▶ In an amended securities filing on November 10 (local time), Anthropic set a price range of $70 to $78 per share (about 97,000 to 108,000 won).
▶ According to Bloomberg, investors considering participating in the offering discussed a valuation of $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion after market turmoil last week, while some put it as low as $1.1 trillion.
▶ Seven companies—Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, TSMC, Broadcom, AMD and Micron—have agreed to buy $26 billion (about 36 trillion won) worth of nonvoting shares at the offering price.
Anthropic is pressing ahead with its IPO despite a slump in AI stocks and the Nvidia scandal. In an amended filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the 10th (local time), Anthropic set a price range of $70 to $78 per share (about 97,000 to 108,000 won).
The company plans to offer 825 million shares, raising up to $64.35 billion (about 89 trillion won) at the top of the range. Its fully diluted valuation is between $1.3 trillion and $1.45 trillion.
The offering is expected to begin trading on Nasdaq on the 19th or 20th under the ticker “ANT.” It comes about a month after the company filed confidentially in June and made its registration statement public on October 26.
◆ From $2 trillion to $1.4 trillion
In early October, Wall Street projections suggested Anthropic could be valued at $2 trillion. The top of the range in its amended filing is $1.4 trillion, 30% lower. It is also below the $1.75 trillion valuation SpaceX was targeting when it went public in June.
According to Bloomberg, investors considering participating in the offering discussed valuations of $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion after market turmoil last week, and some floated a figure as low as $1.1 trillion. If the offering is priced at the bottom of the range or demand is weak, the company’s actual valuation could fall further.
Market conditions have changed. After Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress and the governorships of Texas, Georgia and Ohio in the midterm elections on the 3rd, AI stocks sold off broadly amid concerns about tighter data-center regulations. The Nasdaq fell 5.5% last week, and on one day $2.5 trillion in market value vanished.
Nvidia fell more than 4% on the 9th after CEO Jensen Huang acknowledged a relationship with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy, prompting the company’s board to launch an independent investigation. The largest AI stock is under pressure as the biggest AI IPO in history moves forward.
◆ No delay
Anthropic has not postponed its IPO. Its filing explains why it cannot afford to wait: the company has committed $895.4 billion to computing resources and chips through 2045, including $69.8 billion due over the next 12 months alone.
In the third quarter, Anthropic reported revenue of $17 billion and an operating loss of $567 million. In its filing, it warned that it may need additional funding sooner than expected. The up to $64.3 billion it hopes to raise through the offering will go toward meeting those commitments.
Seven companies—Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, TSMC, Broadcom, AMD and Micron—have agreed to buy $26 billion (about 36 trillion won) worth of nonvoting “Class N” shares at the offering price. Because this is a private placement, the shares are not subject to the six-month lockup that typically applies to publicly offered shares.
The filing also adds a safety warning. Anthropic says that using AI to build more powerful AI could pose significant safety risks if it sharply accelerates progress. Based on its internal estimates, the company says it could “soon exceed” the threshold for “rapid acceleration of progress” set by its Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP).
This refers to AI research automation reaching a level at which it doubles the pace of AI development. Anthropic says no model has yet crossed the threshold and that it is considering policy changes to ensure people continue to control the development of frontier models.
◆ Samsung and SK are not on the list
One notable point for South Korea’s semiconductor industry is the list of strategic investors. Micron is the only memory company included; Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are not.
Anthropic is a major indirect buyer of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server memory used in Google TPUs, Amazon Trainium chips, and Nvidia and AMD GPUs. Much of that memory is made in South Korea, yet only a U.S. memory company is named in the IPO’s capital structure. By buying shares at the offering price, Micron is gaining a foothold in Anthropic’s supply chain.
The entire AI industry will be watching the IPO. It will be the first time the market puts a price on whether the money big tech companies have poured into data centers can generate returns.
The final offering price, the level of demand from institutional investors beyond the seven companies, and whether trading begins on the 19th or the 20th have yet to be determined. It has also not been disclosed whether South Korean investors will be able to participate in the offering.