reported first-half 2026 revenue of $16.3bn, up from $1.1bn a year earlier, reflecting growing corporate demand for its AI models and coding tools, particularly Claude Code. However, the frontier start-up also reported a net loss of $80.7bn over the period, highlighting the enormous costs associated with developing and operating advanced AI systems.

Co-founded in 2021 by chief executive Dario Amodei and other former OpenAI researchers, Anthropic has expanded rapidly as businesses seek to use AI to improve productivity and unlock new growth opportunities. Its proposed listing would bring greater transparency to a business that has so far relied heavily on private investment, including backing from major technology companies such as Amazon and Google.

The offering comes amid growing investor concerns over whether sky rocketing demand for AI services will generate sufficient returns to justify the industry's vast infrastructure spending.

Anthropic's debut would also follow the record-breaking Nasdaq listing of Elon Musk's SpaceX, which recently raised $85.7bn.

Nigel Green, CEO of financial advisory organisation deVere Group, said: “Anthropic is asking ordinary investors to help bankroll one of the largest spending commitments any company has ever made, at a price of around $2 trillion, while warning in the same document its growth may slow and it could need more money sooner than expected.

“Frankly, it’s nuts. Nobody’s disputing the business is extraordinary. The issue is who carries the risk if the spending runs ahead of the revenue. After this listing, the answer is the public.”

Susannah Streeter, chief investment strategist, Wealth Club, said: "Anthropic’s listing could be a landmark moment for the AI industry, but it will also put the sector’s valuations under the microscope. In a market increasingly sensitive to the mounting cost of the AI arms race, even a high-profile flotation may not be immune from a bout of investor nerves.''

Streeter added: "The gloss is beginning to come off some of the AI investment boom, as investors take a harder look at whether the eye-watering sums being poured into the technology will ultimately generate the returns needed to justify valuations.

"The goalposts have shifted significantly for public market investors. A huge pool of private capital has allowed AI businesses to scale up and command extraordinary valuations long before they reach the stock market. It means that investors who haven’t had access to private markets will be buying in at a price that already has a hefty dose of future success baked in. However with FOMO still swirling, there's likely to be significant interest from people keen to get a slice of one of the biggest names in the AI game.

"The spotlight is swinging towards the ability of these companies to turn breakneck growth and heavy investment into lasting profits."

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