Anthropic’s IPO Could Bring AI Software to Public Investors

Byron Deeter framed Anthropic’s potential IPO as an unusual opportunity for public investors: direct exposure to AI software, after investors have had access to companies in hardware and infrastructure. He called Anthropic “the monster on the software side” and described AI as a megatrend that could extend for decades.

That opportunity matters to venture investors as well as public-market buyers. Deeter said the private-market industry has seen substantial growth in company values but record-low distributions—the capital returned to investors and their limited partners. He described this year’s IPO market as three times larger in dollars but a third of the volume, with almost no distributions yet. SpaceX, whose IPO was pending, could be the first unlock; investors were also waiting for Anthropic and potentially OpenAI next year.

Deeter said Anthropic’s listing could help open the market to more IPOs in 2027, after several years of low distributions despite significant value appreciation. That is an expectation, not a guarantee: he described a backlog of high-quality private companies, but also a narrow window for listings. Companies considering a Q4 offering have to navigate the election and holidays, including the short stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Deeter said few would want to list close to Anthropic, and hopes more will follow in 2027.

The supply of companies is not the constraint Deeter emphasized. He previewed Bessemer’s forthcoming AI 100 list, saying every company on it would be worth multiple billions of dollars. The challenge is when those private companies can reach public investors: narrow listing windows and Anthropic’s timing could leave much of the backlog waiting until 2027.

For investors, that makes Anthropic’s offering both a possible source of liquidity for existing private-market investors and a test of whether public markets will take more AI listings. Deeter said the backlog has been inaccessible to public investors while companies remained private. He hopes a broader wave will give them more ways to participate in AI, but his forecast depends on companies choosing to list and on the market accommodating them.

Ludlow raised two risks in Anthropic’s filing: open-source models could pressure pricing, and specialized models could win particular workloads. Deeter’s answer was that these models can occupy different positions in the same market. He expects frontier models to set the pace and remain important for advanced projects, while customers also use cheaper, less capable alternatives—including models supplied by frontier labs—and open-weight models.

Specialized systems, in his account, can serve focused applications, sometimes drawing on frontier models but using smaller models tailored to the task. He pointed to physical AI, including autonomous driving at Waymo and defense technology at Saronic, and to medtech devices that could affect life sciences and healthcare. The distinctions matter to the investment case: Deeter does not describe one model category replacing all others, but a market in which capability, cost, and specialization shape demand.

On Anthropic’s warning about existential risks to humanity, Deeter said the language was included for a reason. He praised the company’s leaders for speaking openly about AI’s power, risks, and responsibilities, which he said had been part of its founding principles. He expressed confidence in the team while welcoming its transparency.

He also cautioned that society can become numb to the consequences of the technology. Deeter referred to dozens of security breaches adjacent to AI technologies in the preceding week, saying incidents like those would have drawn sustained headlines a year earlier. He said AI was being used for good and for defense, but expected a choppy period as society works through its effects across technology, the economy, and other areas.

Ludlow noted that Anthropic is a public benefit corporation and that its seven founders hold 50.1% of shareholder voting power. Deeter said this structure gives founders and executives substantial authority. Investors do not make that choice lightly, he said, but concentrated control can give leaders room to pursue long-term goals. He cited SpaceX and Meta and invoked Jeff Bezos’s argument for accepting periods of being misunderstood while building for the long term. In Deeter’s view, founder control is one way to preserve that latitude after a company becomes public.