Anthropic advances toward IPO as Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan schedule investor meetings

Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, during the company's Builder Summit in Bengaluru, India, Feb. 16, 2026. Samyukta Lakshmi | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Anthropic is scheduling meetings with investors ahead of a potential initial public offering later this year, a person with knowledge of the plans told CNBC.

Bankers leading the offering are arranging meetings between prospective investors and executives of the artificial intelligence firm behind the popular Claude models, said the person, who declined to be identified speaking about the process.

Key Developments

• Investor meetings underway: The meetings suggest Anthropic's IPO preparations are advancing, as bankers begin sounding out investor demand before a formal roadshow and eventual share sale.
• Confidential filing: Anthropic confidentially filed its IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month but has not disclosed when it plans to debut.
• Potential timeline: The AI startup could hit public markets as soon as October, though timing may change, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the investor meetings. An Anthropic spokesperson declined to comment.

Market Context

An Anthropic listing would build on momentum from June's massive SpaceX IPO and further open public markets to companies at the center of the AI boom. It follows years in which the industry's biggest names remained private while raising hundreds of billions of dollars from investors.

Anthropic appears poised to beat rival OpenAI to public markets, which could be an advantage if AI enthusiasm later wanes. OpenAI also confidentially filed for an IPO with the SEC in June but has not disclosed additional details.

Company Background

• Founded: 2021 by a group of executives and researchers who defected from OpenAI over concerns about the company's direction.
• Enterprise success: Anthropic has found early success selling to enterprises, largely due to its popular coding assistant, Claude Code.
• Valuation: The company closed a $65 billion funding round at a $965 billion valuation in May, surpassing OpenAI's $852 billion valuation for the first time.

Banking Involvement

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase — Wall Street's three biggest banks by revenue — are involved in the IPO planning.

The AI spending boom has fueled a resurgence in profit for Wall Street firms as they seek to satisfy investors clamoring for ways to fund the buildout and invest in or hedge aspects of the theme.

— CNBC's Kate Rooney contributed to this report.

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