Why Amazon Could Be the Biggest Winner in Anthropic’s IPO

Many of Anthropic’s venture backers are expected to see major returns when the company goes public, including firms such as Menlo Ventures, Sequoia, Sound Ventures and Spark Capital. But TechCrunch reports that none of those VC firms owns at least 5%, the threshold for appearing in Anthropic’s principal stockholders table. The reason is scale: at Anthropic’s reported $965 billion private valuation, even a 1% stake is worth nearly $10 billion.

Amazon first backed Anthropic in 2023 with a commitment to invest up to $4 billion and later added billions more. Much of that investment was structured as convertible notes, which can turn into shares when Anthropic goes public or is sold. According to Anthropic’s S-1, Amazon held $6.2 billion in principal outstanding convertible notes as of June 30, while Amazon’s own filings valued those note holdings at $97.9 billion.

TechCrunch reports that Amazon also invested $10 billion in nonvoting preferred stock in the second quarter, with $5 billion placed in each of Anthropic’s last two funding rounds. Combined with $8 billion invested in notes from 2023 through 2025, Amazon’s total investment is about $18 billion. Beyond stock gains, Amazon is also positioned to earn revenue from Anthropic’s commitment to spend at least $110 billion on AWS over the next 10 years.

Google is also set for a significant gain from Anthropic’s listing and cloud computing deals. TechCrunch cites court filings reported by The New York Times showing Google held about 14% of Anthropic as of early last year, though a PitchBook analyst estimated its current stake at closer to 5.6% after later funding rounds. The S-1 warns that some cloud providers also build rival AI models, underscoring a key tension: Anthropic’s biggest infrastructure partners may not always share its interests.