Anthropic targets next-week IPO despite AI market volatility, WSJ reports

Anthropic is targeting a stock-market debut next Thursday or Friday, pressing ahead with its highly anticipated initial public offering despite recent volatility in AI stocks and growing investor resistance to its expected valuation.

The Claude maker has meetings scheduled with key investors this week and is expected to disclose its IPO price range in a filing early this week, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The timetable suggests Anthropic is determined to move forward with one of the year’s most closely watched listings, even as investors reassess valuations across the artificial intelligence sector.

Investors had been anticipating a valuation of around $1.5 trillion as recently as last week, but some major investors are now pushing for a lower figure following Thursday’s sharp selloff in AI-related stocks. The roughly $2 trillion valuation discussed months ago appears increasingly difficult to achieve.

Anthropic executives have been working with lead bankers Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to determine the pricing range. The upcoming filing should also disclose how many shares the company plans to sell and could reveal commitments from major investors to participate in the offering.

The company could still delay its plans if market conditions deteriorate, although abandoning the timetable now could raise concerns about investor appetite for large AI listings.

Market sentiment has recovered somewhat since Thursday, when Nasdaq-listed companies lost a combined $2.5 trillion in market value. However, concerns remain about the enormous investments required to build AI infrastructure and the uncertainty surrounding their eventual returns.

Anthropic plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol ANT.