Anthropic edges ahead of OpenAI with confidential IPO filing

As three of the world’s most closely watched technology companies – Anthropic, SpaceX, and OpenAI – edge closer to public listings, investment professionals in the UAE are counselling caution.

On Monday, artificial intelligence (AI) giant Anthropic said it confidentially filed for a US initial public offering (IPO). It did not disclose the size or the terms of the offering, but it last raised $65 billion at a post-money valuation of $965 billion in late May, putting it ahead of rival OpenAI.

Its AI rival OpenAI is also reportedly preparing to confidentially file for an IPO in the coming weeks, while Elon Musk’s SpaceX is on course to rewrite the record books with a $75 billion offering at a $1.75 trillion valuation.

Patrick Albrecht, an investment advisor at Mirabaud Middle East, says that while the opportunity is real, the risks of entering at inflated valuations are equally significant.

“Investors who did not have the chance or the opportunity to invest pre-IPO will, on the IPO or in the first days post-IPO, enter at a lofty valuation, regardless of which company they invest in,” Albrecht said. He argues that diversification is essential – both across these three listings and within a broader globally balanced portfolio.

“We’re about to find out whether the market thinks AI is a consumer story or an enterprise story. Because while Claude has built a solid enterprise user base, it’s just not competitive as a consumer AI platform,” said Nate Elliott, AI analyst at Emarketer.

According to Emarketer’s forecasts, only 5.4 per cent of US internet users will use Claude in 2026, far behind the 36.6 per cent who will use ChatGPT and the 27.4 per cent who will use Gemini.

“The good news for Anthropic is that more than 60 per cent of US AI users say they use these tools for work, and we believe that percentage will only grow,” added Elliott.

SpaceX stands apart

Among the three companies, Albrecht singles out SpaceX as the most structurally distinct investment. Unlike its peers, Elon Musk’s firm operates across both the space industry and artificial intelligence verticals, offering a degree of business diversification the pure-play AI companies do not. Its fully vertically integrated model adds another layer of resilience.

He also pointed to SpaceX’s likely rapid inclusion in major indices as a powerful near-term price catalyst.

“SpaceX could be included in the Nasdaq 100 as early as July,” Albrecht noted, explaining that index inclusion forces passive fund managers and ETF providers to purchase shares in order to track their benchmarks – a self-reinforcing dynamic that can push prices sharply higher regardless of underlying fundamentals.

The valuation problem

Albrecht is frank about the difficulty of finding an attractive entry point.

He suggested that a discount of around 40 per cent to IPO prices would be needed before these stocks could be considered fairly valued relative to the cash flows of mature, established businesses – a level he concedes may never materialise.

“We are talking trillion-dollar valuations for companies that have very high cash burn rates,” he said. The adviser added that IPO pricing tends to reflect peak narrative rather than operational reality, leaving little margin for the kind of execution stumbles that any high-growth company can experience.

Lessons from past hype cycles

Drawing on recent market history, Albrecht warned that retail investors often bear the brunt when sentiment turns.

He points to previous high-profile listings – including electric vehicle maker Rivian and design software company Figma – where initial enthusiasm gave way to significant price corrections once institutional buying dried up.

“These IPOs will be crowded trades since almost everyone wants a share of these AI leaders,” he said. “Given the size of the market capitalisation and the limited number of floating shares, institutional flows from passive and active equity managers might take retail investors for a ride once the initial hype starts to fade.”

Managing risk

For UAE-based investors who are keen to participate in the IPOs, Albrecht’s overriding message is one of portfolio discipline.

He recommended seeking exposure to assets that are structurally decorrelated from the AI and technology sector, so that a downturn in that space does not devastate an entire portfolio.

“It is important to seek advice from professional advisors to build a portfolio composed of assets which are possibly decorrelated – meaning you need to hold assets which will perform differently in case the AI and tech sector enters a correction phase,” he concluded.