Anthropic is preparing to file public IPO paperwork as soon as the end of this month, with people familiar with the plans telling Bloomberg the Claude developer expects to match or exceed the $86.2 billion SpaceX raised at its debut, the largest first-time share sale on record. SpaceX drew $75 billion at the outset and rounded to $86.2 billion with the overallotment. Anthropic wants that ceiling as its floor.

Citigroup is being added to the syndicate, joining Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, with more banks expected. It’s the classic mega-listing choreography: expand the bench, socialize the book, ensure no major desk is left offside when allocation politics begin.

The numbers driving this ambition are, by any historical measure, unusual for a five-year-old company. Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate hit $65 billion by the end of July, more than a sevenfold jump from where it sat at the end of last year. Second-quarter revenue rose at least 14-fold year over year, according to documents seen by Bloomberg, and the company posted positive adjusted operating income in the quarter.

Cash burn tells the other half of the story. Anthropic recorded a net loss of almost $42 billion in 2025, roughly five times the $8.3 billion loss booked in 2024. The May fundraising round pulled in $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation, edging past the $852 billion OpenAI carried out of its $122 billion March raise.

CFO Krishna Rao has led recent investor briefings and, per people familiar, has consistently skirted the valuation question. That’s not evasion so much as positioning. Anthropic’s growth curve is doing the talking; the number gets set when the book is built.

Sources