Anthropic has delayed its initial public offering to November from an earlier target of October, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing multiple sources — a roughly one-month slip that would let the Claude developer court investors armed with a fresh set of quarterly results.
The move caps weeks of speculation about the timing of what is expected to be one of the largest listings in history, and it lands amid a roiling debate over AI safety that has put the company's own warnings about the technology at the center of its marketing to Wall Street. For more on the story, follow our ongoing AI business coverage.
Why November Makes Sense to Advisers
According to the Journal, some of Anthropic's advisers see an advantage in pushing the listing back to November because it would allow the company to present third-quarter results to investors before pricing the deal.
The company reportedly believes the earnings report could demonstrate that it is still delivering strong growth even after rival OpenAI unveiled its new AI model, Astra, earlier this month — a launch that raised questions about competitive pressure across the frontier. The IPO timetable could still change again depending on market conditions and investor demand, the Journal noted.
Anthropic had been tracking toward a mid-October launch, as reported earlier this month, with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs leading the deal. The new timeline pushes that back by roughly a month.
The Revenue Story Behind the Delay
The company's top line has been rising at a pace few public companies have ever matched. Anthropic's annualized revenue topped $65 billion as of late July, according to figures cited in the Journal's reporting — more than seven times the roughly $9 billion recorded at the end of last year.
Preliminary second-quarter revenue exceeded $11.5 billion, more than 14 times the $787 million posted a year earlier. And the trajectory is still climbing: annualized revenue could reach $100 billion to $120 billion by the end of this year, a projection The New York Times also reported, via Bloomberg, as Anthropic's annualized revenue expected to top $100 billion in 2026.
Those numbers explain why a one-month delay is a calculated bet rather than a retreat. Presenting a quarter of audited, explosive growth to institutional investors could solidify demand for a deal of this size.
A $2 Trillion Question
Expectations for the company's valuation have risen alongside the revenue. Anthropic was valued at $965 billion in a fundraising round in May. Ahead of the IPO, market estimates have floated a valuation of as much as $2 trillion, and some investors are using projected annualized revenue of more than $100 billion this year to justify that figure.
At that size, Anthropic's debut would rank among the largest IPOs ever, surpassing the roughly $86 billion mark that SpaceX set when it went public — a comparison Anthropic's bankers have themselves reportedly embraced.
Reuters: A New Model Before the Listing?
There may be one more variable in the pre-IPO playbook. Reuters reported late Thursday, citing sources, that Anthropic is considering releasing a new AI model ahead of its IPO — a launch that would showcase frontier capabilities to the market, though details of the model and its timing remain unclear.
Such a release would carry obvious risks of its own. The New York Times reported this week that Anthropic is pursuing its IPO despite its own safety warnings, and CEO Dario Amodei has said in recent weeks that advanced AI could pose safety risks and that the industry needs a more cautious approach to both the pace of development and the safeguards around it. Revealing a powerful new model weeks before asking the public to buy shares will test how convincingly the company can square that circle.
Wall Street's Waiting Game
The extra month has not calmed nerves so much as stretched them. The Information reported Thursday that Anthropic's IPO waiting game has put Wall Street on edge, with the deal's timing now the single biggest question hanging over technology banking desks. Barron's, for its part, argued this week that the listing will be "AI's next moment of crisis" — a sign of how much weight one offering is being asked to carry for the entire sector.
Investing.com, summarizing the Journal's reporting, framed the delay as coming "amid AI fears" — a reference to the cluster of safety incidents and warnings that have dominated headlines this summer. Anthropic has simultaneously been announcing safety initiatives, including a partnership with Accenture to embed outside evaluators in its development process, even as it races toward a public offering.
What the Money Is Built On
Longer-horizon projections underpin the valuation chatter. Forecasts circulated ahead of the listing have pointed to $190-200 billion of revenue by 2028 — numbers Anthropic's bankers have used to anchor discussions about a $2 trillion market debut. The company is also expected to report a second consecutive profitable quarter, per earlier reporting this month, a detail that distinguishes it from rivals still burning cash.
Whether those projections survive contact with a quarterly report — and with an OpenAI counteroffensive — is precisely what the November date is designed to reveal. Investors, for now, appear willing to wait to find out.
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