Anthropic’s IPO prospectus is full of details that investors can get excited about — and worried about.
The company’s bulls applaud its 1,300% annual sales growth, 900% net revenue retention, and 85% implied gross margin. But its supporters point to about $80 billion in half-yearly net losses, hundreds of billions of dollars in IT liabilities and more than 90 pages of risk factors.
On both sides, the numbers are staggering and put Anthropic in position to pursue what could be the largest initial stock offering in history. The IPO also pushes investors into uncharted territory as they race to value the first pure-play artificial intelligence company to go public at a time of rising interest rates and growing concerns about the extent of AI development.
Anthropic was valued in May at $965 billion and is reportedly seeking an IPO valuation of between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion, which would instantly make it one of the 10 most valuable U.S. technology companies.
“This is a generational moment, and we’ll look back a decade from now, and this was the biggest technological paradigm shift that will shape our lives like nothing else has,” Denny Fish, a portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors, told CNBC’s “The Exchange” on Monday. “The devil is in the details, and we don’t have all the details yet.”
Anthropic, founded in 2021 by a group of defected researchers OpenAIis best known for its Claude AI models and services sold through enterprise contracts and subscriptions.
In its highly anticipated prospectus released Monday, Anthropic said its enterprise customer base included more than 11,900 customers spending at least $100,000 in the prior year, more than 1,900 customers spending $1 million or more, and about 250 customers spending $10 million or more. In the first nine months of 2026, five clients accounted for around a quarter of its revenue.
“I think it’s really easy to lose sight of how early it is, and to see a company like Anthropic succeed so early in the journey is incredibly impressive,” Erica Brescia, managing director of Redpoint Ventures, told CNBC’s “The Exchange” on Monday.
“There is still an astronomical opportunity ahead for Anthropic,” said Brescia, whose firm is an investor in the company. “And I think it’s a really exciting opportunity for retail investors to get a piece and participate in this transformation outside of just buying chip stocks.”
For many investors focused on company fundamentals, Anthropic is a tough sell.
The company lost $80.7 billion in the first six months of this year, after reporting a loss of $12.9 billion over the same period in 2025, although most of that was due to changes in the fair value of convertible notes and derivative liabilities. Meanwhile, its compute commitments are skyrocketing as competition intensifies with lower-cost open models.
David Trainer, CEO of financial research firm New Constructs, describes Anthropic’s upcoming offering as “a huge scam on Wall Street.”
Trainer built a reputation on Wall Street as a notorious IPO bear. His company released a report last month claiming that Anthropic is “the most ridiculous IPO of 2026” and will be an “unprecedented test of investor credulity.”
After reviewing the prospectus, Trainer told CNBC in an interview Tuesday that his position has not changed. He said AI would be a “great tool for society” but not so much for businesses, and he worries about Anthropic’s competitive position, its “opaque” schedule of insider sales and the fact that its liabilities and debts dwarf its cash flow.
“All these people have stakes in Anthropic. They want to be able to cash them out,” Trainer said. “Having lived through the tech bubble, having lived through the great financial crisis, having been on Wall Street during that time, having seen how sausage is made, it’s like a slow train wreck to me.”
Roger McNamee, an early investor in Google and Facebook, told CNBC on Tuesday that Anthropic’s IPO was “a very dangerous thing for investors,” adding that the industry still had a lot to prove.
“We should consider this S-1 speculative fiction because it’s a great story, it’s a really great story, but it’s hundreds of pages long, and those hundreds of pages are not there to clarify the story,” McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners, told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “And from the comments I get on (X), a lot of people who disagree with me say, ‘I love this story,’ and I say, ‘Look, God bless, it’s your money.'”
Anthropic’s public filing brings it closer to its IPO, but there are still hurdles to clear to reach the starting line.
During its roadshow, the company will need to woo potential investors, gauge demand, price the IPO offering and allocate shares. Once all of this is completed, it will finally be listed on Nasdaq under the symbol “ANT”.
Investors will closely monitor every development and detail.
Gil Luria, chief executive of DA Davidson, said he wants to know a lot more before the company debuts. This includes the path to long-term profitability and, above all, valuation. He said in an interview Tuesday that if the IPO was priced right, it would probably go “very well.”
“We can talk about the risks, but right now, and based on what we know right now, Anthropic is still the leading AI company, and that’s pure play,” Luria said. “The IPO should therefore go well as investors will want to gain pure play exposure.”
WATCH: Tenacity’s Ben Narasin: Anthropic could value its IPO at nearly $2 trillion
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