Amazon to reap biggest windfall from Anthropic IPO

Amazon is positioned to become the largest financial beneficiary of Anthropic's IPO, with its convertible notes valued at $97.9 billion as of June 30, despite venture capital firms also expecting billions in returns. The AI company's S-1 filing reveals no VC firm holds a 5% stake, unusual for a tech IPO. Anthropic's $965 billion private valuation means a 1% stake is worth nearly $10 billion, explaining why firms like Menlo Ventures hold only about 1.5% despite a $14 billion position. Amazon structured much of its roughly $18 billion total investment as convertible notes, which can convert into up to 1.84 billion shares, capped at 12% of partially diluted shares. Amazon also invested $10 billion in nonvoting preferred stock and has secured at least $110 billion in AWS commitments from Anthropic over the next decade. Google, holding an estimated 5.6% stake, has secured $114 billion in cloud commitments, though the S-1 warns cloud providers also build rival AI models.