Anthropic reportedly moves ahead with IPO plans
AI company Anthropic is continuing with its initial public offering, The Wall Street Journal reports, despite turbulent market conditions. Investors will use its valuation to gauge the strength of the AI boom.
Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the Claude models, is pressing ahead with plans to list its shares on the stock market through an initial public offering (IPO), according to The Wall Street Journal, as relayed by TechCrunch. The company intends to set a valuation range this week and start trading on Thursday or Friday of next week. Investors will treat the valuation as a measure of how strong the AI boom is.
The timing stands out. A major tech listing might look risky at the moment, coming shortly after one of the largest sell-offs on the Nasdaq exchange and amid reports that a chief executive central to the AI boom had an affair with a suspected Chinese spy. Anthropic has not been deterred.
Valuation pressure
The WSJ reports that some institutional investors are now pushing for a valuation below $1.5 trillion. That figure was under discussion as recently as last week, and was itself considerably lower than the $2 trillion floated a few months ago.
Anthropic's main rival, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, was reportedly valued at $1.25 trillion last week. It raised $11 billion in fresh capital, short of the $20 billion it had initially sought.
