Kalshi IPO contract jumps as Anthropic courts investors

A Kalshi contract on which of OpenAI and Anthropic will complete an initial public offering first jumped by about 12 percentage points in 24 hours, reaching an implied 17% probability on its YES side on Oct. 14. The move followed Anthropic’s reported investor gathering in San Francisco and indications that OpenAI was looking to 2027 rather than a 2026 flotation.

The contract, KXOAIANT-40, asks which of the two AI companies will list first. Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated US derivatives exchange, settles event contracts at $1 when the specified result occurs and zero otherwise, making a 17-cent price roughly equivalent to 17% implied odds. That remained well below 50%, underscoring that the price was a measure of trading sentiment rather than a prediction of a completed offering.

Anthropic’s investor meeting was reported as the immediate catalyst. Krishna Rao, the company’s chief financial officer, had already led preliminary “test the waters” meetings in the weeks before Aug. 13, CNBC reported. Those earlier discussions covered the Claude models, Claude Code, the company’s enterprise position, management and product releases, but did not include detailed financial figures or a valuation.

Anthropic confidentially submitted its draft registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission in June. It was reported to be aiming for a market debut as soon as mid-November, with IPO marketing potentially starting in the week of Nov. 9. Neither Anthropic nor OpenAI had a public S-1 in the SEC’s EDGAR database on Oct. 14, and neither had announced an IPO date, price range or ticker.

Reports said Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase could lead an Anthropic offering. Bankers and investors had discussed a valuation of roughly $1.8 trillion to $2 trillion and a possible fundraising target of as much as $100 billion, though those were discussion targets rather than announced terms. Anthropic’s Series H post-money valuation was $965 billion in May.

The two companies had both confidentially filed prospectuses by August, but their public-market timetables appeared to be diverging. OpenAI chief financial officer Sarah Friar told employees on Aug. 19 that the company would be public in 2027, while allowing that an earlier debut was possible if the business improved materially. Sam Altman called a 2026 IPO “ill-advised” and pointed to safety, alignment and the risks of quarterly public-market pressures as reasons to wait.

The prospective listings would follow a period of rapid reported growth for both companies. Anthropic told investors its annualized revenue run rate had reached $65 billion at the end of July, seven times the level a year earlier. OpenAI’s annualized revenue run rate had recently exceeded $40 billion, while its second-quarter revenue was $6.7 billion, up 18% from the first quarter.