"Anthropic IPO Demand Tops Offering by Several Times; Record-Breaking Fundraising Expected"

Major institutional investors rush to subscribe
IPO likely to surpass SpaceX's in size

Reuters-Yonhap News

Anthropic's initial public offering (IPO) has attracted several times more subscriptions than the number of shares on offer. The result defies concerns about an AI bubble that have recently weighed on stock markets, and some forecasts suggest the offering could raise more money than SpaceX's IPO in June, making it the largest fundraising in history.

Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Thursday that demand exceeded the number of shares on offer by several times, with institutional investors seeking large allocations driving demand. It added that the specific scale of excess demand had not been disclosed.

Anthropic, which is set to list on Nov. 19, began its investor roadshow on Wednesday and started gauging demand among institutional investors. According to its prospectus, the indicative offering price is $70 to $78 per share. Of the 825 million shares on offer, approximately 801.35 million are newly issued shares from Anthropic, while approximately 23.65 million are existing shares being sold by current shareholders. If the offering price is set at the top of the indicative range, the offering would be valued at approximately $64.4 billion (about 86 trillion won).

Separately from the public offering, seven companies—Google, Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, Micron, Microsoft (MS) and TSMC—have agreed to purchase shares in Anthropic's private placement at the same price as the IPO. The private placement is estimated at $26 billion. The IPO is expected to raise a total of $90.4 billion when the public offering and private placement are combined. If fundraising proceeds as expected, it would exceed the $85.7 billion SpaceX raised through its IPO in June, setting a record for the largest such fundraising in history.

According to Bloomberg, Anthropic's major investors are focusing more on securing funds to expand the company's computing infrastructure in the future than on maximizing its valuation in the short term. With Anthropic planning to spend $900 billion on computing capacity and infrastructure over the coming years, they reportedly believe that securing investment to steadily strengthen its market position is more important.

Anthropic is said to be targeting a fully diluted valuation of $1.4 trillion. A fully diluted valuation takes into account not only existing shares but also shares that may be issued in the future, such as employee stock options and restricted stock units (RSUs).

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriters for the IPO, are reportedly discussing raising the offering price after seeing strong demand. If the price is raised, the amount raised through the IPO is expected to exceed $100 billion.

Anthropic plans to hold a series of events for potential investors to further boost demand for the IPO. On Nov. 13, it plans to host a livestream event featuring Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

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