Anthropic explores employee tender offer amid mega-round talks
Anthropic, one of the most closely watched AI startups, is reportedly developing a plan that would allow employees to sell a portion of their shares as the company discusses a valuation of at least $350 billion, according to industry reports and people familiar with the matter. The potential employee share sale would be paired with a major fundraising that could raise more than $20 billion, the sources said.
The proposed transaction would take the form of a tender offer, a mechanism commonly used by late-stage private companies to provide liquidity to employees and early shareholders without going public. If executed, the move would give staff a chance to cash out some equity in what could become one of the most valuable privately held AI companies in the world.
$350B discussed as pre-money valuation
People familiar with the discussions said the $350 billion figure being floated is a pre-money valuation, meaning it would not include the new capital expected from the fundraising round. In practical terms, if the company were to raise more than $20 billion at that level, the post-money valuation would rise further, depending on the final terms.
While details remain fluid, the valuation under discussion underscores the speed at which frontier AI developers have attracted investor interest, particularly those building large language models and enterprise-facing AI systems. It also reflects the growing competition among investors to gain exposure to companies seen as foundational infrastructure providers for the next wave of software.
Backed by Amazon and Google
Anthropic is backed by major technology companies including Amazon and Google, relationships that have helped the startup scale compute capacity and expand distribution. Strategic backing from hyperscalers has become a defining feature of the AI sector, where training and deploying advanced models requires enormous capital and access to specialized infrastructure.
For investors, those partnerships can serve as both a vote of confidence and a potential source of future commercial traction. For the broader market, they highlight how the AI race is increasingly shaped by alliances between model developers and cloud platforms.
Enterprise push draws investor attention
The reported fundraising and tender discussions come as Anthropic continues to expand its enterprise product lineup. The company recently introduced 11 new plug-ins for its no-code AI agent, Claude Cowork, targeting business users who want to automate workflows without extensive engineering resources.
That product expansion has attracted close attention from investors focused on how quickly AI can move from experimentation to everyday business use. Enterprise adoption is widely viewed as a key determinant of which AI companies can sustain premium valuations over the long term, particularly as model training costs remain high and competition intensifies.
Market sensitivity to AI disruption grows
The latest developments also arrive against a backdrop of heightened market sensitivity to AI-driven disruption. Earlier this week, US and European data analytics, software, and professional services stocks experienced a sharp selloff as investors reassessed how quickly AI tools could reshape existing enterprise software models.
While public-market moves do not directly determine private valuations, they can influence investor sentiment and the narrative around which categories of software are most vulnerable—or most likely to be augmented—by AI agents and copilots. For late-stage AI startups, the challenge is to demonstrate that adoption translates into durable revenue streams rather than short-lived experimentation.
Why a tender offer matters for employees and the company
A tender offer can be significant for employees at fast-growing private companies, where equity compensation may represent a large portion of total pay but can remain illiquid for years. Allowing staff to sell a portion of shares can reduce pressure to pursue an IPO primarily for liquidity and can help retain talent in a competitive hiring market.
For the company, structured liquidity programs can also help manage the cap table and set internal expectations around equity value. However, tender offers typically come with restrictions—such as limits on how much employees can sell—and may be contingent on the closing of a broader financing round.
What happens next
No final terms have been announced, and the discussions could change depending on market conditions and investor appetite. Still, a combined mega-round and employee liquidity event at a valuation in the $350 billion range would represent one of the largest private-market moments in the AI sector to date.
If completed, the transactions would further cement Anthropic among the most highly valued AI startups globally, while providing employees a rare opportunity to realize gains from the company’s rapid rise. The outcome will be closely watched by venture investors, strategic backers, and competitors as the race to commercialize frontier AI accelerates.
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