Anthropic, OpenAI Said To Be Racing For Public Markets: Reports Of Pre-IPO Moves Tell Very Different Stories

• Anthropic executives are reportedly reassuring critics over its growth strategy, Chinese competition and tensions with the Trump administration.
• Anthropic unveiled Claude Opus 5 on July 21 and OpenAI launched GPT-5.6 on July 24, while Google has yet to launch its much-anticipated Gemini 3.5 Pro model.
• Retail traders are increasingly turning to EFs such as AGIX, VCX, and DXYZ, which hold Anthropic stock, ahead of its mega listing.

Anthropic is meeting potential investors to shore up confidence in its initial public offering (IPO) and could launch the share sale in September or early October, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

As the AI leader moves ahead and rival OpenAI appears to be delaying its IPO, traders are turning to exchange traded funds that offer exposure to its private stocks.

Funds such as KraneShares Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF (AGIX), Fundrise Innovation Fund (VCX), and Destiny Tech 100 Inc (DXYZ) have become popular on Stocktwits of late. The watcher count for AGIX increased a whopping 226% in the last three months, while that for VCX increased 22% and DXYZ increased 11%.

To be sure, VCX and DXYZ also have exposure to OpenAI, with developments at both AI companies helping drive momentum in the ETFs.

In a separate report on Monday, Bloomberg reported, citing a source, that OpenAI just completed a $7 billion buyback of company shares held by current and former employees. The deal reportedly valued the AI firm at $852 billion.

Anthropic’s IPO Push

In the investor talk, Anthropic executives are said to be reassuring critics about its pace of growth, strategies, and other issues such as the recent popularity of cheaper AI systems from China and tensions with the Donald Trump administration.

Anthropic has recently emerged as the front-runner in that race, but there is also a backlash against the company in Silicon Valley, where many chief executives have grown nervous about its power over the AI ecosystem.

The U.S. government briefly banned Anthropic’s Mythos model by foreign entities amid concerns that it could compromise encryption and risk cybersecurity.

Still, its lead is being closely watched. The company said in May that its annualized revenue run rate had surpassed $4.7 billion earlier that month.

In recent weeks, Anthropic has struck a series of new computing agreements with companies including SpaceX and Google. Usage data indicates that demand for Claude Code and its other products has remained strong, while the company has also experienced intermittent outages this year, according to the Journal.

OpenAI Playing Catch Up

OpenAI has accelerated both its product rollout and enterprise push over the past few months, launching GPT-5.6 in July, merging the Codex coding agent into its ChatGPT desktop app and adding features including multi-repository projects and pull-request reviews. 

The company also launched ChatGPT Health, expanded its enterprise partner network with a $150 million investment, and introduced a deployment unit through the acquisition of AI consultancy Tomoro. 

More recently, OpenAI expanded access to its latest models, giving free users GPT-5.6 Luna while improving GPT-5.6 Sol for paid subscribers.

Anthropic unveiled Claude Opus 5 on July 21. In contrast, Google has yet to launch its much-anticipated Gemini 3.5 Pro model.

Retail View, Valuation

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment was ‘bearish’ for Anthropic and ‘bullish’ for OpenAI.

Anthropic is valued at $1.13 trillion, compared to OpenAI’s private market valuation of $847.96 billion, according to data from Nasdaq Private Market. 

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