Amazon stands to gain more than VCs from Anthropic's IPO

Anthropic’s IPO will mint huge paper wins for backers such as Sequoia, Spark Capital, Sound Ventures and Menlo Ventures — but none of them tops Amazon’s take. Per the S-1, Anthropic’s filing shows that no VC firm clears the 5% stake needed to appear in its principal-stockholders table, unusual for a tech IPO where lead venture investors typically hold double-digit percentage stakes. That gap reflects Anthropic’s sheer scale: its private valuation of $965 billion means a single percentage point is worth nearly $10 billion — which is why even Menlo Ventures’ roughly $14 billion stake comes out to only about 1.5% of the company, per figures Bloomberg recently reported.

Amazon is likely the single largest financial beneficiary. It first backed Anthropic in 2023 with a pledge of up to $4 billion, then added billions more over time, much of it structured as convertible notes rather than upfront equity — debt that converts into shares when a company goes public or is sold. The S-1 puts the principal on those notes at $6.2 billion as of June 30, all of Anthropic’s outstanding debt, while Amazon’s own filings price that position at $97.9 billion on the same date. Because the notes’ value climbed alongside Anthropic’s valuation, Anthropic had to book a $72.4 billion non-cash charge for the first half of 2026 reflecting what it now owes. At the outer limit, the notes could convert into 1.84 billion Anthropic shares, though a 12% cap on Amazon’s partially diluted stake — a figure that includes unissued shares such as stock options — limits actual conversion; Amazon can waive that cap, and any notes that can’t convert yet stay outstanding, converting later under the same rule.

Amazon also put $10 billion into nonvoting preferred stock during the second quarter, funding that stake with two $5 billion checks, one in each of Anthropic’s two most recent funding rounds. Combined with the $8 billion it put into notes between 2023 and 2025, Amazon’s combined investment comes to about $18 billion. Beyond the equity stake, Amazon also stands to collect sustained cloud revenue — Anthropic has committed to at least $110 billion of AWS spending across the coming ten years.

Google is set for a comparable windfall, both from the listing itself and from its cloud ties to Anthropic. Court filings reported by The New York Times put Google’s stake at roughly 14% as of early last year; the company has since added to that position, putting in another $10 billion in April. PitchBook analyst Harrison Rolfes, however, expects later mega-rounds to have diluted Google down to nearer 5.6%. On the commercial side, Google has secured cloud commitments worth at least $114 billion from Anthropic running through 2033.

Why it matters

Strategic cloud partners, not venture firms, are positioned to capture the largest share of value from Anthropic’s listing. The S-1 itself flags the tension in that arrangement: some of those same partners also build rival AI models and may not always want what Anthropic does.