Anthropic has filed the IPO that was rumored to be coming today.
An interesting bit of trivia is the ‘ant’ mythology. South Korean retail investors were dubbed ‘ants’ back in the 1980s, a put-down they eventually wore as a badge of honour. The term has gone global since COVID, and especially this year as the Kospi went parabolic. Separately, the people at Anthropic have long called themselves ‘Ants,’ a nod to the company name and its all-in culture. Now they’ve chosen ANT as their ticker, no doubt hoping for the kind of gains we saw in South Korean markets earlier this year.
As for the IPO, it’s going to be a complicated one with five classes of stock, with the ‘A’ shares to be public. The overall count includes 846 million shares of Class N stock pledged to a public benefit fund. Tha compares to 240.6 million shares for CEO Dario Amodei and slightly more for his sister Daniela, who is the President of the company.
In terms of the economics of the company and the industry, here are some notable snaps:
- Do not expect to pay an dividends in the foreseeable future
- Total debt was $6.2 bnillion as of June 30
- Intend to direct meaningful portion of our resources towards ensuring that frontier AI is safe and its benefits are broadly distributed
- For the year ended Sept 30, revenue from each of our top five customers reached a record high
- Believe existing cash and cash equivalents sufficient to support working capital and other requirements for at least the next 12 months
- About 250 customers with $10m or more in revenue on a TTM basis
- For year ending Sept 30, trailing 12 months revenue rose about 1200%
There is no word on when shares will begin trading but expect it to happen in November and to be huge, with a valuation in the $1.4-1.8 trillion range.
Update: The company is going to raise more than $100 billion at a valuation of $1.5-$2.0 trillion. The target date is November 16.
