AI Startup Anthropic Reportedly Eyes October IPO at $380 Billion Valuation

Anthropic, developer of the prominent Claude AI model, has seen its secondary-market valuation surge 550% this year to $1.2 trillion, overtaking OpenAI and drawing intense market attention. With demand for its shares far outstripping supply, the frenzy has reportedly prompted some investors to sell their homes to buy stock and fueled gray-market trading, forcing the company to issue a warning. The activity underscores the powerful pull that leading AI unicorns exert on capital amid the global artificial intelligence boom.

Bloomberg reported that Anthropic could go public as early as October this year. Three major investment banks are actively arranging meetings between investors and the company's senior executives, while an investor meeting is reportedly set to take place soon. The developments suggest that the company's listing plan, with a valuation closing in on $1 trillion, has entered its final stages. The market is closely watching whether Anthropic can complete the listing in October.

OpenAI is evaluating an initial public offering, but Chief Executive Sam Altman reportedly insists the company must be valued at $1 trillion, an unusually high threshold for the technology sector. The enormous cost of training generative AI models, computing infrastructure and data centers means the timing of the listing will shape investor assessments of AI valuations and the industry’s ability to sustain funding.

The latest reports indicate that OpenAI, facing its valuation demand and continued heavy cash burn, is leaning toward delaying its IPO until 2027. Rival Anthropic has filed for a listing and could go public as early as 2026, potentially establishing the first pricing benchmark for AI companies. The White House is also stepping up its review of OpenAI’s next-generation GPT-5.6 model, adding regulatory uncertainty.

Anthropic was founded by former OpenAI researchers in 2021 and is best known for Claude. Continued funding and cloud-computing support from Google and Amazon underscore the chips, data centers and vast amounts of capital needed to train frontier models. That backing has also made Anthropic a major competitor in the generative AI market.

As of July 2026, reports said Anthropic had completed a $65 billion Series H funding round at a post-money valuation of $965 billion, higher than OpenAI's. Samsung, SK hynix and Micron participated as strategic investors. The new capital will fund model development and computing infrastructure, with Anthropic's valuation closing in on $1 trillion.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees and has expanded into the enterprise AI market through Claude and the Claude Code development tool. DeepSeek is backed by Chinese quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer and had not previously raised outside capital. The simultaneous surge in their valuations shows that U.S.-China competition in frontier models has expanded from technology into capital and enterprise customers, though secondary-market quotes are not the same as formal fundraising valuations.

Forge Global data on April 23, 2026, showed an implied secondary-market valuation of about $1 trillion for Anthropic, above OpenAI's $880 billion. The relevant quote rose further to $1.2 trillion on July 10. Claude Code's annualized revenue was estimated at $8 billion in May. DeepSeek began talks in April for its first external funding round since its founding, seeking to raise at least $300 million at a target valuation of more than $10 billion.

U.S. artificial intelligence company Anthropic competes with OpenAI and Google for enterprise customers and developers through its Claude family of models. Its valuation could reportedly reach $800 billion, double its previous level. If realized, the valuation would underscore the generative AI investment boom and strengthen the company's position as it plans an initial public offering by the end of 2026.

Recent reports said Anthropic was in talks for a new funding round that could lift its valuation to $800 billion. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also publicly praised the newly launched Mythos model, highlighting its coding and safety capabilities. He said such technology could help the United States maintain its lead over China in the AI race.

Founded by former OpenAI researchers in 2021, Anthropic focuses on its Claude models and enterprise AI. Claude Code has brought generative AI into software development and become a major revenue driver. The company’s refusal to allow its AI to be used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons has put it at odds with the U.S. Department of Defense, with implications for government procurement and AI safety rules.

A March 3, 2026 report showed Anthropic’s annualized revenue had surpassed $19 billion, more than double the $9 billion recorded at the end of 2025 and up from about $14 billion just weeks earlier. The company completed a $30 billion Series G funding round on February 12 at a post-money valuation of $380 billion. The Pentagon formally designated Anthropic a supply-chain risk on March 5, but Claude added more than 1 million users per day that week.