Anthropic taps IPO lawyers as it races OpenAI to go public

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Anthropic has tapped law firm Wilson Sonsini to begin work on one of the largest initial public offerings ever, which could come as soon as 2026, as the artificial intelligence start-up races OpenAI to the public market.

The maker of the Claude chatbot, which is in talks for a private funding round that would value it at more than $300bn, chose the US west coast law firm in recent days, according to two people with knowledge of the decision.

The start-up, led by chief executive Dario Amodei, had also discussed a potential IPO with big investment banks, according to multiple people with knowledge of those talks. The people characterised the discussions as preliminary and informal, suggesting that the company was not close to picking its IPO underwriters.

Nonetheless, these moves represent a significant step up in Anthropic’s preparations for an IPO that would test the appetite of public markets to back the massive, lossmaking research labs at the heart of the AI boom.

Wilson Sonsini has advised Anthropic since 2022, including on multibillion-dollar investments from Amazon, and has worked on high-profile tech IPOs such as Google, LinkedIn and Lyft.

Its investors are enthusiastic about an IPO, arguing that Anthropic can seize the initiative from its larger rival OpenAI by listing first.

Anthropic could be prepared to list in 2026, according to one person with knowledge of its plans. Another person close to the company cautioned that an IPO so soon was unlikely.

“It’s fairly standard practice for companies operating at our scale and revenue level to effectively operate as if they are publicly traded companies,” said an Anthropic spokesperson. “We haven’t made any decisions about when or even whether to go public, and don’t have any news to share at this time.”

OpenAI was also undertaking preliminary work to ready itself for a public offering, according to people with knowledge of its plans, though they cautioned it was too soon to set even an approximate date for a listing.

But both companies may also be hampered by the fact that their rapid growth and the astronomical costs of training AI models make their financial performance difficult to forecast.

The pair will also be attempting IPOs at valuations that are unprecedented for US tech start-ups. OpenAI was valued at $500bn in October. Anthropic received a $15bn commitment from Microsoft and Nvidia last month, which will form part of a funding round expected to value the group between $300bn and $350bn.

Anthropic had been working through an internal checklist of changes required to go public, according to one person familiar with the process.

The San Francisco-headquartered start-up hired Krishna Rao, who worked at Airbnb for six years and was instrumental in that company’s IPO, as chief financial officer last year.

Wilson Sonsini did not respond to a request for comment.