Anthropic heads for lower than expected $1.3 trillion valuation in stock market debut

Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude chatbot, is planning to raise up to $64bn (£48bn) when it lists its shares for sale on New York's Nasdaq stock exchange.

The loss-making company said it will offer its shares for between $70 and $78 each in its initial public offering (IPO), which is expected to go ahead this month.

This would value Anthropic at between $1.1 trillion and $1.3 trillion which, although large, is below the $2 trillion some analysts had predicted weeks ago.

It is floating at a volatile time for AI firms.

After last week's US midterm elections, the Nasdaq fell sharply on concerns a Democrat-led Congress could slow development of AI and the buildout of data centres.

There are also wider fears over the billions of dollars being spent on AI and whether it will pay off.

In its most recent results for the six months to the end of June, Anthropic's revenues jumped to $16.2bn from $1.1bn in the same period last year.

However, its pre-tax loss jumped to $80.7bn from $12.9bn.

Fiona Cincotta, a senior market analyst at City Index, said $64bn Anthropic wants to raise is "fairly bullish" within "the volatility [and] concerns towards AI that we've seen in sort of particularly last week".

She told Reuters: "It's showing that they are still sort of upbeat about the outlook as far as AI is concerned and that obviously that they think that the demand is going to be there."

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