Anthropic Files Confidential IPO Paperwork, Beating OpenAI to Market

Anthropic confidentially filed a draft S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, putting the Claude maker on a path to one of the largest technology IPOs in history. The move puts Anthropic ahead of rival OpenAI in a closely watched race to public markets.

The filing is confidential while the SEC completes its review, and Anthropic has not yet set a share count or price range. But the company confirmed the submission in a brief statement on June 1: "This gives us the option to go public after the SEC completes its review."

How we got here

Anthropic was last valued at $965 billion in a $65 billion private round closed in late May — a valuation that already topped OpenAI's roughly $852 billion mark from March. According to sources cited by CNBC and NBC News, Anthropic is targeting a public-market valuation between $1.75 and $1.8 trillion, with a raise of up to $75 billion. If priced near that range, it would be the biggest IPO ever.

The company's revenue has scaled at a pace almost no one in software has matched. Anthropic disclosed in May that its annualized revenue run rate had reached $47 billion — up from roughly $10 billion in annualized revenue just a year earlier. Most of that growth has come from enterprise adoption of Claude and from Claude Code, the company's coding assistant, which has become a default tool inside large engineering organizations.

Why this matters: a year ago, public-market investors had no way to bet directly on a frontier AI lab. Anthropic going public changes that.

What's in (and out of) the filing

Because the filing is confidential, the financials are not yet public. That's standard under the JOBS Act for "emerging growth companies" — Anthropic can keep its numbers private until roughly 15 days before its roadshow.

What we know from public disclosures and reporting:

• Revenue run rate: $47 billion as of May 2026
• Last private valuation: $965 billion (May 2026)
• Reported IPO valuation target: $1.75–1.8 trillion
• Reported raise target: up to $75 billion

A $75 billion raise would dwarf every previous tech IPO. Saudi Aramco's 2019 listing — the current record holder at around $29.4 billion — would be less than half the size.

The OpenAI race

Beating OpenAI to the public market is more than symbolic. Anthropic and OpenAI are both expected to seek tens of billions of dollars in new capital in short succession, and the company that prices first tends to get the cleaner narrative, the wider analyst coverage, and the larger pool of institutional buyers.

OpenAI is reportedly preparing its own confidential filing, but has not yet submitted one publicly. Going second means competing for attention against a freshly listed Anthropic that already has a stock price, an investor base, and quarterly earnings to point to.

For enterprise buyers and developers, the race has a more practical dimension. Both companies will use IPO proceeds to lock in multi-year compute and power contracts. Anthropic's recently announced 3.5 GW TPU deal with Google and Broadcom — set to come online starting in 2027 — is the kind of commitment that becomes much easier to finance once a company is public.

What industry insiders are saying

The reaction across finance and tech has focused on two things: the size of the deal and the speed of Anthropic's revenue ramp.

Analysts cited by Yahoo Finance described the filing as the start of "the $3 trillion AI IPO race," with Anthropic, OpenAI, and at least one other frontier lab all expected to file within the next 18 months. Bankers familiar with the process told CNBC that the confidential filing typically precedes a public S-1 by three to six months, which would put a potential listing in late 2026 or early 2027 if the SEC review proceeds without major issues.

The reaction inside enterprise IT has been more muted but telling. Several Fortune 500 CIOs told reporters they view the IPO as a positive signal — going public means Anthropic will face stricter financial reporting, which makes the company a safer long-term vendor commitment.

What's next

A few things to watch in the coming weeks and months.

First, the public S-1. Once the SEC completes its confidential review, Anthropic will need to file a publicly available version, which will expose detailed financials, customer concentration, and risk factors for the first time.

Second, the OpenAI counter-move. OpenAI is widely expected to accelerate its own filing now that Anthropic has moved. A simultaneous or back-to-back listing would test investor appetite in a way no prior tech IPO cycle has.

Third, the lock-up structure. With private valuations near $1 trillion, early Anthropic investors and employees are sitting on enormous paper gains. How the company structures its share lock-ups will shape the stock's first-year volatility.

Bottom line

Anthropic just took the most consequential step toward a public listing that any frontier AI company has taken. If the company prices anywhere near its reported target, it will instantly become one of the most valuable companies in the world — and the first pure-play frontier AI lab investors can own directly. For developers, customers, and competitors, the practical effect is the same: Anthropic now has the financial firepower, and the disclosure obligations, of a major public technology company. Watch the public S-1 filing for the numbers that will set the tone for the rest of the AI IPO cycle.