Anthropic sticks to plan to go public in November despite the slump in AI stocks, FT says
According to investors interviewed by the Financial Times, in a piece published by Folha, Claude's maker is willing to accept a lower-than-expected valuation and is targeting $1.25 trillion to $1.75 trillion.
Translated from the Portuguese original by the Panorama newsroom. Read in Portuguese
Summary written by the Panorama newsroom from the sources listed below. Facts are attributed to the original publications.
Anthropic, the company that develops the Claude assistant, is going ahead with its plan to list on the stock market this month, before the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, despite the steep fall in technology stocks, according to a Financial Times report published by Folha de S.Paulo. According to investors interviewed, the company is willing to accept a valuation well below the $2 trillion hoped for by the most optimistic.
According to these accounts, the company intends to raise between $80 billion and $100 billion in the initial public offering (IPO), at a market value of between $1.25 trillion and $1.75 trillion. That range exceeds its current valuation of $965 billion but falls well short of what was projected a month ago.
The scaled-back expectations are part of a broader adjustment in the sector, driven by concerns over higher financing costs and AI companies' spending plans. According to the report, the Democrats' victory in the midterm elections, partly built on promises to make it harder to build data centers, accelerated the sell-off: on Thursday (5th), U.S. stock markets lost $3.2 trillion and the Nasdaq fell 6.4%. Rival OpenAI also cut the valuation it is seeking in its private funding round from $1.4 trillion to $1.25 trillion.
Anthropic's own figures give investors arguments. Third-quarter revenue grew almost 50%, to about $17 billion, and annualized revenue is now said to be around $81 billion, up from about $65 billion at the end of July, according to people familiar with the matter. The company plans to spend $900 billion on computing capacity and infrastructure in the coming years.
The company has almost $150 billion in cash and liquid investments and wants to raise enough money that it will never need to sell new stakes in the future, according to sources. Prediction markets began pointing to a greater chance of a delay, but, according to more than half a dozen investors, the plan still stands.