Anthropic IPO pricing pressured by OpenAI valuation and market shifts
Anthropic is targeting a listing the week of Thanksgiving, but its IPO price may be trimmed to $1.5 trillion as OpenAI's valuation approaches $1.25 trillion. Market share data shows conflicting trends, with OpenAI gaining corporate usage while Anthropic sees a surge in token volume following its latest model launch.
Anthropic has released its IPO prospectus, aiming for a listing during the week of Thanksgiving. Reports indicate that OpenAI's next fundraising round is approaching a $1.25 trillion valuation, a figure down from previous reports of $1.4 trillion and significantly below the $2 trillion target sought by some Anthropic investors. This valuation gap suggests Anthropic may reduce its IPO price to approximately $1.5 trillion. Market dynamics are shifting rapidly; The Information reported that OpenAI gained share from Anthropic, with Rippling's coding usage flipping from 57% Anthropic and 16% OpenAI in May to 52% OpenAI and 18% Anthropic. However, Open Router data presents a different picture, showing Anthropic's 7-day average token volume has increased 3.6x since the launch of Opus 5.5, which has captured 35.1% of token share and 34.4% of business spend. Rumors suggest Anthropic's new model, Fable 5.5, is already deployed for top customers including JPMorgan and Meta. Analysts speculate that OpenAI may strategically delay releasing a competing model to ensure Anthropic's IPO succeeds, thereby validating the AI market for its own future listing. One analyst noted that letting Anthropic have the definitive best model for a few weeks might be in OpenAI's interests.