Wilson Sonsini and Freshfields have landed key roles in Anthropic's hotly anticipated IPO, which could value the AI giant at around $2trn according to the Wall Street Journal.
The company's IPO filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, first submitted confidentially in June, was made public on Monday and listed a Wilson Sonsini team led by chair Rezwan Pavri as counsel to Anthropic. Freshfields advised the underwriters, with the team led out of Silicon Valley by global capital markets co-head Sarah Solum.
Orrick, Cleary Gottlieb and Cravath Swaine & Moore have also scored roles in the IPO, which comes as other companies in the AI infrastructure and data centre sectors delay listing as questions about the risks posed by the technology, market volatility and rising interest rates have made it harder to secure attractive valuations.
Orrick acted as compensation and benefits counsel to Anthropic, with the team led by Silicon Valley partner Christine McCarthy. The firm has a longstanding relationship with Anthropic, guiding all of its funding rounds since its founding in 2021, including its recent $65bn Series H fundraise.
Cleary partner Francesca Odell, co-leader of the firm's public company group and head of its Americas corporate practice, advised Anthropic's long-term benefit trust – an independent body it set up in 2023 made up of trustees with expertise in AI safety and public policy – along with Yale Law School professor John Morley.
Cravath acted for Anthropic's co-founders, with the team led by Nicholas Dorsey, head of the firm's venture capital and growth equity practice, and fellow corporate partners Aaron Gruber and Claudia Fitzpatrick (née Ricciardi).
Anthropic's IPO filing sets the stage for the company to begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange as soon as the middle of next month. The San Francisco-based company did not disclose how many shares it intends to sell, nor at what price.
Freshfields' role in the matter is a boon for its growing US practice, and follows the firm advising on the European side of SpaceX’s record-breaking stock market debut in June, which valued the company at more than $1.75trn. Earlier this year, Freshfields also formed a partnership with Anthropic to build legal AI tools that could in future be sold to other law firms.
The Freshfields team advising on the IPO also included San Francisco-based capital markets partners Calise Cheng and Phillip Stoup, while Wilson Sonsini's team included corporate practice head Allison Spinner and corporate partners Lang Liu, Colin Conklin, Jonie Kondracki, Lester Ang and Shannon Delahaye, according to the SEC filing.
Email your news and story ideas to: [email protected]
