Anthropic's IPO filing shows soaring revenue and founders holding control

Anthropic's prospectus for a Nasdaq listing shows $16.29 billion in first-half revenue and a structure that leaves its seven co-founders with majority voting power, a design critics say gives investors little say.

Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI models, has filed a more than 300-page prospectus for its planned initial public offering, the most detailed public look yet at how a pure-play AI lab makes money. The company plans to list Class A shares on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT, and analysts expect a valuation of more than $1 trillion.

According to the filing, Anthropic booked $16.29 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, up from $1.16 billion a year earlier, with cost of revenue of $2.38 billion, implying a gross margin of about 85%. Growth slowed in the third quarter, to roughly 47% over the previous quarter after about 144% in the second quarter. The company said it has "historically operated in a compute-constrained environment."

Dario Amodei speaks at TechCrunch Disrupt (file photo, 2023)

The structure has drawn the most debate. Chief executive Dario Amodei and six other co-founders each own more than 200 million shares, while the founders collectively control a single Class F share that carries 50.1% of the total voting power on shareholder matters. NYU finance professor Aswath Damodaran called the voting design "deviously self-serving."

Anthropic is organized as a public benefit corporation. Analysts said the filing leaves open questions about how much of its computing commitments will go to training new models versus serving customers, a split that will shape future margins.

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