On August 14, news surfaced that Anthropic, a prominent unicorn in the AI industry, is gearing up for what could be a groundbreaking initial public offering (IPO) and has already initiated preliminary talks with prospective investors. Insiders with knowledge of the situation revealed that these discussions are still in their infancy, focusing on broad strategic topics rather than delving into precise financial terms or valuations. Anthropic’s Chief Financial Officer, Krishna Rao, is spearheading these meetings, which have centered on key areas such as the Claude series of AI models, the programming assistant Claude Code, the company’s strategic position in the enterprise market, its management team, and recent product developments.

In a discreet move, Anthropic submitted its listing documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in June, though it has not yet disclosed a definitive timeline for its IPO. Earlier in late May, the company successfully completed a funding round, achieving a valuation of $965 billion—a figure that eclipses OpenAI’s contemporary valuation of $852 billion. Additionally, Anthropic disclosed that its annualized revenue run rate has surpassed $47 billion. While some investors speculate that Anthropic’s IPO valuation could potentially soar to $2 trillion, the company has not officially confirmed this as a target.

In the competitive landscape, OpenAI has also quietly filed its listing documents but has yet to commence pre-IPO discussions with investors.