Anthropic, which is competing with OpenAI on an initial public offering (IPO), could list on the U.S. stock market as early as October, the tech outlet The Information reported on the 27th, citing sources familiar with the matter.
According to the sources, Anthropic is expected to raise more than $60 billion (about 90 trillion won) through the IPO. Anthropic has reportedly held early talks with Wall Street investment banks, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, to select underwriters.
Anthropic raised new funding of $30 billion (about 43 trillion won) in a Series G round co-led last month by MGX, an investment firm in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), lifting its valuation to $380 billion (about 554 trillion won). Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and Coatue Management also led the round, and Shou Ventures, Dragoneer and Founders Fund participated.
Anthropic is strengthening its position in the enterprise AI market with the AI coding tool Claude Code based on its AI model Claude. Revenue is growing rapidly as it delivers stable results for corporate clients. According to the research firm EpochAI, Anthropic's annualized revenue surpassed $1 billion at the end of 2024, exceeded $9 billion at the end of last year, and reached $14 billion in February. Its annual growth rate, more than tenfold, outpaced OpenAI's growth rate of 3.4 times a year.
Ahead of the IPO, Anthropic is also accelerating the release of its latest models to boost its growth rate. Early in the year, it unveiled Claude Co-work, an AI agent that performs multi-step tasks on its own, sparking fears of a "SaaSpocalypse" (software as a service + apocalypse) in global stock markets.
OpenAI, aware of Anthropic's pursuit, has moved to reorganize its business to improve profitability ahead of its own listing this year. OpenAI decided to shut down underperforming side businesses and focus on so-called money-making businesses—coding and enterprise AI. It also introduced ads within ChatGPT, once considered a "last resort," applying them early in the year to free users in the United States and subscribers on lower-priced plans.
According to OpenAI on the day, trial ads attached to ChatGPT surpassed $100 million (about 150.5 billion won) in annualized revenue six weeks after launching in the United States. To cement its advertising business, OpenAI recently hired David Dougan, a former vice president of advertising at Facebook parent Meta, to lead ads.