Anthropic, maker of the Claude AI models, has filed a confidential draft S-1 with the SEC, and reports suggest an IPO could arrive as soon as next month. Public investors can't buy Anthropic shares yet, but Amazon and Alphabet already hold large stakes in the company and are booking gains from those investments.
Anthropic submitted a confidential draft S-1 prospectus to the Securities and Exchange Commission in June, and rumors point to an IPO as early as next month. Individual investors cannot buy Anthropic shares before that listing. However, two public companies already hold large stakes in the AI firm, and their shareholders are benefiting now.
Amazon's stake could be worth a quarter of Anthropic
Amazon made an early $8 billion investment in Anthropic, a company valued at over $74 billion as of Q1. In April, Amazon added another $5 billion, with a promise of $20 billion more if Anthropic hits certain commercial milestones. Given Anthropic's April valuation of $380 billion, Amazon's stake was likely worth about one-quarter of the company at the time.
That value likely grew further after Anthropic's Series H round pushed its valuation to $965 billion shortly after the April round, and Anthropic's value could rise again once it goes public, with a possible post-IPO market cap of over $1 trillion. Beyond the equity stake, Anthropic committed to spend more than $100 billion on Amazon Web Services over the next decade, including running its models on Amazon's custom Trainium AI chips. AWS growth reflects that AI spending: the segment's revenue grew 37% in the most recent quarter.
Alphabet committed up to $40 billion
Alphabet, Google's parent, committed up to $40 billion in Anthropic investments in April: a $10 billion upfront investment plus $30 billion contingent on performance milestones. Alphabet had also made more than $3 billion in earlier Anthropic investments.
Alphabet's own AI-driven cloud business shows a similar pattern. Google Cloud Platform revenue rose 82% to $24.8 billion in its most recent quarter, which management attributed largely to enterprise AI demand. Alphabet also apparently received $200 billion in commitments from Anthropic in support of GCP.
Both stakes are already paying off
Alphabet's second-quarter net income of $112.1 billion was the largest quarterly profit in company history, up 298% year over year, driven mostly by $98 billion in other income. Alphabet said: "primarily the result of net unrealized gains on our equity securities", a category that likely includes its Anthropic stake. Amazon was more specific about its own $53.4 billion in Q2 non-operating pre-tax other income, stating it came primarily from its investments in Anthropic.
Amazon, unlike Alphabet, named its Anthropic stake directly as the source of that gain.
Source: Motley Fool
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