Anthropic completes tender offer, but employees hold onto shares

Anthropic employees sold limited shares in a secondary sale at a $350 billion valuation, investors sought up to 6 billion, staff held stock ahead of an IPO as revenue tops a $30 billion run rate

By Bloomberg

Anthropic employees have sold some equity to investors, wrapping up a secondary share sale that started earlier this year, according to people familiar with the matter. But some investors weren’t able to pick up as many shares as they planned because of the limited number that employees were willing to sell.

The tender offer took place at the same value as the company’s most recent fundraising in February, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The company was valued at $350 billion in its latest deal, not including the $30 billion it raised.

Anthropic declined to comment.

The total value of the share sale, which closed last week, could not be learned — but it fell short of the amount that investors had lined up, which was as much as $6 billion, some of the people said. Current and former employees wanted to hold more of their shares ahead of Anthropic’s upcoming initial public offering, expected as soon as this year.

Some investors were able to get their full allocation in the deal, while others were only able to deploy some of the capital that they had set aside for the tender offer.

The smaller-than-expected transaction suggests that employees are optimistic about the company’s prospects as its annualised revenue climbs, one of the people said. Last month, the company surpassed $19 billion in annualised run-rate revenue. By April, Anthropic announced it had surpassed $30 billion in run-rate revenue.