Anthropic said it confidentially filed its IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission, setting up a potentially historic share sale for investors ready to jump into artificial intelligence.
“This gives us the option to go public after the SEC completes its review,” Anthropic said in a statement on Monday. “The proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors.”
With its announcement, Anthropic is getting out ahead of rival OpenAI, which is readying its own confidential filing. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has officially filed its prospectus and is gearing up for a roadshow this week, with plans to debut next week.
Submitting a confidential prospectus doesn’t lock Anthropic into a certain timeframe for going public. Its official prospectus just has to land in the hands of investors at least 15 days before the company begins a roadshow. SpaceX submitted its confidential filing on April 1 and disclosed its public prospectus on May 20.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of executives and researchers who defected from OpenAI over concerns about the company’s direction. Anthropic is best known for its family of AI models called Claude, which power products like its popular coding assistant, Claude Code.
The company has experienced explosive growth this year, announcing in May that its revenue run rate has ballooned to $47 billion, up from $10 billion in annual revenue last year. Last week, it closed a funding round at a $965 billion valuation, topping OpenAI, which was valued at $852 billion in late March.
Anthropic captivated Wall Street and officials in Washington, D.C., this year by announcing a model called Claude Mythos Preview, which has advanced cybersecurity capabilities. The company released the model to a select group of companies as part of a cybersecurity initiative called Project Glasswing, and it’s been engaging in conversations with senior members of the Trump administration about its capabilities.
Mythos’ popularity came as a relief to some investors and executives, who worried that Anthropic’s growth would take a hit after a clash with the Department of Defense earlier this year. The company’s models were blacklisted by the Pentagon after negotiations between the two sides collapsed.
But while defense contractors dropped Anthropic to comply with the DOD’s order, the company’s growth in the private sector only accelerated, as more businesses adopted its models and AI coding tools. Anthropic also gained ground with consumers following the conflict, and Claude jumped to the No. 1 slot on Apple’s chart of top U.S. free apps in late February.
Anthropic sued the Trump administration to try and reverse its blacklisting, and that litigation is still ongoing. President Donald Trump told CNBC in April that a deal between Anthropic and the DOD is “possible.”
Anthropic’s surging growth has caused the company to ink a number of major infrastructure deals in recent months to increase its capacity. It struck an agreement with rival SpaceX last month to use available compute at its Colossus 1 data center in Memphis, Tennessee.
As part of the deal, Anthropic will pay SpaceX $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, according to SpaceX’s prospectus. The agreement can be terminated by either company with 90 days of notice.
WATCH: Anthropic raises $65B in latest funding round at $965B valuation
