Anthropic, the San Francisco-based AI powerhouse behind the Claude family of large language models, has quietly taken a major step toward going public by retaining Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati - the prestigious Silicon Valley law firm that guided landmark tech IPOs for companies like Google in 2004, LinkedIn in 2011, and Lyft in 2019 - to handle preparatory work for a potential initial public offering as early as 2026.
The move comes amid explosive growth for the four-year-old startup, which has seen its annualized revenue run rate surge from around $1 billion at the start of 2025 to over $5 billion by mid-year, with internal projections targeting $9 billion by year-end and a base case of more than $20 billion - potentially up to $26 billion - in 2026.
Much of this momentum stems from enterprise adoption of Claude, particularly its standout performance in coding tasks via the Claude Code product, as well as deep integrations with partners like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.
Simultaneously, Anthropic is in advanced talks for another massive private funding round that could push its valuation beyond $300 billion, building on the $183 billion post-money mark it achieved in September 2025 after raising $13 billion in a Series F led by ICONIQ, Fidelity, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Recent commitments from Microsoft and Nvidia totaling up to $15 billion, paired with Anthropic's pledge to spend $30 billion on Microsoft's Azure cloud infrastructure over the coming years, underscore the capital-intensive nature of frontier AI development.
Investors close to the company emphasize the strategic urgency of being first to market among the leading AI labs. With public investors still digesting the massive capital requirements and ongoing losses typical of scaling cutting-edge models, there's concern that the market may not have appetite for two multi-hundred-billion-dollar AI IPOs in quick succession. Rival OpenAI, currently valued at around $500 billion following an October 2025 secondary share sale involving SoftBank and others, is also laying groundwork for an eventual listing - potentially in the second half of 2026 or later - though its CFO has downplayed near-term plans.
Anthropic has been methodically building public-company readiness from within. Last year, it brought on Krishna Rao, Airbnb's former head of corporate finance who helped steer that company's 2020 IPO, as its chief financial officer. The startup is reportedly working through an extensive internal checklist covering governance, accounting standards, and disclosure practices that align with SEC expectations.
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Officially, Anthropic remains circumspect, with a spokesperson noting that companies at its scale and revenue level routinely operate with public-company levels of transparency, while stressing that no final decisions have been made on timing or even whether to proceed with an IPO.
This cautious stance is standard in the pre-filing phase: meaningful details typically remain under wraps until the confidential submission of Form S-1 to the SEC, after which amendments and potential withdrawals are still possible.
Only when the prospectus is publicly released does the process become irreversible, usually followed by a roadshow and pricing within weeks.
If Anthropic does pull the trigger in 2026, it would mark one of the largest tech debuts ever, offering public investors direct exposure to a pure-play AI leader focused on safety-aligned systems. For now, the engagement of Wilson Sonsini sends a clear signal: in the high-stakes race to define the future of artificial general intelligence, Anthropic is positioning itself to access the deepest pools of capital first.
