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VCs will make billions on Anthropic’s IPO, but Amazon is set to make much (much) more

PolicyOctober 28, 20261 min read

Anthropic, the AI company, plans to go public. Its early investors, especially Amazon, stand to gain billions from the listing.

What happened

Anthropic's stock market debut, called an IPO, is expected to make many investors rich. Venture capital (VC) firms like Menlo Ventures and Sequoia hold big stakes. But Amazon looks set to gain the most. Amazon is also a major business partner of Anthropic, and it sells the company much of its computing power.

Key numbers

Anthropic's private value is $965 billion. A 1% stake is worth nearly $10 billion.
Menlo Ventures' stake is worth about $14 billion, which is only about 1.5% of the company.
Amazon has invested about $18 billion in total, including $10 billion in preferred stock in the second quarter.
Amazon's convertible notes were valued at $97.9 billion as of June 30.
Anthropic has promised to spend at least $110 billion on AWS (Amazon's cloud service) over 10 years.

How the deal works

Amazon did not take ownership up front. It put much of its money into convertible notes. These are a type of debt that turns into shares when a company goes public or is sold. As Anthropic's value grew, those future shares became much more valuable. This forced Anthropic to record a large non-cash charge of $72.4 billion in the first half of 2026. Non-cash means no real money left the company.

Why it matters

This IPO shows that the biggest winners may be the tech giants, not just the VC firms. Amazon and Google both backed Anthropic early and now sell it cloud computing. The S-1 filing also warns that these cloud companies build rival AI models. Their goals may not always match Anthropic's goals.

What to watch

Whether Amazon waives its cap, which limits it to 12% of Anthropic's shares.
How many of Amazon's 1.84 billion possible new shares are converted in later quarters.
How Google's stake changes, since it may have fallen to about 5.6% after new funding rounds.
How the stock performs after the IPO.

Glossary

IPO: Initial public offering, when a private company first sells shares to the public on a stock market.
S-1: A filing a company makes with US regulators before going public. It shows finances and ownership.
Venture capital (VC): Money that investors give to young startups in exchange for ownership, in the hope of big future gains.
AWS: Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud computing service that rents out computer power and storage.

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