(Nov 14): Anthropic PBC is poised to add to a blockbuster year of transactions that are orders of magnitude larger than those seen in the past decade, with the biggest initial public offering (IPO) of all time joining a half dozen other jumbo equity deals.

If Anthropic’s first-time share sale prices at the top of its marketed range on Nov 18, the artificial intelligence (AI) lab’s IPO and private placement would together raise US$90.4 billion (RM369.4 billion), easily surpassing the US$86.2 billion in Elon Musk’s SpaceX listing in June. 

Exercising the so-called over-allotment option after the trading begins, bringing it to more than US$100 billion, would surpass Meta Platforms Inc’s roughly US$98 billion equity deal announced last month, also to fund its AI business.

More than US$425 billion has been raised across US-listed companies when accounting for IPOs, completed at-the-market share sale programmes and marketed share sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That tops the 2021 total of roughly US$408 billion raised, the data showed.  

Including Anthropic, the US’ three biggest-ever IPOs landed in a matter of months of each other, a sign of how deals are being turbocharged by AI companies’ need for cash on a scale never seen before. Even adjusted for inflation, this year’s biggest IPOs are far larger than previous record-holders like Saudi Aramco and Visa Inc. 

While SK Hynix Inc’s US$26.5 billion US listing in July marked the largest for a company based outside of the country, its size after adjusting for inflation is actually more in line with deals from decades ago. By that measure, the South Korean company’s US first-time share sale trails debuts from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd in 2014 and SoftBank Corp in 2018.

The hunt for AI funding has not only broken records, it has also prompted a handful of tech giants to sell stock for the first time in decades. 

Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg, would likely hold the title for the biggest equity fundraise with its US$98 billion of offerings including a marketed stock sale and preferred shares. The bulk of the total comes in the form of a planned US$60 billion at-the-market share sale programme, which allows companies to periodically sell shares in the open market.

Like IPOs, ATMs have metastasised in the AI era. Bitcoin treasury firm Strategy Inc raised US$21 billion in 2024 via an ATM and did another of the same size in 2025, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. 

This year, Alphabet Inc’s roughly US$85 billion funding plan includes a US$40 billion ATM programme. Oracle Corp sold roughly US$20 billion of shares through an ATM programme, on top of raising tens of billions of dollars through the sale of additional equity and debt.

Uploaded by Tham Yek Lee