Anthropic is weighing a distinctive structure for its upcoming initial public offering that would allow existing shareholders to sell stock directly in the listing while imposing longer-than-usual restrictions on additional sales once trading begins, according to The Information.

The proposed structure would give early investors and employees an opportunity to take some liquidity during the IPO itself, while limiting the amount of stock that could enter the market shortly after shares begin trading.

The approach would differ from other major technology listings this year, including SpaceX and Cerebras, which restricted existing shareholders from selling shares in their offerings.

Anthropic is also considering extended post-IPO lockup periods designed to reduce the risk of heavy selling pressure following its market debut. Traditional IPO lockups — commonly set at around 180 days — typically prevent insiders from selling shares for a fixed period after a listing. Anthropic's proposed structure would instead provide some liquidity at the IPO while potentially keeping remaining holdings locked for longer. Lockup expirations are among the most closely watched milestones after a listing, because they mark the point at which large blocks of insider-held shares become eligible to trade; details such as timing, listing venue, offering size and the final terms of any restrictions would be laid out in the registration documents the company files if it formally launches the process.

The Claude developer has been preparing for a major public listing as its valuation has surged alongside investor demand for artificial intelligence companies. A debut would extend a run of AI-driven public-market activity that has included CoreWeave's March 2025 IPO, and would follow rival OpenAI's October 2025 restructuring of its for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation in which Microsoft holds a roughly 27 percent stake.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives, including CEO Dario Amodei and President Daniela Amodei, and is headquartered in San Francisco. The company is best known for its Claude family of AI assistants and has drawn multibillion-dollar investments from Amazon, whose committed backing totals $8 billion, and Google, which is also a direct competitor through its Gemini models. Anthropic is itself organized as a Delaware public benefit corporation, a corporate form that embeds a public-benefit purpose in its charter; companies including Lemonade and Coursera have previously listed under that structure. In March 2025, Anthropic closed a $3.5 billion funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners at a $61.5 billion valuation, and a further $13 billion round announced in September 2025 valued the company at $183 billion — a near-tripling in six months.