Anthropic IPO to Drive Blockbuster Gains for Iconiq, Spark, GIC

Anthropic IPO to Drive Blockbuster Gains for Iconiq, Spark, GIC By the time Iconiq made its first investment in Anthropic PBC in 2025, the artificial intelligence developer was valued at $183 billion — more than almost any other tech startup in the world — and well on its way to becoming an AI juggernaut. Yet even Iconiq’s later stage bet is now set to bring in massive returns as Anthropic nears its Wall Street debut. The investment firm, which has pumped more than $6 billion into Anthropic, owns a stake worth approximately $17 billion based on the AI company’s most recent $965 billion private market valuation, according to people familiar with the matter. The value of Iconiq’s investment — the largest deal in its history — could double if Anthropic pulls off its public offering at a valuation as high as $2 trillion, as some expect. Anthropic’s imminent public listing is poised to create multibillion-dollar gains for top venture capital firms, technology companies and independent investors that have backed the Claude chatbot maker since its founding in 2021. The list of winners includes prescient early backers as well as comparative latecomers who benefitted from the company’s rapid ascent and surging valuation over the past year. Spark Capital, the only venture firm known to have a board director seat at the startup, invested $75 million in Anthropic in 2023, one person said, marking its largest check ever. Its stake is now worth $7 billion at the current valuation, the person said. Sound Ventures, an under-the-radar firm started by talent manager Guy Oseary and actor Ashton Kutcher, invested $35 million in that same round at a $5 billion valuation, another person said. It has since invested $400 million across subsequent financings, leading to a stake worth billions of dollars, the person said. The firm is now run by Oseary and Effie Epstein, managing partner. Kutcher stepped down earlier this year. By contrast, Sequoia Capital, the storied venture firm that made early bets on OpenAI, only cut its first check to Anthropic at the start of this year. But the $3 billion it’s put into the startup has given Sequoia a roughly 1% stake, according to a person familiar with the matter, setting it up for a significant return. Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC also owns about 1% of Anthropic after investing north of $4.5 billion in the company, starting with its first investment last year, said one person, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity as the information is not public. In August, Anthropic formed a strategic partnership with GIC and Macquarie Asset Management to build data centers. Anthropic, Sequoia, Iconiq, Sound and GIC declined to comment. Spark did not respond to a request for comment. The Wall Street Journal previously reported some details of Spark’s returns. Anthropic is expected to publicly file IPO paperwork in the coming days, kicking off the process for a public offering that could serve as an almost unparalleled wealth creation event — bolstering the net worth of its seven billionaire co-founders and turning many of the company’s thousands of employees into millionaires. The IPO windfall will also likely reverberate throughout the tech and venture ecosystem, helping to fuel future investments in AI at a moment of heightened concerns about a possible bubble. Like archrival OpenAI, Anthropic has tapped numerous sources for capital to fund its costly investments in chips, data centers and talent to build better AI models and support growing adoption of its technology. Some of Anthropic’s biggest suppliers, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Nvidia Corp. have invested billions in the startup. Those deals, which elicited concerns about circular financing arrangements propping up the AI boom, are set to generate substantial returns for the big tech firms. In its early days, however, Anthropic mostly received backing from wealthy angel investors, such as former Google chief executive officer Eric Schmidt and disgraced FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Schmidt owns around a 1% stake in the company, Bloomberg News has reported, setting him up for one of the largest gains of any individual shareholder.