Anthropic, which is preparing for an initial public offering, has expanded its revolving credit facility to 20 trillion won. The move appears aimed at securing the cash liquidity needed to qualify for an IPO filing. The size of the credit line has also fueled expectations for a listing that could surpass SpaceX as the largest on record.
Bloomberg reported on the 3rd, citing sources, that Anthropic is set to expand and finalize its revolving credit facility to $15 billion (about 20.4 trillion won) from an initially planned $10 billion (about 13.5 trillion won). A revolving credit facility is a financial product similar to an overdraft account, in which a borrower secures a credit limit in advance and repeatedly draws down and repays funds as needed.
Morgan Stanley is leading the borrowing, with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Citigroup also playing significant roles. The four banks are also joint underwriters for Anthropic's IPO. Barclays, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Canada and UBS Group are also expected to provide large portions of the credit line.
According to Bloomberg, Anthropic asked each of the core banks to lend about $1.25 billion. The remaining banks were invited to participate at levels of roughly $750 million to $1 billion, sources said.
Companies typically finalize a revolving credit facility before notifying banks of their underwriting roles for a listing. That is because they must demonstrate sufficient liquidity to run their business without disruption for several years when filing IPO documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Expanding a revolving credit facility is a frequently used method of securing cash liquidity. If circumstances differ from expectations — such as a delayed IPO timeline or lower-than-expected proceeds — the facility can unclog blocked cash flow. Bloomberg said the expansion means Anthropic has removed a key hurdle ahead of its IPO filing.
SpaceX also sharply expanded its revolving credit agreement ahead of its own IPO. In May, a month before its listing, SpaceX increased the size of the facility to $5 billion from an initial $1.5 billion. The banks participating in the agreement largely overlapped with those that handled the IPO.
Banks, for their part, have strong interest in doing business with Anthropic, which is drawing attention as potentially the largest IPO ever. In syndicated lending, the larger a bank's committed share, the larger the fees it collects from the company. When an IPO is planned, banks that lend more are more likely to take leading roles in the listing itself. JPMorgan has held the top spot in Bloomberg's U.S. equity issuance league table this year thanks to its participation in SpaceX's listing, which raised a record $86.2 billion including the overallotment option.
'More Than SpaceX Raised': Anthropic's Growing Black Hole
Anthropic aims to raise an amount similar to or larger than SpaceX in the offering, sources said. According to the sources, the company is targeting proceeds of up to $100 billion and a valuation of about $2 trillion. That would exceed both SpaceX's offering size of $86 billion and its valuation of $1.77 trillion. Some expect the deal, like SpaceX's listing, to absorb investment money from around the world.
Anthropic's valuation has been climbing steeply. In a private funding round this year, the company was valued at $900 billion. Underpinning the increase is explosive revenue growth. Its annualized revenue, based on last month's monthly figure, is reported to have topped $65 billion (about 90 trillion won). That is more than a sevenfold increase in just seven months from $9 billion (about 12.5 trillion won) at the end of last year. Actual revenue in the second quarter of this year came to $11.6 billion (about 16.1 trillion won).
Meanwhile, competition in artificial intelligence is heating up the U.S. IPO market. Funds raised through U.S. IPOs this year total $160.6 billion (about 218 trillion won), the largest annual amount since 2021.
