Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the Claude models, is preparing to go public with a layered share structure that divides voting rights, economics, and board control across separate classes of stock. The filing pairs one of the fastest revenue expansions in the technology sector with a governance arrangement designed to keep the company's founders firmly in charge.

The company submitted its Form S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on October 26, 2026. It is seeking to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker "ANT," with a debut planned for mid-November. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leading the offering, which is anticipated to rank among the largest in history. Between filing and trading, the deal runs through the customary steps: an investor roadshow, pricing of the Class A shares, and a final prospectus setting out the offering's terms.

Five Classes, Uneven Power

The research summary of the filing refers to five classes of stock in an arrangement described as deliberately complex.

Class A is the common stock set to trade on Nasdaq, representing the shares that most public investors will actually purchase. Class F carries 50.1% of the company's voting power, a controlling majority and the component of the structure that allows Anthropic's seven co-founders to retain substantial authority over corporate decisions once outside capital arrives. Class N, held by Amazon and Google, two of Anthropic's biggest backers, carries no voting rights at all.

Structures that concentrate founder control have precedent across major technology listings: Alphabet and Meta both went public with arrangements that weighted voting power toward their founders, and U.S. exchanges such as Nasdaq accept multi-class shares. Index eligibility works differently — S&P Dow Jones Indices requires that public shareholders hold more than half of a company's voting power as a condition of S&P 500 inclusion, a bar a founder-held 50.1% voting class would not clear.

The Numbers Behind the Filing

Revenue for the first half of 2026 came in at $16.3 billion, a 1,258% increase from a year earlier. The same period produced a net loss of $80.7 billion, an enormous figure, but one the research attributes mainly to non-cash adjustments tied to convertible notes. Adjustments of that kind weigh on reported earnings without matching cash outflows in the period, a feature common to the accounting treatment of convertible instruments.

Anthropic recorded its first profit in the second quarter of 2026, described in the research as an operating profit. The company's May 2026 funding round valued it at $965 billion.

Why the Structure Looks the Way It Does

Anthropic is organized as a Delaware public benefit corporation, a legal form that allows a company to weigh a stated public mission alongside shareholder returns rather than optimizing for profit alone. Delaware introduced the public benefit corporation in 2015, and the statute directs directors to balance stockholders' financial interests with the interests of those materially affected by the company's conduct and the specific public benefit named in its charter.

The research frames the multi-class setup as an extension of that principle. The goal is to protect the founders and the mission while balancing shareholder economics against what the company views as a need for long-term oversight of AI-related risks. The non-voting Class N shares held by Amazon and Google fit the same logic: strategic backers receive economic exposure, but they do not get a hand on the wheel through those holdings.

What It Means for Investors and the AI Market

For anyone weighing the Class A shares, the trade-off is unusually explicit. Buyers would gain exposure to one of the fastest-growing revenue stories in technology, while also accepting that a small group holding Class F stock controls the outcome of major shareholder votes.

The research flags exactly this tension, noting that the structure may frustrate public investors who want influence over governance. It also points to significant operating expenses and infrastructure commitments that investors are expected to scrutinize once the company is listed.

According to the research, Anthropic's performance as a public company could shape investor sentiment toward AI businesses more broadly. That comes at a time the research describes as marked by rising interest rates and market volatility.

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This article is based on reporting by CryptoBriefing; the original article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez.