Anthropic has assembled a network of prominent Silicon Valley and Wall Street law firms to advise on its planned US initial public offering, with a regulatory filing revealing that investment partnerships affiliated with one of its principal legal advisers hold an equity stake in the artificial intelligence company.
The disclosure adds another dimension to preparations for what could become one of the largest technology listings in US market history, as Anthropic seeks to access public capital amid intense competition in the AI industry and growing scrutiny of the legal risks associated with its technology.
In its IPO filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, Anthropic said investment partnerships affiliated with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, its counsel on the offering, directly or indirectly owned less than 0.01% of the company’s outstanding capital stock.
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The disclosed holding is small relative to Anthropic’s overall capitalization, but it illustrates a feature of Silicon Valley’s startup financing ecosystem, where legal advisers sometimes hold equity in companies they serve. Such arrangements can align advisers with a client’s long-term commercial success, although they also make transparency around ownership and professional responsibilities important.
The practice is not unique to Anthropic. Fenwick & West, another law firm with a substantial technology-company clientele, held nearly 900,000 shares in longtime client Figma when the software company went public in 2025. That stake was worth approximately $29 million at the IPO price.
Anthropic’s disclosure does not establish that Wilson Sonsini’s ownership influenced its legal advice or the structure of the offering. Rather, it identifies a financial interest held by investment partnerships affiliated with the firm’s counsel, a detail investors can consider alongside the broader disclosures required in a public listing.
Anthropic has appointed a broad group of advisers to handle the legal, financial and governance requirements of its planned listing.
Freshfields US is advising the underwriters, according to the filing. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were named as lead banks, alongside 20 other institutions acting as underwriters.
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe advised Anthropic on executive compensation and equity-related matters. The firm has also handled other legal work for the AI company, including its acquisition this year of technology company Stainless.
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Yale law professor John Morley advised Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust, while Cravath, Swaine & Moore is advising the company’s co-founders on certain governance matters.
The distribution of responsibilities reflects the complexity of preparing a major technology company for public markets. An IPO requires more than selecting banks and determining an offering structure. Companies must disclose ownership arrangements, executive compensation, governance mechanisms, material risks, and potential liabilities that could affect future financial performance.
For an AI developer, these obligations extend into questions that remain unsettled across the legal system. The technology can generate content, make recommendations and perform tasks through autonomous agents, creating potential disputes over who bears responsibility when its outputs or actions cause harm.
Anthropic’s filing warns prospective investors that its models and services could expose the company to a broad range of legal claims, including product liability, consumer protection, negligence and failure-to-warn allegations. Such claims could arise from alleged harms caused by AI-generated outputs, autonomous agents or customers’ use of its technology.
The company also said legal frameworks remain unsettled over whether AI systems should be treated as products or services. That, analysts warn, could affect how courts determine liability, what obligations developers owe users and which legal standards apply when a system produces harmful or misleading results.
The uncertainty creates a financial risk that may be difficult to quantify before relevant cases establish clearer precedents. Litigation could generate legal expenses, lead to damages or settlements, require changes to products and operating practices, or affect customer confidence. The ultimate consequences would depend on the facts of individual cases and how courts and regulators interpret existing law.
Then There’s FTC Inquiry
Anthropic also disclosed that it received a civil investigative demand from the US Federal Trade Commission this month seeking information related to consumer protection, privacy, data protection, product safety and security.
The disclosure establishes that the company has received a formal information request from the regulator, though it does not mean that the FTC has concluded Anthropic violated the law or that enforcement action will follow.
Nevertheless, the inquiry introduces another consideration for prospective investors assessing the company’s regulatory exposure. AI developers operate in an environment where authorities are examining how products are marketed, how personal information is handled, and whether safeguards adequately address potential risks to users.
The regulatory disclosure comes with weighty implications for the IPO because public investors must evaluate not only a company’s revenue growth and competitive position but also risks that could affect its future profitability. For an AI company, legal exposure may evolve alongside the technology itself, making the potential cost of compliance and litigation harder to forecast than in more established software markets.
Anthropic’s valuation expectations have also been shifting. Some current and prospective investors have valued the company at approximately $1.5 trillion, down from around $2 trillion a week earlier, according to the report. Those figures represent investor valuations rather than a confirmed IPO price or market capitalization.
The movement reveals the sensitivity of private-market valuations to changing expectations about growth, competition, financing, and the eventual terms of a public offering. A listing would expose Anthropic to continuous market pricing and more direct comparisons with publicly traded technology companies.
The company now must prepare for scrutiny on several fronts: its ability to sustain commercial growth, its governance arrangements, its legal exposure and the financial implications of building and deploying advanced AI systems.
The law firms advising Anthropic will play distinct roles in navigating those issues, from the mechanics of the offering to compensation, governance and regulatory disclosures. Their involvement does not resolve the risks described in the filing, but it underscores the legal complexity of bringing a frontier AI developer to public markets.