Investors Balk at Anthropic’s $1.5 Trillion IPO Price as AI Sell-Off Bites

Anthropic’s blockbuster stock market debut is running into trouble before it has even begun. Investors being asked to buy into the maker of the Claude chatbot are pushing back on a proposed valuation of about $1.5 trillion, arguing the price is too high after a bruising sell-off in artificial intelligence shares.

The Wall Street Journal reported that at least three major investors planning to take part in the offering believe Anthropic will probably have to lower its valuation, with one suggesting a figure closer to $1 trillion. Reuters, citing people familiar with the talks, reported that potential buyers want a more attractive price before committing, and some doubt the company can start its investor roadshow early enough to list in November. Anthropic declined to comment.

It is a sharp comedown for what was set to be one of the largest technology listings in history. Only weeks ago, talk in the market had put the company’s value nearer $2 trillion.

A valuation under pressure

Anthropic, founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, has grown at extraordinary speed. Its amended stock market filing showed third-quarter revenue of about $17 billion, and its annualised revenue run rate topped $80 billion at the end of October, according to reports on the filing.

Yet that growth has not settled the argument over what the business is worth. At $1.5 trillion, the valuation would amount to roughly 19 times the annualised revenue run rate — a multiple investors are now questioning after the market turned against AI shares.

The company had been expected to seek as much as $100 billion from the offering. The Wall Street Journal reported that figure could now fall to about $80 billion. The roadshow — the round of presentations to fund managers that precedes pricing — was expected to begin in the week of 9 November, with pricing the following week, Reuters previously reported.

The $895 billion compute bill

At the heart of investors’ caution is the sheer scale of Anthropic’s spending commitments. The filing revealed the company has committed about $895 billion to computing power, chips and other infrastructure needed to develop and run its models, up from $750 billion in an earlier draft.

That bill has become the central question in the listing: whether near-term revenue, however fast-growing, can justify spending of that magnitude. Michael Burry, the investor known for his bets against the US housing market before the 2008 financial crisis, has expressed reservations about taking part in the offering, according to reports.

The company’s last official valuation was $965 billion, set in late May in a $65 billion funding round led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia. The shares are expected to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT, according to reports.

A market that has turned

The timing could hardly be worse. The Nasdaq plunged 5.5% on Thursday into correction territory as investors dumped AI shares, wiping out the post-midterm rally. Anthropic’s debut was meant to ride the AI boom; instead, it is arriving just as the market asks harder questions about how much AI exposure it wants to hold.

The chill is spreading across the sector. OpenAI, Anthropic’s great rival, has already cut its own fundraising target as investors turn cautious, and it raised $11 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation in a round that fell short of its ambitions.

What happens next

None of this means the listing is off. No delay or cancellation has been confirmed, and no official price range has been published. What has shifted is the balance of negotiating power: with the roadshow not yet under way and the calendar working against a November debut, buyers have leverage to argue for a lower price — and Anthropic’s bankers have a narrowing window to close the deal.

For now, the $1.5 trillion figure is an aspiration investors are actively pushing back on, not a price anyone can trade against. The number that matters is the one at which funds will sign their orders, and that will only emerge once the roadshow begins.