Anthropic and SpaceX Could Outraise the Entire 1999 IPO Class

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude models, has filed for an IPO. This is the first time it will sell shares to the public. The company is seeking to raise up to $100 billion. That makes it the second-biggest AI IPO this year, after Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX. SpaceX raised $85.7 billion in its own IPO this past June, the largest offering in history. Together, these two IPOs could exceed the total capital raised during the 1999 IPO boom, when 476 U.S. companies raised $65 billion ($130.7 billion adjusted for inflation).

During the 1999 IPO boom, capital was spread across hundreds of different companies. Today it is flowing into a small number of high-profile IPOs, clustered around a handful of AI labs. If Anthropic manages to raise the amount it wants, that will confirm something: most of the capital in the AI industry is concentrated in the hands of the few labs building top AI models.