The wealth feast is about to be realized: Anthropic sprint to a $2 trillion IPO Iconiq, GIC and Sequoia enjoy huge returns

The Zhitong Finance App learned that, according to people familiar with the matter, when IconiQ first invested in AnthropicPBC in 2025, the AI developer's valuation reached 183 billion US dollars. It is almost one of the most highly valued tech startups in the world, and is growing rapidly into an AI giant. However, even Iconiq's late-stage bet is expected to bring huge returns as Anthropic nears its Wall Street debut.

According to people familiar with the matter, Iconiq has invested more than 6 billion US dollars in Anthropic; based on Anthropic's recent private equity market valuation of 965 billion US dollars, the market value of its holdings is about 17 billion US dollars. This is the biggest deal in Iconiq's history. If Anthropic successfully completes its IPO at a valuation of up to $2 trillion — as some people expect — the value of IconiQ's investment could double.

Anthropic's upcoming public listing is likely to generate billions of dollars in revenue for top VCs, tech companies, and independent investors who have supported the Claude chatbot developer since the company was founded in 2021. The list of winners included both farsighted early supporters and investors who entered the market relatively late but benefited from the company's soaring valuation and rapid rise over the past year.

According to people familiar with the matter, SparkCapital is the only venture capital known to have a board seat at Anthropic. It invested $75 million in the company in 2023, which is the largest single check in its history. Based on current valuations, Spark's shareholding value has reached $7 billion.

Another person familiar with the matter said that SoundVentures, a low-profile agency founded by agent GuyoSeary and actor Ashton Kutcher, invested 35 million US dollars at a valuation of 5 billion US dollars in the same round. Since then, it has invested a total of 400 million US dollars in subsequent financing, and the current holding value has reached several billion US dollars. The company is currently headed by Oseary and managing partner Effie Epsstein, and Kutcher stepped down earlier this year.

In contrast, Sequoia Capital, a well-known venture capital that had earlier bet on OpenAI, didn't issue checks to Anthropic for the first time until the beginning of this year. However, according to people familiar with the matter, Sequoia has invested 3 billion US dollars in the startup and obtained about 1% of the shares, which has laid the foundation for its impressive returns.

According to people familiar with the matter, the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC has invested more than 4.5 billion US dollars in Anthropic since its first investment last year, and currently also holds about 1% of the shares. In August of this year, Anthropic established a strategic partnership with GIC and Macquarie Asset Management to jointly build a data center.

Anthropic, Sequoia, Iconiq, Sound, and GIC all declined to comment. Spark did not respond to requests for comment.

Anthropic is expected to publicly submit IPO documents in the next few days to officially launch a listing process that could become a rare wealth feast — which will boost the net worth of the company's seven billionaire co-founders and make many of the company's thousands of employees millionaires. The wealth effect of this IPO may also reverberate across the entire technology and venture capital ecosystem, providing fuel for future AI investments as concerns about the AI bubble intensify.

Like rival OpenAI, Anthropic has raised funds from multiple channels to support its expensive investments in chips, data centers, and talent to build better AI models and support the growing adoption of its technology. Some of Anthropic's biggest vendors, including Alphabet's Google, Amazon, and Nvidia, have invested billions of dollars in the startup. These deals once raised market concerns about revolving financing arrangements boosting the AI boom, and now they will also bring significant returns to big tech companies.

However, in the early stages, Anthropic was mainly supported by wealthy angel investors, such as EricSchmidt, the former CEO of Google, and Sambankman-Fried, the notorious FTX co-founder. It was previously reported that Schmidt holds about 1% of Anthropic's shares, which makes it expected to be one of the biggest beneficiaries among individual shareholders.

In 2023, MenLoventures became one of the first VCs to support Anthropic. At the time, the developer was seen as a disadvantaged player that lagged behind OpenAI, and could hardly talk about any revenue. MenLoventures has invested more than $1 billion into Anthropic, including $500 million cheques leading the AnthropICD funding round — the biggest bet in the venture capital's history.

It was previously reported that according to the latest round of financing, Menlo's shareholding value is US$14 billion. According to people familiar with the matter, this is equivalent to less than 2% of the shares. Another person familiar with the matter said that LightSpeedVenturePartners invested in Anthropic's D round for the first time and participated in subsequent rounds, and currently holds less than 2% of the shares. Anthropic's other major venture capitalists include Peter Thiel's FoundersFund, Altimeter, Coatue, and Greenoaks.

Representatives for Menlo and Lightspeed declined to comment.

“Reverse investing is the way to make money,” Menlo partner VenkyGanesan said in an interview in June about the company's early investment in Anthropic. “It was a lonely time; almost no one wanted to invest.”