Anthropic, the developer of Claude, has postponed its Initial Public Offering (IPO) to November, one month later than many investors had predicted. The company was scheduled to debut on the stock exchange in October, an event that could have set new records.
Sources close to the matter informed The Wall Street Journal that some Anthropic consultants suggest that waiting until November will allow the company to present third-quarter financial reports demonstrating a robust competitive position, even after the launch of the new Astra model by rival OpenAI in September.
This change in schedule occurred before a public warning issued by a former Anthropic researcher, which sparked a debate about the rapid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) progress. However, those familiar with the planning indicate that the final date is still subject to change.
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Both consultants and current Anthropic investors maintain the conviction that a slowdown in AI development will not drastically impact the company's financial projections, given that it can still generate substantial revenue from its existing models.
Current investors project that Anthropic could achieve annualized revenue exceeding US$110 billion (equivalent to approximately R$583 billion) by the end of the year.
On Thursday the 17th, the focus of the company's meeting with some of its early partners and investors, held at Anthropic's headquarters, was not the IPO. Executives such as Jared Kaplan, Benjamin Mann, and Andrej Karpathy discussed the company's recent products, including the Model Hardware Standard, a tool that enables AI agents to operate physical equipment, such as robotic arms and microscopes, according to one participant.
Later, during a dinner hosted by Anthropic at a steakhouse in San Francisco (USA), venture capital investors discussed the security alert raised by Amodei and the subsequent repercussion of the statement.
Several Silicon Valley companies that invested in Anthropic stated that they consider Amodei's timing opportune to advocate for new safety standards for the sector, and declared they are not apprehensive about a potential decrease in interest in the IPO.
One of these investors opined that, after becoming a publicly traded corporation, Anthropic will likely face a much higher level of scrutiny from shareholders. According to him, defining a stance on broader safety risks can help the company protect itself should any unforeseen event occur in the future.
In parallel, Anthropic's main competitor, OpenAI, announced that it does not intend to go public before 2027. OpenAI is also in the early stages of negotiations for a new funding round that could value it at over US$1.2 trillion (about R$6.4 trillion), if successful.
The last time the creator of ChatGPT raised funds, the company received over US$120 billion (approximately R$636 billion) from investors. If OpenAI manages to raise a similar amount before Anthropic's IPO, some of the company's investors believe this could reduce demand for the Claude developer's stock offering.