Anthropic just took the formal first step toward its IPO.
They confidentially sent the draft S-1 to the SEC.
A draft S-1 is the IPO document that will eventually disclose Anthropic’s business model, financials, risks, share structure, use of proceeds, and underwriters, so submitting it means the company has done enough legal, accounting, and banker work to begin the real pre-IPO process.
The confidential part means the public still cannot read the filing yet, because the SEC allows companies to submit draft registration statements for nonpublic review before the public version appears.
Anthropic can receive SEC comments before exposing the full filing, so the market gets a signal of intent before getting the financial x-ray.
The next visible milestone will be the public S-1, because that is when everyone finally sees the numbers that matter: revenue, losses, gross margin, compute spending, customer concentration, Amazon or Google dependence, executive control, and legal risks.