Anthropic Leads Wave of Major AI IPOs

Following Anthropic's initial public offering (IPO), it is expected that a series of related companies—including those in the broader artificial intelligence (AI) sector—will go public.

Reuters Yonhap News

According to Bloomberg News on September 9 (local time), IPO candidates now include Anthropic, AI cloud computing firm Nscale, energy provider Aggreko Plc, and consumer health technology company Oura Health Oy.

Oura is looking to raise as much as 3 billion dollars, targeting a company valuation of over 16 billion dollars. Founded in 2013, Oura’s main product is the smart ring, which tracks a range of health indicators such as sleep, heart rate, and activity, and delivers the data via a smartphone app. Aggreko is pursuing an IPO at an enterprise value of about 15 billion dollars. Established in 1962, Aggreko supplies temporary power, heating–cooling, and refrigeration systems to enterprise and industrial sites, leasing and operating generators, batteries, and cooling equipment.

Nscale was founded in 2024. As an AI infrastructure company, it builds and operates GPU-based AI clouds and data centers, thereby providing the computing resources necessary for training and inference of large-scale AI models. When it raised funds last March, the company was valued at 14.6 billion dollars. At present, it is seeking to secure an additional 3.5 billion dollars in capital before its IPO.

Ajay Shah, Chairman of the Technology Investment Banking (IB) division at Deutsche Bank, said, "There are many areas within AI-related industries such as data centers, power and cooling, and consumer health that are likely to catch investors' attention."

Bloomberg pointed out that despite market pressures such as rising oil prices, the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and the potential for additional interest rate hikes, efforts to proceed with IPOs continue. Matt Kennedy, Senior Strategist at Renaissance Capital, explained, "While some companies are delaying IPOs until market conditions are optimal, other firms believe the current environment is sufficient for going public."

Meanwhile, Anthropic is preparing an IPO that is expected to match or surpass SpaceX’s record-setting IPO of over 86 billion dollars last June, led by Elon Musk. OpenAI, too, is anticipated to pursue an IPO later this year or next, which could be among the largest ever.

Although IPO sizes are going up, Kennedy does not consider this a bubble. He stated that investors were willing to recognize the valuation sought by SpaceX, based on profits that may only materialize years from now. He added, "I believe Anthropic can also justify its reportedly 200 billion dollar valuation on the same grounds."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.