Nov 10 (Reuters) - Anthropic launched the roadshow for its hotly anticipated US initial public offering on Tuesday, bringing the Claude maker a step closer to a landmark debut that is set to test investor appetite for the rapidly growing AI industry.
The listing would represent what is expected to be one of the largest debuts ever attempted, potentially reshaping benchmark indexes, investor flows and the broader narrative driving US equities.
A GLANCE AT WORLD'S BIGGEST IPOs
The biggest IPOs globally, ranked by deal size:
ANTHROPIC
AI lab Anthropic and some of its existing shareholders are seeking to raise up to $64.4 billion in its US IPO at a valuation of about $1 trillion, offering 825 million shares priced between $70 and $78 apiece.
Anthropic has also lined up $26 billion in investments from some of the world's biggest technology companies alongside its IPO, underscoring the increasingly intertwined financial ties underpinning the AI boom.
Alphabet's Google, Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, Broadcom, Micron Technology, Microsoft and TSMC have agreed to participate in the private placement at the IPO price.
Details of Anthropic’s blockbuster IPO were briefly circulated to banks before being retracted late on Monday, according to emails seen by Reuters.
Investors had previously discussed a valuation of as much as $2 trillion for Anthropic, but expectations have since come down, with the $1.5 trillion figure viewed as the high end of the range, Reuters previously reported.
The IPO has already been pushed back from earlier plans, with Reuters previously reporting that marketing was expected to begin in mid-October at the earliest.
Reuters had previously reported a series of exclusives that offered an early peek at Anthropic's business, including details of its financial performance, growth trajectory and IPO plans.
Anthropic, founded in 2021 by a team of researchers who left OpenAI after disagreements over governance and AI safety, raised $65 billion at a post-money valuation of $965 billion in late May.
OPENAI
OpenAI, which operates AI chatbot ChatGPT, revealed in June that it had confidentially filed for a US IPO.
The company will not go public in 2026, CEO Sam Altman had said in September, citing safety concerns over artificial intelligence that render "unacceptable" even a 10% risk that AI could cause human extinction by decade's end.
OpenAI President Greg Brockman last week said the company now generates the majority of its revenue from enterprise sales and he believes it will be ready to go public in 2027.
The company has been racing to ramp up fundraising, Reuters has reported, in order to capitalize on its recent growth after delaying its IPO plans.
OpenAI has closed on new funding of $11 billion, the initial part of a round that values the company at $1.25 trillion, Reuters reported last week.
In May, OpenAI fended off an existential court challenge from Elon Musk, simplifying the path for it to proceed with a stock market listing.
"We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it's a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best," OpenAI had said in June.
SPACEX
Elon Musk's rocket and satellite maker SpaceX made its historic stock market debut on the Nasdaq in June, shattering records and eclipsing Saudi Aramco's 2019 listing by a wide margin to become the largest IPO ever.
The IPO upended traditions with its record $75 billion listing, breaking away from the normal IPO process by setting the price before meetings with investors at a roadshow, which Wall Street always uses to test demand and set a price range.
At $75 billion, the IPO's proceeds were more than double those of Saudi Aramco's record-setting 2019 IPO.
SpaceX shares ended their first day of trading at $160.95 per share to bring its value to $2.1 trillion. The stock has since lost some of its momentum and closed at $142.07 on November 9, compared with its $135 IPO price.
(Compiled by Arasu Kannagi Basil and Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur, Shilpi Majumdar and Maju Samuel)