Anthropic will put 5% of its shares into a new public benefit fund weeks before its planned IPO

Anthropic said on Sunday, Oct. 18, that it will commit 5% of its shares to a new Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, subject to stockholder approval, and said the stake could grow as the company's value climbs. The move sets aside a large slice of the Claude maker's equity for public purposes just weeks before its planned initial public offering.

What Anthropic is putting in

Under the plan, 5% of Anthropic's shares will be committed to the fund now. The board can then add another 2%, at its discretion, for every 50% increase in the company's value above a baseline that Anthropic has not yet disclosed. The fund will be set up as a wholly owned limited liability company rather than a 501(c)(3) charity, a choice the company said gives it room to move between different forms of giving. None of the Anthropic stock it holds may be used for lobbying or political giving, in the U.S. or abroad.

Anthropic did not put a dollar figure on the commitment. For scale, the company was valued at $965 billion after its $65 billion Series H round in May, and 5% of that valuation is roughly $48 billion.

What the fund is for

Anthropic said most of the work it does for its mission will stay inside the company, because that work also has commercial value. That includes AI safety and interpretability research, applied biomedical research, and discounted Claude access for nonprofits and scientific institutions.

The fund, Anthropic said, will have more flexibility and scale than that in-house work. It gave two examples of what that could mean: large donations to traditional nonprofits and direct distributions to specific populations. Its lead case was the effect of AI on jobs. AI "could also cause instability for many workers," the company wrote, adding that it has already committed $200 million to studying and addressing the problem and that "bolder approaches may be needed."

A fifth of the company set aside

The new fund sits on top of two older pledges. Anthropic's co-founders promised at its founding to donate 80% of their equity, and the company runs a program that matches stock employees pledge to give away; about half of its staff take part, Anthropic said. Counting the fund, roughly 20% of Anthropic's shares would be dedicated to the public good, before any extra shares added at future valuation milestones.

Anthropic pitched the escalating structure as a reversal of Silicon Valley pay practice. "It is common practice for tech companies to offer escalating compensation awards to their executives," the announcement said. "We are instead directing that equity to the public benefit."

Why it matters before the IPO

The timing puts the fund in front of IPO investors. Anthropic plans to file its offering documents publicly with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Oct. 26, launch its roadshow on Nov. 9 and price the deal the following week, IFR reported, citing a person familiar with the process. The same person said Anthropic is targeting a raise of up to $100 billion at a $2 trillion valuation.

Anthropic will go public as a public benefit corporation, a legal form that requires management to weigh broader interests alongside profit for shareholders. Under its draft IPO filing, as described in September reports by CNBC and TechCrunch, a single Class F share directed by a majority of the seven co-founders would carry 50.1% of the voting power on key matters, while the company's Long-Term Benefit Trust would elect four board directors.

The offering is already drawing pushback. New York City Comptroller Mark Levine wrote to Chief Executive Dario Amodei earlier this month asking the company to pause its IPO until it "fully and transparently addresses" concerns about AI safety, governance and the pace of development, according to IFR.

For buyers of the stock, the fund adds a large and potentially growing holder whose stated purpose is public benefit rather than financial return. Because the extra allocations are tied to increases in Anthropic's value, the fund's slice would grow in the same scenario public investors are betting on: a rising valuation.