Anthropic has formally engaged legal heavyweight Wilson Sonsini to orchestrate what could be one of history’s most significant initial public offerings, signaling a potential market debut as soon as 2026, according to Financial Times. The San Francisco-based AI startup, currently negotiating a private funding round that would value the company between $300 billion and $350 billion, selected the firm to manage the complex legal architecture required to take its massive, capital-intensive operations public. Wilson Sonsini has advised Anthropic since 2022 and previously managed high-profile tech listings for companies like Google and LinkedIn.
The move intensifies the race against rival OpenAI, which was valued at $500 billion in October and is also undertaking preliminary work for a public offering. While Anthropic’s investors are reportedly enthusiastic about beating OpenAI to the ticker tape, internal timelines remain fluid; one source indicated readiness for 2026, while another cautioned that such a date remains unlikely. The company has already held informal, preliminary discussions with major investment banks, though no underwriters have been officially selected.
Preparing for this transition, Anthropic has been executing an internal checklist of operational changes, bolstered by the hiring of CFO Krishna Rao last year, who previously played a key role in Airbnb’s IPO. Despite these maneuvers, an Anthropic spokesperson maintained that acting like a public entity is “standard practice” for a company of their scale and revenue, stating no final decision on a listing has been made. Both Anthropic and OpenAI face the unique challenge of testing public market appetite for loss-making research labs with astronomical training costs and financial trajectories that are difficult to forecast.
