On October 26, Anthropic formally published its IPO prospectus, revealing its intention to list on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “ANT”. The filing disclosed that the company generated $16.3 billion in revenue during the first half of 2026, accompanied by a net loss of $80.7 billion. Market discussions suggest a valuation range between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. Established just five years ago, this AI firm is now poised to undergo a pricing evaluation in the capital market.

Revenue Surges 13-Fold

According to the prospectus, Anthropic's revenue reached approximately $4.6 billion in 2025, with the first half of 2026 seeing a significant increase to about $16.3 billion. This figure represents a roughly 14-fold increase from the $1.16 billion recorded in the same period the previous year.

The growth rate is indeed impressive.

However, the company's net loss of $80.7 billion for the half-year has garnered even more attention than its revenue.

Yet, this figure should not be solely interpreted as an operational loss. The prospectus indicates that approximately $72.4 billion of this loss stemmed from non-cash accounting adjustments due to changes in the fair value of financial instruments such as convertible notes, primarily linked to the company's rising valuation.

From an operational profit perspective, Anthropic reported a loss of approximately $693 million in the first half, showcasing a substantial difference from the net loss recorded in its financial statements.

Nevertheless, the company achieved an operational profit of approximately $974 million in the second quarter, although it still incurred an overall operational loss for the first half.

Meanwhile, computing power expenses remain significant. In the first half of 2026, the company's computing power and infrastructure costs amounted to approximately $8.9 billion, exceeding the roughly $7.3 billion spent throughout the entire year of 2025.

This highlights a fundamental challenge in the current large-scale model industry: while revenue is growing rapidly, maintaining technological leadership and meeting customer demands necessitate continuous substantial investment.

Expansion in the Enterprise Market

Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI members, including Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, Anthropic's flagship product is the Claude series of large language models.

Unlike internet products that primarily rely on consumer subscriptions, Anthropic focuses on enterprise clients and the developer market for commercialization.

Currently, the company offers services through the Claude API, Claude Code, Claude.ai, and enterprise workplace products, selling model capabilities through channels such as Amazon AWS and Google Cloud.

Among these, the application of Claude Code in software development and enterprises integrating Claude into their business systems via API are significant drivers of the company's growth.

The prospectus revealed that as of the end of September, Anthropic had over 1,900 clients contributing $1 million in revenue over the past 12 months, with approximately 250 clients reaching $10 million.

These major clients have become a crucial pillar of Anthropic's commercialization efforts.

However, challenges have also arisen.

In 2025, approximately 47% of the company's revenue was generated through cloud channels associated with Amazon and Google. These two tech giants are not only significant investors in Anthropic but also computing power suppliers and commercial partners, while simultaneously operating their own AI businesses.

This relationship has facilitated Anthropic's rapid acquisition of computing power and clients, but it also implies certain dependencies on infrastructure, channels, and bargaining power.

For investors, while the growth in the number of enterprise clients is important, the key factors for the stability and profitability of the business model are whether clients can continuously increase their usage and whether model service costs can decline.

Valuation Under Scrutiny

The IPO is being led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as underwriters. IPO research firm Renaissance Capital pointed out that the company could commence roadshows as early as the week of November 9 and set the price in the week of November 16, although the exact timing remains undetermined.

The offering price and the number of shares have not yet been announced.

Some investors' expectations for Anthropic's valuation once soared to $2 trillion. Reuters previously reported that the valuation given by some existing and potential investors has decreased to approximately $1.5 trillion.

Even at a $1.5 trillion valuation, it is equivalent to about 326 times the 2025 revenue; if calculated based on a simple annualization of the first half of 2026 revenue, the price-to-sales ratio still reaches about 46 times.

Such a high valuation is clearly not solely based on existing revenue but also incorporates market expectations for long-term AI growth and future profit margins.

Notably, Anthropic has also designed a unique corporate governance structure.

According to the prospectus arrangements, the founders will control approximately 50.1% of shareholder voting rights through special shares, while a long-term interest trust will have the right to elect a majority of the board seats.

Meanwhile, the company plans to establish a public interest fund, initially contributing shares equivalent to 5% of the company. When eligible, the company may add up to an additional 2% of shares at the board's discretion with each 50% increase in the company's valuation.

This indicates that Anthropic aims to maintain control over its development direction through the founding team while raising funds through listing and establishing long-term mechanisms for AI safety and public interest.

However, for ordinary shareholders, the special voting rights arrangement means that economic interests are not entirely equivalent to corporate control.

From a broader industry perspective, Anthropic's listing will provide the capital market with a direct opportunity to evaluate a leading AI company.

In the past, the market primarily assessed the value of the AI industry indirectly through the performance of companies like Nvidia, cloud computing, and data center firms. Now, investors can directly observe Anthropic's revenue, costs, losses, and capital requirements.

For this IPO, investors are also focusing on whether the rapid revenue growth can be sustained and whether the company can achieve stable profitability while continuing to increase its computing power investment.

Technology determines how far a company can go in terms of capabilities, while the business model determines whether such growth can be sustained. Anthropic's listing will subject this question to direct scrutiny by the public capital market.