Key points
- Anthropic sets aside a Japan slice of its IPO
- Anthropic's Japan maximum exceeds SpaceX's Japan sale
- Anthropic plans to list its shares only on Nasdaq
Anthropic plans to sell up to 552.9 billion yen ($3.5 billion) of shares to investors in Japan as part of its initial public offering, according to a Japanese filing made public on Monday, November 2. The money from the shares sold in Japan will go toward working capital, operating expenses, and capital spending.
I went back to Anthropic's US registration statement to see where Japan fits. The S-1 Anthropic filed on October 26 says the offering includes public offerings in Australia, Canada, certain European Economic Area countries, Japan, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Japanese investors would buy shares that trade in New York
The S-1 says Anthropic doesn't plan to list its Class A shares on any exchange outside the US. So investors in Japan would be buying the same Nasdaq-listed shares as everyone else, under the ticker ANT, through brokers registered in Japan. There is no separate Tokyo listing.
The S-1 also says the size of the whole offering shouldn't change if Anthropic drops one of the international pieces. The shares set aside for that country would go to buyers in the remaining countries, including the US.
The S-1 doesn't include a price range yet, and Reuters said the Japanese filing doesn't give the size of the IPO or a valuation. Some investors have discussed a valuation of about $1.5 trillion for the company, the report added, but that figure isn't in either filing.
Anthropic could sell more in Japan than SpaceX did
The closest comparison is SpaceX (SPCX). Japanese investors bought about $2.2 billion of shares in SpaceX's June IPO, which raised $75 billion in total. Anthropic's maximum is about 1.6 times that amount, by our calculations, and Anthropic hasn't said yet how big its full offering will be.
What we still don't know
Anthropic hasn't filed the amended S-1 that would carry a price range. Once it does, the share count and the expected raise will show how much of the IPO Japan accounts for. Our Anthropic IPO tracker will add the range when it lands. For the details already disclosed, including Anthropic's losses and how its founders keep control, see our breakdown of the S-1 and who owns Anthropic.
Yen figures are converted at 157.82 yen to the dollar, the rate used in the Reuters report.
