Anthropic Puts Finishing Touches on IPO Machinery as Citigroup Joins Banker Lineup

Anthropic speeds toward a record IPO with Citi added to underwriters, $65B revenue run rate, and a potential $2T valuation.

The artificial intelligence company behind the Claude chatbot family is assembling every piece of its public-market debut with unusual speed, adding Citigroup to an underwriting syndicate that already reads like a who's who of Wall Street's elite. The move, reported by Bloomberg, brings Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan together with Citi ahead of a filing that could land publicly as soon as late August.

Citigroup is no stranger to Anthropic's balance sheet. The bank was part of the lending group that extended the company a $2.5 billion credit facility, which reports now suggest is being expanded to more than $10 billion — a clear signal of the capital firepower Anthropic is marshaling in the run-up to its listing.

A Valuation Race Toward $2 Trillion

The numbers swirling around this IPO are staggering by any measure. Anthropic closed its Series H round in May, raising $65 billion at a valuation of $965 billion — already ahead of rival OpenAI's then-$852 billion mark. Investors close to the company now anticipate a valuation north of $2 trillion when shares begin trading this autumn, according to the Financial Times, though CFO Krishna Rao has reportedly declined to pin down a specific figure in investor conversations.

That optimism rests on growth that borders on the unprecedented. Quarterly revenue came in at more than $11.5 billion, against just $787 million in the same period a year earlier. The annualized run rate hit roughly $65 billion by the end of July. Perhaps more striking: Anthropic has already flipped to operating profitability, posting an adjusted operating profit of $559 million in the second quarter — a sharp contrast with OpenAI, which recorded a $12.3 billion operating loss over the same stretch.

The bottom line, however, tells a more complicated story. For the full year 2025, Anthropic still reported a net loss of approximately $42 billion, up from $8.3 billion the prior year — a reminder of just how capital-intensive the infrastructure buildout remains even as the core business turns profitable.

Chasing the Biggest IPO Ever

The company has already submitted a confidential S-1 filing with the SEC, and the stated ambition is nothing less than breaking the record for the largest initial public offering in history. The current benchmark belongs to SpaceX, which raised roughly $86.2 billion including the overallotment option, though some reports cite the $75 billion base figure.

A Nasdaq listing is considered possible as early as October. Governance plans include a dual-class share structure that would hand CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei — who holds around 2 percent of the company — super-voting rights, alongside a "Long-Term Benefit Trust" designed to keep board control largely insulated from public shareholders.

Beyond the Capital Raise

Anthropic's pre-IPO maneuvering extends well beyond bankers and filings. The company has locked in long-term commercial commitments, including a $9 billion deal with Riot Platforms spanning two decades and a $200 billion agreement with Google signed in May. The search giant holds a 14 percent stake in Anthropic but no voting rights.

On the product front, the company released Claude Opus 4.8, a model that promises a fourfold reduction in coding error rates and supports dynamic workflows with up to 100 sub-agents. Its enterprise joint venture "Ode," launched in May, announced the acquisition of AI consulting firm Casper Studios — a deal aimed at accelerating Claude's integration into corporate operations. Casper has already built automation tools for clients like Sphera that cut process bottlenecks by 70 percent.

Anthropic's share of the enterprise large language model market currently stands at 32 percent, according to media reports.

The autumn calendar is shaping up to be a crowded one for mega-cap tech listings, with OpenAI reportedly having filed confidentially as well and SpaceX also in the mix. Anthropic, though, appears determined to claim the top spot — and with the banker lineup now complete, the pieces are falling into place.