Anthropic's Own Buyers Say $1.5 Trillion Won't Clear

Three major investors planning to buy into Anthropic's initial public offering told the Wall Street Journal the discussed $1.5 trillion valuation will likely have to come down.

The pushback arrived on two tracks at once. Reuters reported that potential investors doubt Anthropic can even start its roadshow on time, while the Journal's buyers attacked the price itself.

Anthropic declined to comment on the doubts. It has never committed to a definitive valuation, offering size or timetable - the flexibility its advisers now need.

The price ladder is sliding

A year of rising talk has reversed in a week. Earlier this year the offering was expected as early as October at a valuation as high as $2 trillion, according to Reuters.

By mid-October, investor discussion centered near $1.5 trillion. On Friday, Bloomberg reported that some prospective buyers are discussing $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion instead.

The Journal's three investors went further: one suggested the valuation could land closer to $1 trillion, just above the $965 billion post-money valuation set by May's $65 billion Series H funding round.

A smaller deal is the other lever. One investor told the Journal the company could raise about $80 billion instead of as much as $100 billion, and hoped it would still hold well over $200 billion on its balance sheet after the offering.

The calendar is part of the negotiation now

The roadshow - the investor meetings that set an offering's price - was initially expected to start the week of November 9, with pricing the following week. The offering itself was aimed at the week of November 16, just before Thanksgiving.

Four people familiar with investor discussions told Reuters the timetable itself is now in doubt: investors question whether the roadshow can start next week and still deliver a November listing. Anthropic's executives and advisers are expected to gather within days to decide.

The trigger was Thursday's rout, when companies in the Nasdaq Composite lost $2.5 trillion in market value as investors pulled back from AI bets, according to AFP. Reuters called it the sharpest technology selloff in a year.

Why buyers want a bigger discount

Reuters' sources pointed to the company's need for capital: a record of quarterly losses and the large commitments it has made to partners building AI infrastructure. The filing quantifies both.

Anthropic's amended registration statement, filed November 2, shows an operating loss of $567 million for the third quarter, after a $974 million operating profit in the second. It also carries about $895.4 billion of committed spending, substantially all of it for compute and infrastructure.

Buyers are also waiting on a number Anthropic has not yet given them. The amended filing leaves its October run-rate revenue - an annualized pace, not reported revenue - blank, and two of Reuters' sources called the missing figure key to judging whether growth has re-accelerated.

Third-quarter revenue was $16.96 billion. Revenue rose about 47% from the second quarter, by TickerGrove's calculation from the filing's quarterly table, after rising 144% the quarter before - the deceleration at the core of the buyers' case.

The counterweights are real

Anthropic is not negotiating from weakness on every line. By the Journal's account, its revenue was running at an annualized pace above $80 billion when October ended, and the pace had risen from the month before.

The Journal also reported $146.6 billion in cash at September 30. The filing itself shows $95.6 billion in cash and cash equivalents plus $36.3 billion in short-term investments at that date - different framings, not the same measure.

Nor is every signal negative. International Financing Review, the new-issues publication, headlined on Friday that the $100 billion offering is still on track, and Reuters noted that some analysts expect strong retail demand, as SpaceX drew before it.

SpaceX's June offering raised $86 billion, the record an Anthropic offering at the discussed size would surpass. 'Valuations have risen for a long time in the private market, and we'll probably see some pullback,' said Rick Meckler, a partner at Cherry Lane Investments, in Reuters' reporting.

What remains unknown

Whether Anthropic lowers the price, shrinks the offering, delays it, or proceeds as planned is undecided in any public record. No amended filing with a price range exists, and the company has announced no change to its timetable.

Prediction markets have marked the calendar, not the company. Polymarket traders put the odds of a listing by November 20 at 43% on Friday and 71% by the end of the year, while Kalshi's odds of an official confirmation before December 1 fell 15 points to 59% - bets, not evidence.

The next seven days decide it

What to watch: whether the roadshow actually launches in the week of November 9; what the executives-and-advisers gathering produces; and the next amended filing, which would test every claim in this story if it fills in the October run-rate figure and a price range.