Anthropic PBC aims to raise up to US$3.5 billion (S$4.48 billion) from Japanese investors in its initial public offering in the US, bringing the landmark share sale by the artificial-intelligence startup to a market starved of first-time offerings.
Mizuho Securities will manage the Japanese portion of the share sale, while Goldman Sachs Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities and Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities are among companies that will handle investor orders, according to a regulatory filing on Nov 2.
Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group are among the underwriters of the deal.
That makes the country, where first-time offerings have dried up to a 14-year low, one of the few markets whose investors will have direct access to the mega IPO.
Apart from Japan, investors in Australia, Canada and parts of Europe will also be able to buy into the initial share sale of the Claude chatbot maker.
Anthropic filed for the long-awaited IPO in October as companies rush to tap equity markets.
With Meta Platforms seeking to raise as much as US$95 billion from selling common and preferred stock and Alphabet aiming for up to US$85 billion in equity financing, Anthropic’s IPO will test investor appetite for a wave of new shares of AI-related shares. BLOOMBERG
