Anthropic weighs setting aside up to 20% of IPO shares for retail as Warren demands answers
A single report from The Next Web, citing Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, describes retail plans and a senator's letter on the AI company's filing.
Anthropic is weighing setting aside 15% to 20% of the shares in its initial public offering for retail investors, according to The Next Web, citing people familiar with the matter who spoke to Bloomberg on Wednesday, 28 October. Those people said JPMorgan will lead the US retail offering. The Next Web said it had not independently verified the report.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has also told the company to answer four pages of questions about its IPO filing by 3 November. The Next Web, citing The Wall Street Journal, which saw a copy of the letter, reported that the Massachusetts Democrat sent it to chief executive Dario Amodei on Tuesday.
Warren asked how Anthropic can ensure its technology will not become an existential threat to humanity. She also asked about its ties to Amazon and Broadcom, and how it will justify a valuation that could approach $2tn. The risks "demand greater scrutiny before they become intertwined with the public capital markets," Warren wrote, according to the Journal. Anthropic did not immediately respond to the Journal.
The size of the retail share could affect how the deal is priced. The Next Web cited an analyst quoted by Business Insider:
“Individual money is less sensitive to price, and a book that leans on it lets the banks price the deal higher than institutions alone would support.”Harrison Rolfes, senior research analyst, PitchBook
For comparison, SpaceX set aside about 20% for retail investors at its June listing after first planning 30%, according to Business Insider's reporting as cited by The Next Web.
The filing itself raises some of the same concerns as Warren. It says sufficiently advanced AI systems "could, if not developed, deployed, and operated with appropriate safeguards, oversight, and security measures, pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity." It also notes that proposed US laws contemplate the nationalisation or mandatory shutdown of frontier AI systems.
On finances, The Next Web reported first-half revenue of $16.3bn against cost of revenue of $2.38bn. That is a gross margin of about 85%, a figure that does not include training. Total compute spending was $8.95bn. The filing warns: "We do not expect our revenue will continue to grow at comparable rates, and we cannot assure you that it will continue to grow at all."
A lot is still unknown. The S-1 prospectus only says the banks may set aside shares for their online brokerage customers, so the retail allocation has not been confirmed in the filing. The third-quarter figures in the document are blank. So is the total for its compute commitments, although the company has signed deals with about $245bn in minimum payments since 30 June. How Anthropic will respond to Warren's questions has not been reported.
