Anthropic is heading for the stock market almost alone. The maker of Claude is the only major US tech listing still moving ahead for the rest of 2026, Reuters reported on 23 October in a story carried by TechCentral. The company plans to go public in mid-November, with marketing to investors expected to start the week of 9 November, people familiar with the plans told Reuters. They said the dates could change.
That is a slip. In September, Anthropic was expected to begin marketing in mid-October and list before the US midterm elections in November. Some investors believe the company could be worth up to $1.5 trillion, according to Reuters. Anthropic declined to comment.
Who stepped back
- Switch and Nscale have pushed their IPOs to later in the year; Nscale's delay was partly tied to comments from US SEC staff
- SB Energy has postponed its listing
- AirTrunk REIT, backed by Blackstone, and Firmus, backed by Nvidia, have pulled or paused their offerings
- Wearables maker Oura's recent IPO drew little participation from long-only institutional investors
The backdrop is a sharp sell-off in AI infrastructure stocks and bonds, including CoreWeave, driven by rising interest rates and doubts about whether AI spending will last, Reuters reports. Companies that build data centres and sell computing power are the ones finding the window shut.
Why it matters
Anthropic's listing will be the clearest public price yet on a frontier AI lab, and its reception will shape how much money flows to AI companies, including the African startups building on Claude and other models. A strong debut could reopen the door for the infrastructure listings now on hold; a weak one would confirm investors' doubts. TheStak has covered the losses disclosed in Anthropic's draft filing, which made clear how much of its spending goes on computing.
