The AI IPO race officially ignited in June 2026, with Anthropic and OpenAI filing confidential S-1 registration statements with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission just one week apart. Together, the two companies entered an IPO pipeline that Bloomberg now values at roughly $3.6 trillion. Nothing like this has ever happened before in the history of technology.
Background on the AI IPO Race
Furthermore, this moment did not arrive overnight. Anthropic started 2026 valued at $350 billion. By May 28, it closed a $65 billion Series H round at a staggering $965 billion post-money valuation. Co-leads included Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, Sequoia Capital, Capital Group, Coatue, and D1 Capital Partners. That round, arriving just four days before the S-1 filing, made Anthropic briefly the world’s most valuable private company. Meanwhile, OpenAI had already closed a record-breaking $122 billion round in March 2026 at an $852 billion valuation, with major contributions from Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank.
Key Details of the AI IPO Race
Specifically, Anthropic moved first. On June 1, 2026, the Claude maker confidentially submitted its draft S-1 to the SEC. OpenAI followed on June 8, confirming its own confidential S-1 submission with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley advising the deal. OpenAI targets a listing valuation between $730 billion and $852 billion, with analysts eyeing a September 2026 debut. Anthropic targets an October 2026 listing on Nasdaq, also working with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. Both companies stressed that timing remains flexible and market-dependent.
Industry Impact
Notably, the dual filings send shockwaves far beyond Silicon Valley. Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate crossed $47 billion in May 2026, up from just $4 billion in July 2025 — a staggering 10x climb in under a year. OpenAI projects $30 billion in full-year 2026 revenue, powered by roughly 900 million weekly active ChatGPT users. However, OpenAI also forecasts a $14 billion net loss for the year, with inference costs alone reaching $14.1 billion. Critics warn that simultaneous listings could divide institutional demand and leave one or both offerings undersubscribed.
What Comes Next in the AI IPO Race
Additionally, the AI IPO race now forces a reckoning with public-market discipline. For the first time, both companies must disclose actual revenues, margins, and risk factors to retail investors. Wedbush Securities analysts called 2026 “the first real public-market test” of whether frontier AI valuations hold against disclosed financials. Secondary markets already price Anthropic at an implied $1.05 to $1.15 trillion. Prediction markets, however, place only a 40% probability on an actual OpenAI listing before year-end. The SEC review process will shape whether either company reaches the starting line on schedule.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the simultaneous IPO bids by Anthropic and OpenAI mark a turning point for the entire technology sector. The AI IPO race transforms two research-rooted labs into public-market candidates carrying near-trillion-dollar price tags. Retail investors, index funds, and institutional allocators now watch every SEC filing with intense scrutiny. The second half of 2026 will determine whether the market validates years of sky-high private valuations — or delivers a brutal correction to one of the fastest-growing industries in history.
Related: OpenAI IPO Filing Targets $1 Trillion Valuation
Originally reported by TechCrunch. Analysis by the FastCustomAI Editorial Team.