Many investors stand to gain a lot when Anthropic goes public. Holdings from companies such as Menlo Ventures, Sequoia, Sound Ventures and Spark Capital are expected to generate billions. However, according to Anthropic’s S-1, none of those private equity firms own 5%, the threshold to be included in the table of major shareholders. That’s very unusual. In a typical technology IPO, top venture investors have double-digit percentage stakes in the startups they backed. The reason is Anthropic’s size. Based on its private valuation of $965 billion, a 1% stake is worth almost $10 billion, so, for example, Menlo’s roughly $14 billion position represents only about 1.5% of the company, according to figures recently released by Bloomberg. While venture firms may lack sizable percentage stakes, Anthropic sold large stakes to strategic partners, companies that are also its business partners. In fact, Amazon is probably the biggest financial beneficiary of the IPO. Amazon backed Anthropic for the first time in 2023 with a commitment to invest up to $4 billion in the artificial intelligence company. Amazon has since invested billions more in Anthropic. Instead of taking shares up front, Amazon structured much of its investment as convertible notes, a type of debt that converts into equity after an initial public offering or sale. According to the S-1, Amazon owns convertible notes with $6.2 billion in principal outstanding as of June 30. That’s Anthropic’s entire debt load. But as Anthropic’s valuation soared in successive rounds of financing, the shares those notes will be converted into became much more valuable. Amazon’s own filings valued its banknote holdings at $97.9 billion as of June 30. As the value of Amazon’s convertible notes rose, Anthropic had to record the rising value of what it owed on its books. It reported adjustments to its income statement in “change in fair value of convertible notes, derivative liabilities and SAFE,” a line that amounted to $72.4 billion during the first half of 2026. The charge is non-cash, meaning no money left the company. Amazon’s notes could be converted into up to 1.84 billion shares, according to the S-1. But a limit limits Amazon to 12% of Anthropic’s “partially diluted” share count, a figure that includes some shares not yet issued, such as stock options. Amazon can waive the limit. Notes that cannot be converted will remain outstanding and will be converted in subsequent quarters, subject to the same limit. But the bills are only part of Amazon’s holdings. Additionally, it invested $10 billion in non-voting preferred stock (a type of stock) in the second quarter, according to Amazon’s quarterly report for the period ending June 30. Amazon did this by investing $5 billion in each of Anthropic’s last two funding rounds. Combined with the $8 billion it invested in the bonds from 2023 to 2025, that brings Amazon’s total investment to about $18 billion. Beyond its stock gains, Amazon will also continue to earn significant revenue from Anthropic, which has committed to spending at least $110 billion on AWS over the next 10 years. Google is also expected to reap a large windfall from both the IPO and its cloud computing deals with Anthropic. The search giant owned about 14% of Anthropic early last year, according to court documents reported by The New York Times, and has invested more since then, including $10 billion in April. (Google was likely diluted in subsequent massive funding rounds, and PitchBook analyst Harrison Rolfes told TechCrunch that he estimates its current stake is closer to 5.6%.) It has also secured at least $114 billion in cloud commitments from Anthropic through 2033. While the venture capitalists who will receive massive payouts have little reason to complain, the S-1 makes clear that the biggest winners from Google’s IPO Anthropic may well be tech giants like Amazon, which backed a potential rival from the start and now sells it much of the computing power it uses. S-1 itself warns that some of those cloud providers also build rival AI models and may not always want the same things as Anthropic. When you buy through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect our editorial independence.
