Anthropic reveals plans for blockbuster IPO

Artificial intelligence giant Anthropic, the company behind the popular Claude chatbot, has filed papers to sell shares to the public for the first time.

The filing sets up the San Francisco company for a Wall Street debut next month in what could be the biggest ever initial public sale of stock.

This first look at financials shows a loss in the first six months of this year and that just two unnamed customers were responsible for nearly a quarter (23%) of all money customers owed.

No single customer represented more than 10% of revenue for the nine months up to September; the top five customers represented approximately 25% of revenue for the period, the company said.

Such concentration of revenue could fuel fears that AI spending is circular and is mostly from a handful of large companies.

Of the more than 400-page prospectus, 94 pages were dedicated to risk factors.

Huge sums

A massive 1,300% revenue growth was recorded in the six months to 30 June 2026, bringing in $16.3bn.

But this could mark a high point, with the company saying, "we cannot assure you [revenue] will continue to grow at all".

Existing customers spend roughly nine times what they did a year ago with net revenue retention at about 900%, the filing said.

Net loss widened sharply to $80.7bn.

However, almost all of that figure - $72.4bn - is down to an accounting charge caused by Anthropic's own valuation soaring.

The bulk of the remaining losses came from a near-$9bn outlay on computing power and infrastructure.

The operating loss was $693m.

What is Anthropic?

The AI company was founded by a brother and sister and five others who both worked at and left rival firm OpenAI.

It was in the headlines early this year over its refusal to allow the US Department of Defense to use its products in mass surveillance autonomous weapons systems that can kill people without human oversight.

The company was subsequently blacklisted by the Pentagon, which a court in September ruled was unlawful.

Under the documents published on Monday, all seven founders will retain a controlling 50.1% stake in the company; 5% is intended to go to a public benefit fund, with another 2% each time the shares rise 50%.

Each co-founder has also pledged to give 80% of their personal stake to charity.

(c) Sky News 2026: Anthropic reveals plans for blockbuster IPO