Anthropic taps IPO lawyers as it races OpenAI to go public

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Anthropic has hired law firm Wilson Sonsini to begin work on one of its largest initial public offerings ever, which could come in 2026, as the artificial intelligence startup 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 $300 billion, chose the US West Coast law firm in recent days, according to two people familiar with the decision.

The startup, led by CEO Dario Amodei, has also discussed a potential IPO with major investment banks, according to several people familiar with those talks. The people described the discussions as preliminary and informal, suggesting the company was not close to selecting underwriters for the IPO.

Still, the moves represent an important step in Anthropic’s preparations for an initial public offering that would test the public markets’ appetite for propping up the huge loss-making research labs at the heart of the AI ​​boom.

Wilson Sonsini has been advising Anthropic since 2022, including on the commercial aspects of a multi-billion-dollar investment from Amazon, and has worked on high-profile technology IPOs such as Google, LinkedIn, and Lyft.

Its investors are excited about the IPO, arguing that Anthropic can wrest the initiative from larger rival OpenAI by listing first.

Anthropic could be ready to list in 2026, according to a person familiar with its plans. Another person close to the company cautioned that an IPO anytime soon is unlikely.

An Anthropic spokesperson said: “It is fairly standard practice for companies operating at our scale and level of revenue to operate effectively as if they were publicly traded companies.” “We have not made any decisions about when or even if it will go public, and we do not have any news to share at this time.”

OpenAI has also been doing preliminary work to prepare itself for a public offering, according to people familiar with its plans, though they cautioned that it was too early to give an approximate listing date.

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

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

Anthropic was working through an internal checklist of changes needed to go public, according to a person familiar with the process.

The San Francisco-headquartered startup named Krishna Rao, who worked at Airbnb for six years and was instrumental in that company’s IPO, as CFO last year.

Wilson Sonsini did not respond to a request for comment.