Anthropic IPO: WSJ says listing goes ahead, valuation in doubt

Anthropic is pressing ahead with its initial public offering, according to the Wall Street Journal, as relayed by TechCrunch on 9 November 2026. The developer of Claude plans to set a valuation range this week and to begin trading on a Thursday or Friday next week, the Journal reported. TechCrunch notes that the move comes shortly after one of the Nasdaq's biggest sell-offs, a moment when launching a major technology listing would seem risky.

An initial public offering, or IPO, is the first sale of a company's shares to the public on a stock exchange. The S-1 is the registration document a company files with US regulators to describe its finances and risks before selling shares, and the valuation range is the price band within which investors are invited to buy. CNBC states that Anthropic filed its S-1 exactly two weeks before Monday 9 November.

What has been reported so far

• Timing: a valuation range is to be set this week and trading could start on a Thursday or Friday next week, according to the Wall Street Journal, quoted by TechCrunch and CNBC.
• Investor meetings: Anthropic is expected to meet major investors this week, according to the Journal as relayed by CNBC.
• Valuation target: a figure of 1.5 trillion dollars was discussed as recently as last week, itself well below the 2 trillion dollars floated a few months ago, and some institutional investors now push for less, according to the Journal via TechCrunch.
• Low end: CNBC says the potential valuation has reportedly slipped from as much as 2 trillion dollars earlier this autumn to as low as 1 trillion dollars after last week's technology sell-off.

All of these figures come from people familiar with the matter quoted by the Wall Street Journal. None of them is a public announcement from Anthropic, and the final range, the number of shares and the amount to be raised have not been published in the articles we read.

Why the valuation is under pressure

According to TechCrunch, investors will look at Anthropic's valuation to gauge the strength of the AI boom. CNBC links the recent sell-off to concerns that a Democratic wave in the midterm elections will mean slower construction of new data centers, the facilities that house the chips used to train and run AI models.

The comparison with Anthropic's main rival is also unflattering. TechCrunch reports that OpenAI was valued at 1.25 trillion dollars last week after raising 11 billion dollars in fresh capital, short of the 20 billion dollars it had initially sought. A valuation is an agreement between buyers and sellers, so these numbers can still move before the first trade.

Jim Cramer: a test for the whole AI trade

On Monday, CNBC's Jim Cramer, host of Mad Money, said Anthropic's offering could be crucial to a recovery in AI stocks and that a disappointing debut could have ripple effects across the industry.

I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that this could be one of the most consequential IPOs in history.

His reasoning is financial. Billions of dollars are being spent on AI chips and data centers, and these investments ultimately depend on a handful of AI developers, Anthropic among them, earning enough revenue to justify them. He calls Anthropic one of the few companies at the end of the food chain that must ultimately make money from all this spending.

Cramer uses SpaceX as an example of how interconnected the trade has become. Much of the company's recent revenue growth comes from renting computing capacity, including to Google and Anthropic. According to Anthropic's IPO prospectus quoted by CNBC, Google pays roughly 900 million dollars a month, while Anthropic's commitment has grown from an initial 1.25 billion dollars a month to more than 3 billion. Alphabet, Amazon and Nvidia have also invested in Anthropic, which makes their earnings sensitive to its valuation. This is the opinion of a market commentator, not a forecast backed by results.

What is confirmed, and what is not

Documented by CNBC: the S-1 filing two weeks earlier, and the compute commitments drawn from the prospectus. Reported but unconfirmed: the calendar, the investor meetings and every valuation figure, all of which rest on anonymous sources cited by the Wall Street Journal. The two articles we read do not quote an Anthropic statement on the schedule.

A Korean outlet, AI Times, carries a headline saying that an IPO plan of about 93 trillion won was passed on and then withdrawn, and that a big-tech investment of about 35 trillion won is included. We could not read the body of that article, so we treat the claim as unverified and do not rely on it.

What it changes for companies

For businesses that build on Claude or sell to Anthropic, a listing would mean regular public financial reporting, and therefore a recurring view of revenue and compute commitments that is not available today. Until the range is published, valuation figures should be read as moving targets rather than facts. The dates to watch are the announcement of the price range this week and the possible first trade next week; a postponement remains possible, as nothing in the sources read rules it out.