Anthropic's Chip and Cloud Suppliers to Buy $26 Billion of Its IPO Stock

Google, Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, Micron, Microsoft and TSMC have agreed to buy a combined $26 billion of Anthropic stock at whatever price its initial public offering settles on, according to an amended registration statement Anthropic filed with the SEC. The buyers are the same companies that sell Anthropic its chips and cloud capacity, and their commitments anchor what is shaping up to be one of the largest technology listings on record.

Anthropic launched its roadshow Tuesday. The company will offer 825 million Class A shares at $70 to $78 each, with 801,351,354 shares sold by the company and 23,648,646 by existing stockholders, it said. The stock will list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead a syndicate of 22 banks, and the underwriters hold a 30-day option on another 123.75 million shares.

CNBC, citing people familiar with the details, reported that Anthropic plans to price the deal on Nov. 18 and start trading Nov. 19. That timing would put the listing about five months after SpaceX's record $85.7 billion offering.

Who is putting in what?

The $26 billion side deal is a private placement of Class N shares, which carry no vote except where the law requires one. At the $74 midpoint of the range, the prospectus shows:

• Google and Nvidia would each buy about $10 billion worth of stock.
• AMD would buy about $2.5 billion.
• Broadcom, Micron and Microsoft would buy roughly $1 billion apiece.
• TSMC would buy around $500 million.

Those Class N shares will not be registered in the offering and are not bound by the underwriters' lock-up agreements. Some board members and affiliated entities have also indicated interest in buying up to $303 million of Class A stock in the IPO itself, though the company noted those indications are not binding.

Anthropic estimates net proceeds of about $84.6 billion from the IPO and the placement combined at the midpoint, or about $93.7 billion if the banks exercise their full option. The money goes to general corporate purposes, including compute, infrastructure and hiring. The company said it has no agreements for any material acquisitions.

How much say will public buyers have?

Very little. A single Class F share held by an LLC of the seven co-founders will carry 50.1% of the total stockholder vote, according to the filing. The Long-Term Benefit Trust elects directors who make up a majority of the board. Public investors will hold Class A shares while control stays with the founders and the trust, a structure that preserves Anthropic's stated governance priorities through the transition to public markets.

Is the valuation what investors expected?

No. At the top of the range, the offering would raise up to $64.35 billion, and Anthropic could be worth as much as $1.405 trillion on a fully diluted basis, CNBC calculated. That figure tops the $965 billion valuation from the company's funding round in May. It falls well short of earlier expectations. CNBC reported last week that Anthropic had been looking toward a $2 trillion valuation until recently, and that shareholders saw even $1.5 trillion as in doubt.

Counting only the roughly 13.1 billion Class A and Class N shares the filing says will be outstanding after the deal, the $78 top price works out to about $1.02 trillion. The gap between that figure and the fully diluted number turns on how outstanding shares are counted.

What is driving the revenue?

The prospectus calls Claude's uptake "the fastest enterprise adoption of any technology in history." Revenue went from zero at launch in the first quarter of 2023 to $17.0 billion in the September quarter. Run-rate revenue reached about $81 billion as of Oct. 31, up $10 billion in a single month.

That growth still comes at a cost. The September quarter produced a $567 million operating loss, which the company tied mostly to $5.0 billion of compute bought under short-term commitments and $2.0 billion of non-cash charges from its donation matching program.

The scale of that compute spending explains why the supplier placement matters. Every dollar Google, Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, Micron, Microsoft and TSMC commit to Class N shares deepens the financial relationship between Anthropic and the vendors it depends on for chips and cloud capacity. The suppliers become shareholders in their largest customer category, and Anthropic secures a capital base tied directly to its infrastructure buildout.

What happened just before the roadshow?

The roadshow started one day after Anthropic shipped Claude Fable 5.2 and Mythos 5.2, its latest model releases. The company filed its original S-1 in October, detailing the Nasdaq listing under ticker ANT, its customer base and the founder-vote structure.

The pieces now in place set up the largest test yet of public-market appetite for AI developers. Anthropic's revenue trajectory — from zero to an $81 billion run rate in under three years — is the number underwriters will lead with on Nov. 18. The $26 billion in supplier commitments means much of the deal is effectively pre-sold before retail investors see a single share trade on Nov. 19.

What comes next?

Pricing lands Nov. 18, trading begins Nov. 19, and the underwriters hold a 30-day option on 123.75 million additional shares that could lift net proceeds to roughly $93.7 billion. Whether the stock holds a $1 trillion-plus valuation after the first day of trading will signal how much of Anthropic's growth public investors believe is already priced in at $78.