Anthropic credit facility to exceed $10 billion ahead of IPO

Anthropic is expanding its revolving credit facility beyond $10 billion as banks compete for underwriting roles in the AI company's planned IPO, four times the size of its prior $2.5 billion line.

The facility, which could ultimately be capped at or below the target as talks continue, has drawn outsized commitments from lenders seeking an edge in what is expected to be one of the largest AI listings of the year, according to people familiar with the matter, as reported by Bloomberg.

Anthropic has asked its most active banks to commit about $1.25 billion each, a second tier roughly $1 billion, and less-active participants $750 million or less. In syndicated lending, larger commitments bring higher fees and stronger standing for follow-on capital markets work. The company is working with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan on the IPO, which could land on Wall Street as early as this fall, ahead of rival OpenAI.

The expansion marks a step change from the $2.5 billion, five-year facility Anthropic secured last year with Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Royal Bank of Canada and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. It also follows talks to arrange about $15 billion in debt for a Texas data-center project backed by Google, structured as roughly $14 billion in bridge loans plus a revolving credit line.

Revenue surge underpins the financing push

Anthropic's fundamentals give banks confidence to underwrite the deal. The company's annualized revenue run rate reached more than $65 billion by the end of July, up from about $47 billion in May and roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025. Preliminary revenue for its latest completed quarter topped $11.5 billion, versus $787 million a year earlier, and adjusted operating income turned positive.

The run rate is an annualized projection of current sales velocity, not trailing twelve-month revenue, but the trajectory is steep. Anthropic confidentially filed for a US IPO in June and has been meeting with investors ahead of a possible large-scale listing. The growth is driven by its Claude and Claude Code products, which have turned the company from a venture-backed startup into a business able to command large-scale debt capital.

AI financing wave reshapes the IPO market

Anthropic's capital maneuver is part of a broader pattern. SpaceX expanded its revolving credit facility from $1.5 billion to $5 billion in May, then launched its IPO a month later with a syndicate that overlapped heavily with its lenders. OpenAI, meanwhile, brought in Bank of America this summer, lifting its accessible capital above $5 billion.

The activity comes as the AI boom revives the IPO market. Companies going public this year have raised $257 billion, excluding blank-check firms and other vehicles, the most in a single year since 2021, according to Bloomberg data.

For Wall Street, the contest over Anthropic's credit line is about more than lending fees. A higher rank in the facility positions a bank for a lead role in the underwriting and any follow-on capital markets work, which could run into the hundreds of billions of dollars across the AI sector. Anthropic's May funding round valued the company at $965 billion post-money, making it one of the most valuable private startups globally. A listing at that scale would test whether public markets can absorb AI companies at valuations once reserved for the largest technology incumbents, and it raises the stakes for OpenAI to accelerate its own timeline.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.