Labs

Anthropic taps Morgan
Stanley and Goldman
to lead near-trillion-dollar
IPO

Two days after a confidential S-1 landed at the SEC, the Claude maker has picked Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan to underwrite a listing that could come as early as October — kicking off a three-way race against SpaceX and OpenAI.

By Casey Vanderhoof Frontier labs correspondent · June 7, 2026

Anthropic has hired Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan to lead what would be one of the largest technology listings ever attempted, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The decision arrived 48 hours after the six-year-old lab posted a Rule 135 notice confirming it had handed a confidential draft S-1 to the SEC, and roughly a week after closing a $65 billion Series H at a $965 billion post-money valuation.

That sequencing matters. A confidential filing, a near-trillion-dollar private mark, and a bank syndicate locked in before the ink dries, this is the choreography of a company that already knows the listing window it wants. Bloomberg’s sources put the target as early as October.

The numbers Anthropic is bringing to public markets aren’t the numbers a normal IPO candidate carries. Revenue run rate sits at $47 billion as of May, up from roughly $10 billion a year earlier. The Series H drew Altimeter, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, Sequoia, Capital Group, Coatue and D1 Capital Partners as co-leads, with Blackstone, Brookfield, GIC, General Catalyst and Insight Partners also in the round. Wilson Sonsini, which ran Google’s 2004 IPO, has been retained for public-market readiness.

The competitive frame is what makes this filing legible. SpaceX submitted its own confidential S-1 on April 1, disclosed a public prospectus on May 20, and is targeting a debut as soon as June 12 at a $1.75 trillion valuation on a $75 billion raise. OpenAI closed a $122 billion round in March at an $852 billion post-money mark, and Sam Altman told CNBC he’s not focused on the timing of a potential IPO and that the company will go public when it makes sense to do so. Three labs, three different theories of when private capital stops being enough.

The S-1 itself contains one disclosure that explains the urgency. Anthropic’s chip supply agreement with Elon Musk’s SpaceX covers roughly 325,000 Nvidia chips at $1.25 billion per month, running through May 2029, with a 90-day termination notice that activates only after an initial three-month period. The cost structure of frontier AI is now a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar counterparty exposure to a competitor’s launch business. Public equity is one of the few instruments large enough to underwrite it.

Anthropic’s own framing in the Rule 135 notice is studiously flat. “This gives us the option to go public after the SEC completes its review,” the filing says, adding that “The proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors.” Representatives for Anthropic, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan declined to comment.

The 2004 Google comparison isn’t decorative. The lawyers chosen for an IPO signal the comp set a company believes it belongs to, and Wilson Sonsini’s involvement points at a debut its bankers will pitch as S&P 500-eligible from day one.

Sources