Anthropic founders plan major share sales in IPO
Anthropic's S-1 reportedly discloses that all seven co-founders plan to sell 3,378,378 shares each, based on a preliminary IPO price range of $70 to $78 per share. TechCrunch AI estimates proceeds of just over $236 million to just under $264 million per founder, with just under $250 million at the $74 midpoint. The filing also says the founders would retain 51.1% of the votes collectively through supervoting Class F shares.
The proposed sales would produce unusually large founder liquidity while the founding team reportedly retains collective voting control, making the IPO a material governance and ownership event.
As Anthropic barrels toward an enormous IPO that could value it at $1.4 trillion IPO, the company has disclosed a tidbit in its new S-1 filing about how many shares each of its seven co-founders plan to sell.
Each will sell 3,378,378 shares. Anthropic has floated an unusually broad initial price range of $70 to $78 a share. At the mid-range of $74, each founder would take in just shy of $250 million.
At the low end, $70, each would have to settle for pocketing just over $236 million cash; at the high end, $78, each would take in just under $264 million.
However, in an IPO as eagerly anticipated as this one, companies can often price shares above the initial range.
The S-1 is already hinting at high demand. Board member Reed Hastings has indicated he wants to buy $300 million worth of shares through his donor-advised fund. Board member Christopher Liddell also wants to buy $3 million worth of shares.
The seven co-founders are CEO Dario Amodei; Daniela Amodei, president and chair of the board; Tom Brown, chief compute officer; Jack Clark, head of public benefit; Jared Kaplan, chief science officer (pictured above); Sam McCandlish, chief architect; and Christopher Olah, interpretability research lead.