Special Edition: Anthropic (ANT) files to go public

How it gets paid. Most money is pay-as-you-go. In the first half of 2026, consumption-based revenue was $13.1 billion (about 80%) and subscriptions were $3.2 billion (about 20%) (S-1: Financial statements).

Who sells it. About 48% of first-half revenue came through the marketplaces of big cloud providers, up from 11% in 2023. Those same cloud firms also compete with it (S-1: Risk Factors).

Where customers are. U.S. customers brought in $11.8 billion in the first half and international customers $4.5 billion (S-1: Financial statements).

Big customers. As of Sept 30, 2026, more than 11,900 customers paid $100,000 or more over the past year, more than 1,900 paid $1 million or more, and about 250 paid $10 million or more (S-1: Summary).

Net revenue retention, about 900%. In plain English: customers who were paying a year ago now pay roughly nine times as much. The number leaves out Pro and Max subscribers (S-1: Summary).

Getting cheaper to use. Claude Opus 5.5 cut customers' cost per task by about 40% versus Opus 5, and revenue per employee topped $6.6 million (S-1: Summary).

Where the money goes (first half of 2026). Compute and infrastructure $8.9 billion, personnel $3.2 billion (including $2.2 billion of stock-based pay), sales, marketing and partnerships $3.2 billion (mostly fees to channel partners), and other operating costs $1.7 billion. Total: $17.0 billion against $16.3 billion of revenue, for an operating loss of $693 million (S-1: MD&A).

The compute ratio is the story. Compute costs ate 251% of revenue in Q1 2025 but only 48% in Q2 2026. Note there is no classic "gross margin" line here; compute is reported as an operating expense (S-1: MD&A).

The giant loss, decoded. The $80.7 billion first-half net loss mostly reflects a $72.4 billion charge for the rising value of convertible notes, derivatives and SAFEs (IOUs and early-investor contracts that turn into stock). As Anthropic's valuation jumped, those instruments became worth more, and accounting rules book that as a loss even though no cash leaves. Another $8.8 billion came from valuing new note purchase agreements. Interest income added $1.1 billion (S-1: MD&A).

A non-GAAP view. Stripping out items like stock pay, Anthropic's own "adjusted operating income" was $1.6 billion in the first half, versus a $1.8 billion loss a year earlier. Treat company-defined metrics with care (S-1: Summary).

Cash flow. Operations generated $3.9 billion of cash in the first half, after burning $2.6 billion in 2025. Spending on equipment and property was $482 million, and financing brought in $110.8 billion, mostly from selling preferred stock (S-1: MD&A).

Balance sheet. Debt was $6.2 billion of convertible notes held by Amazon as of June 30. In September 2026 Anthropic expanded its bank credit line to $15 billion (S-1: MD&A). Its accumulated deficit was $132.9 billion, of which $113.2 billion came from those fair-value charges (S-1: MD&A).

Many must be paid regardless of use. The Amazon, Google and Microsoft deals are minimum spends "regardless of actual usage." Anthropic also expects to spend an estimated $125 billion to $150 billion more on extra TPU capacity due between 2028 and 2031 (S-1: MD&A).

The grand total is still blank. Yahoo Finance tallies about $430 billion in locked-in deals, and up to $637 billion including cancellable and smaller ones (Yahoo Finance).

Data centers. It leases U.S. data centers, has signed leases for capacity in Australia and Canada, and is pursuing more abroad (S-1: Business).

A "controlled company." That status lets Anthropic skip some Nasdaq board-independence rules (S-1: Summary).

The board. Dario Amodei (CEO), Daniela Amodei (President and Chairperson), Reed Hastings (lead independent director), Christopher Liddell, Vas Narasimhan and Yasmin Razavi. Hastings, Liddell and Narasimhan hold the trust-elected Class T seats. Krishna Rao is CFO (S-1: Management).

Big holders. Each co-founder is listed with roughly 230 million to 245 million Class A shares; ownership percentages are still blank. Amazon and Google are each expected to own more than 5% (S-1: Principal Stockholders).

Giving shares away. At the IPO, 5% of shares go to a new Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, with up to 2% more each time the share price rises 50% from the last milestone. The co-founders have pledged 80% of their personal equity to charity (S-1: Summary).

Pay. 2025 total compensation was about $18.0 million for Dario Amodei and $16.4 million for Daniela Amodei, each with a $654,167 salary and the rest mostly stock awards and security costs. CFO Rao received about $720,000 (S-1: Executive Compensation).

Ticker and exchange: ANT on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (S-1: Summary).

The banks: Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead 22 underwriters, including J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Barclays and Wells Fargo. The banks get an option to buy extra shares from Anthropic (S-1: Underwriting).

Who is selling: Anthropic sells new shares and some existing holders sell too. Anthropic gets no money from the selling stockholders' shares (S-1: Use of Proceeds).

Global reach: The deal includes public offerings in Australia, Canada, parts of the European Economic Area, Japan, Switzerland and the UK, with no listing planned there (S-1: Summary).

Google's option: Google can buy up to $10 billion of Class N stock in a private placement at the IPO price (S-1: MD&A).

Lock-up: Co-founders and holders above 0.5% generally cannot sell for up to 365 days; most others for up to 180 days, with possible earlier release tied to earnings dates (S-1: Future Sale).

Still blank: price range, share count, deal size, September quarter revenue and the listing date (Anthropic). We did not find a directed share program (shares reserved for friends and staff) in this version.

Safety: Models could be misused by bad actors, behave in "unintended, misaligned, or autonomous ways," or develop surprise skills spotted only after release.

Government dispute: The Department of War, as the filing calls it, labeled Anthropic a "supply-chain risk." Anthropic largely won in district court, but an appeals panel upheld one designation 2 to 1 on Sept 25, and Anthropic seeks a rehearing.

Regulation and exports: June 2026 export restrictions on its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models led Anthropic to switch them off for all customers until the limits were lifted.

Concentration: The top five customers were about 25% of revenue in the nine months to Sept 30, 2026, and nearly half of sales flow through cloud marketplaces.

Compute and chips: Huge fixed commitments, advanced chipmaking concentrated in Taiwan (mainly TSMC), power limits, and local moratoriums on new data centers.

Competition: OpenAI and Google are named directly, alongside other deep-pocketed tech giants.

Litigation: A $1.5 billion settlement of the Bartz authors' copyright class action was approved in July 2026, and suits from music publishers and authors who opted out continue.

Control: Class A holders can never have more than 49.9% of the vote, so public shareholders cannot steer major decisions.

An amended S-1 that fills in the blanks: price range, share count, Q3 results and the compute total (S-1: MD&A).

The roadshow, where management pitches big investors, then pricing the night before trading starts.

Timing: Anthropic has not announced a date (Anthropic). Any reported timing is unconfirmed until pricing.

Google's $10 billion option and the court fight with the Department of War (S-1: Risk Factors).