Anthropic Targets Mega-IPO Before Thanksgiving Holiday, Bloomberg Reports

Anthropic PBC is seeking to go public as soon as the middle of November, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, after the artificial intelligence model maker pushed back plans to list.

The firm behind Claude could start formal marketing for its IPO as soon as the week of Nov. 9, putting it in line to begin trading before Thanksgiving, the people said. Dealmaking typically grinds to a halt in the days around the holiday, which is on Nov. 26.

Anthropic is still expected to make its debut no later than the end of the year, the people said. The AI developer had been poised to file publicly for an initial public offering after the summer, Bloomberg News has reported.

Deliberations are ongoing and the timeline could continue to shift, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public.

Anthropic, ascendant for much of this year, now faces renewed competition from the likes of OpenAI, which has gained sales momentum in recent months. The companies are also at the center of mounting public scrutiny over AI safety after a string of high-profile hacking incidents by rogue agents, ramping up concern about the potential impact on Anthropic’s market debut.

Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei published an essay on his personal website arguing the speed at which new AI models are advancing must be slowed down. OpenAI, a chief rival to Anthropic, has postponed its IPO plans, with CEO Sam Altman arguing it’d be ill-advised to go public now.

The concern doesn’t appear to have discouraged prospective investors, who believe a fair valuation for Anthropic is in the $1.8 trillion to $2 trillion ballpark, some of the people said. The company expects to match or beat the size of SpaceX’s IPO, Bloomberg News has reported.