Anthropic has updated its prospectus, and the seven co-founders are preparing to sell 3.3784 million shares each in the IPO.
The issuance range is US$70 to US$78 per share. Taking the middle price of US$74, each person will receive approximately US$250 million, and the total of the seven people will be approximately US$1.75 billion. That's a big number, but it's a fraction of what it adds back to their respective holdings: The sale represents only about 1.4% of each man's original holdings. After the sale, each person still has 237 million to 240 million Class A shares in hand, also converted at US$74, with a book value of nearly US$18 billion.
The seven are CEO Dario Amodei, President Daniela Amodei, as well as Tom Brown, Jack Clark, Jared Kaplan, Sam McCandlish and Christopher Olah. Together they emerged from OpenAI to start the company in 2021.
The money was sold a little, but the rights were not loosened at all. Each founder receives an additional share of Class F stock that has no economic rights but carries super voting rights. Seven people collectively hold more than half of the voting rights through Founder LLC, and the long-term interest trust continues to account for the majority of the board of directors.
The entire issuance plate is 825 million Class A shares, of which the company issued approximately 801 million new shares, and the rest is the part reduced by the founders. If set at the upper end of the range at $78, the fully diluted valuation would be about $1.404 trillion, with the symbol ANT and listed on Nasdaq. It is also reported that including simultaneous private placements, up to US$90.4 billion can be raised this time, which will exceed the record held by SpaceX.
Some of the directors also paid for it themselves. Reed Hastings intends to subscribe for $300 million through a donor-advised fund, and Christopher Liddell for $3 million.
It is considered routine practice for founders to invest a small proportion of their shares in Silicon Valley when they go public. The 1.4% ratio shows that they are not in a hurry to leave, but the $250 million in cash per person is enough to make the statement "we are a safety-first company" receive a few more questions at the road show.