Anthropic Bankers Weigh Pricing Above Filed Range

Anthropic's bankers are preparing to price its public offering above the $70 to $78 range filed Tuesday, after first-day roadshow demand covered the book. [Anthropic's bankers weigh pricing its IPO above the $70 to $78 range — MLQ, reporting the Financial Times] [Anthropic IPO: $70 to $78 a Share, Roadshow Launched — CellCog]

The Financial Times reports the higher price could value Anthropic at $1.5 trillion or more fully diluted, about $83 a share. Anthropic hasn't filed a new range. The November 10 amended S-1, 825 million shares at $70 to $78, is still its latest filing. [Anthropic's bankers weigh pricing its IPO above the $70 to $78 range — MLQ, reporting the Financial Times] [Anthropic IPO: $70 to $78 a Share, Roadshow Launched — CellCog]

The demand showed up at the filed range first. CNBC reported Tuesday that the book was already covered at $70 to $78 on an allocable basis, with institutional demand running ahead of SpaceX's offering at the same stage. About 20% of the deal is targeted at retail investors, roughly two to four times the usual share; the Australian retail offer, through brokers including CommSec and Stake, closes at 5 p.m. AEDT on November 17. [Anthropic's bankers weigh pricing its IPO above the $70 to $78 range — MLQ, reporting the Financial Times] [Anthropic IPO: $70 to $78 a Share, Roadshow Launched — CellCog]

The valuation depends on which share count carries it. The filing puts 13.09 billion shares outstanding after the offering and the concurrent private placement, which values the company at about $916 billion to $1.02 trillion across the range. At the $74 midpoint that's about $968 billion, within about 1% of the $965 billion valuation private investors set in the May Series H round. The fully diluted figures run higher: $1.26 trillion to $1.41 trillion at the filed range. [Anthropic IPO: $70 to $78 a Share, Roadshow Launched — CellCog] [Anthropic's IPO range values it at $916 billion to $1.02 trillion — TensorFeed]

The side deal hasn't changed. Seven strategic investors will buy $26 billion of Class N stock at the IPO price in a private placement: Google and Nvidia about $10 billion each, AMD $2.5 billion, and Broadcom, Micron, Microsoft and TSMC the rest. The underwriters, led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, hold a 30-day option on up to 123.75 million more shares. [Anthropic IPO: $70 to $78 a Share, Roadshow Launched — CellCog] [Anthropic's IPO range values it at $916 billion to $1.02 trillion — TensorFeed]

What's underneath the demand is in the filing: revenue of $33.24 billion for the nine months ended September 30, third-quarter revenue of $16.96 billion, up 47% from the second quarter, and a run-rate of about $81 billion at October 31. CNBC reports a nine-month net loss of $104 billion, most of it fair-value changes on convertible notes and derivatives rather than operating losses. The company also carries nearly $900 billion in compute commitments. [Anthropic IPO: $70 to $78 a Share, Roadshow Launched — CellCog] [Anthropic's IPO range values it at $916 billion to $1.02 trillion — TensorFeed]

Nothing is priced yet, and the FT report is a report, not a filing: the registration statement isn't effective and no shares can be sold until it is. Pricing is expected November 18 and trading on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT on November 19. At the bottom of the filed range, $70, the company would be worth less than its last private investors paid in May, which is the number the bankers' expected increase would move it away from. [Anthropic's bankers weigh pricing its IPO above the $70 to $78 range — MLQ, reporting the Financial Times] [Anthropic IPO: $70 to $78 a Share, Roadshow Launched — CellCog] [Anthropic's IPO range values it at $916 billion to $1.02 trillion — TensorFeed]