Anthropic and OpenAI race to a $60B+ IPO before end of 2026
What's the deal? AnthropicDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → is considering an IPO as soon as October 2026, according to people familiar with the matter. The Claude maker has held early talks with Goldman SachsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, JPMorgan ChaseDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Morgan StanleyDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → about lead roles in a listing that could raise more than $60 billion — and rival OpenAI is racing to beat it to market.
OpenAI has also been laying the groundwork for a fourth-quarter 2026 listing, holding informal talks with Wall Street banks and building out its finance team with a new chief accounting officer and a corporate business finance officer to oversee investor relations.
Why now? Both companies are burning cash at a staggering rate and need capital at a scale that private markets are struggling to absorb. OpenAI plans to spend $115 billion through 2029; Anthropic has pledged $50 billion to build custom US data centres and expects to break even only in 2028 — two years before OpenAI.
Revenue is growing fast enough to make a public case, though. OpenAI hit $21.4 billion in annualised revenue at the end of 2025, surpassing $25 billion by February 2026. Anthropic, which closed February 2026 with a $380 billion valuation after a $30 billion round, has surpassed $19 billion in run-rate revenue and is targeting $70 billion by 2028
Whichever lists first stands to capture a large pool of public-market investors hungry for AI exposure — a dynamic both companies are acutely aware of. OpenAI executives have privately expressed concern about Anthropic getting there first, according to people familiar with the matter.
What could go wrong? At these valuations, the sheer scale of the offerings is itself a risk. A standard 15–25% float from Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX — also eyeing a 2026 IPO — would require public markets to absorb nearly half a trillion dollars in a single quarter, far exceeding total US IPO proceeds over the past decade.
OpenAI faces additional headwinds: leadership changes, fierce competition from Google on its core consumer business, and a looming trial brought by co-founder Elon MuskDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → seeking up to $134 billion in damages. Both companies are also losing billions annually, which has already drawn scepticism from some seasoned public-market investors.
The signal: The AI boom is entering its public-market phase — and it will be a stress test for Wall Street's capacity to absorb mega-cap tech listings. Just as Facebook's 2012 IPO legitimised social media as a business, these listings could settle the AI bubble debate by forcing both companies to open their books. The era of unlimited private funding has a ceiling; quarterly earnings calls are coming.
Sources:
Bloomberg
Tech Funding News
CNBC
The Wall Street Journal
The New York Times
J.V.
