Anthropic IPO stands alone as AI market jitters sideline others

(Correction: Paragraph 11 was changed to remove an incorrect statement about Elice's plans to list its shares.)

By Echo Wang

Oct 22 (Reuters) - This fall was supposed to be a busy time for technology companies selling shares to the public for the first time. Now, Anthropic is the only company left on the schedule.

Anthropic, an artificial intelligence (AI) company, is moving ahead with its plan to sell shares to the public for the first time in the middle of next month. This is called an initial public offering, or IPO. The company could make its prospectus, a document explaining its business and the share sale, available to the public as early as late October. People who know about the plans shared this information. They warned that both the plans and the dates could still change.

Anthropic's planned IPO will show whether investors are excited enough about its important role in the fast-growing AI industry to buy its shares despite a difficult market. Some investors believe the company could be worth as much as $1.5 trillion. Normally, market conditions like these might lead bankers and lawyers who help companies sell shares to advise them to wait. Anthropic is expected to start offering its shares to possible investors during the week of November 9, according to one person familiar with the plans.

Other companies that provide technology and data centers for artificial intelligence have delayed their plans to sell shares to the public. Interest rates have gone up, making borrowing money more expensive. This has helped cause a sharp fall in the prices of shares and bonds issued by AI companies such as CoreWeave. Investors are also questioning whether companies can keep spending such large amounts of money on AI.

The difference between Anthropic and these other companies shows how attractive Anthropic remains to investors. This is happening even though the AI industry faces worries about competition from open-source AI models, which others can use or change, and questions about AI safety.

Many big investors still believe Anthropic has a strong future, even after the market problems this fall. They see Anthropic as one of the few chances to invest in an important technology industry that people investing for the long term cannot afford to ignore. Other companies planning to sell shares do not want to compete with Anthropic for the attention and money of large investment organizations, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Anthropic declined to comment.

COMPANY VALUES ARE UNDER PRESSURE

The drop in investor interest in AI companies comes after several companies delayed or canceled their IPO plans starting in September. Stock market prices have been changing sharply, and interest rates have been rising. These problems have made it harder for companies to convince investors that their businesses are worth the prices they want.

Switch, which runs data centers, and Nscale, which provides technology and equipment for AI, have delayed their IPO plans until later this year, according to people familiar with the situation. These people stressed that the plans are not final and could change. One other person said Nscale's delay was partly because the company needed to respond to comments from staff at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the government agency that oversees financial markets. Reuters previously reported that SB Energy, which is backed by SoftBank, has also delayed its planned share sale.

Nscale declined to comment. Switch did not immediately answer a request for comment.

AirTrunk REIT, which is backed by Blackstone, and Firmus, which is backed by Nvidia, have canceled or put their planned share sales on hold, Reuters has reported.

Oura's recent IPO has made other companies planning to sell shares even more careful. According to a person familiar with the situation, few long-only investors took part in Oura's share sale. These are investors who generally buy shares because they expect their value to rise, rather than betting that prices will fall. This has raised concerns about whether there is enough interest from large investment organizations. These investors usually help newly public companies by owning their shares for longer periods, giving them a more stable group of shareholders.

AI COMPANIES FACE QUESTIONS FROM SEVERAL DIRECTIONS

Fewer companies that build and provide AI technology are moving ahead with IPOs because investors are asking more questions about the huge amounts of money needed to build data centers. They want to know whether enough people and businesses will need these centers in the future to make the spending worthwhile.

Recent events involving CoreWeave have increased worries that spending on AI could slow down. However, some people in the financial markets do not believe such a slowdown will actually happen.

Nscale publicly submitted its IPO registration documents in September. Switch submitted its documents privately, Reuters previously reported. When a company files privately, it can work with government regulators to review its documents before showing the public details about its finances and business. Companies usually make these documents public before starting investor roadshows. These are meetings and presentations where companies begin trying to convince possible investors to buy their shares.

(Reported by Echo Wang in New York. Edited by Colin Barr.)