风投将在 Anthropic IPO 中狂赚数十亿美元，但亚马逊斩获的收益将远多于此

许多投资者在 Anthropic 上市时都将迎来巨额回报。包括 Menlo Ventures、Sequoia（红杉资本）、Sound Ventures 和 Spark Capital 在内的多家风投机构预计将斩获数十亿美元的回报。

然而根据 Anthropic 的 S-1 招股书，这些风投机构中没有一家的持股比例达到 5%——这是被列入主要股东名单的门槛。这极为罕见。在典型的科技公司 IPO 中，领投的风投机构通常持有被投初创公司两位数百分比的股份。造成这一现象的原因是 Anthropic 庞大的体量。按照其 9650 亿美元的一级市场估值计算，仅 1% 的股份就价值近 100 亿美元。根据彭博社近期报道的数据，例如 Menlo 持有的约 140 亿美元头寸，实际上仅占该公司约 1.5% 的股权。

虽然风投机构可能缺乏高比例的持股份额，但 Anthropic 将大比例股权出售给了战略合作伙伴——这些公司同时也是其业务合作伙伴。事实上，亚马逊很可能是此次 IPO 的单一最大财务受益者。

亚马逊最早于 2023 年支持 Anthropic，承诺向这家 AI 公司投资至多 40 亿美元。自那以后，亚马逊又向 Anthropic 注资数十亿美元。亚马逊并没有直接认购股票，而是将其大部分投资构建为可转换票据（convertible notes），这是一种在公司 IPO 或出售时转换为股票的债务工具。

S-1 招股书显示，截至 6 月 30 日，亚马逊持有的未偿还可转债本金为 62 亿美元。这构成了 Anthropic 的全部债务负担。但随着 Anthropic 的估值在几轮连续融资中暴涨，这些票据所能转换成的股票价值大幅攀升。根据亚马逊自身的监管文件，截至 6 月 30 日，其持有的这些票据估值已达 979 亿美元。

随着亚马逊可转债价值的飙升，Anthropic 不得不在其账簿上记录其应付款项的增值。Anthropic 在利润表中的“可转换票据、衍生负债和 SAFE 协议公允价值变动”科目下列出了这笔调整，2026 年上半年该科目总额高达 724 亿美元。该费用属于非现金性质，意味着并没有实际资金流出公司。

S-1 文件显示，亚马逊的票据可转换为多达 18.4 亿股股票。但有一项持股上限将亚马逊限制在 Anthropic “部分稀释后”（partially diluted）股本的 12% 以内（该指标计入了期权等尚未发行的一部分股份）。亚马逊拥有豁免该上限的权利。无法转换的票据将保持未结清状态，并在后续季度按同样的限制条件进行转换。

然而票据仅是亚马逊持仓的一部分。根据亚马逊截至 6 月 30 日的季度财报，该公司还在第二季度投资了 100 亿美元的无投票权优先股（一种股权形式）。亚马逊是通过在 Anthropic 最近的两轮融资中各注资 50 亿美元来实现这一点的。加上 2023 年至 2025 年期间在票据上投资的 80 亿美元，亚马逊的总投资额已达到约 180 亿美元。

除了股票收益之外，亚马逊还将继续从 Anthropic 处获得可观的营收，Anthropic 已承诺在未来 10 年内至少向 AWS 采购 1100 亿美元的云服务。

谷歌同样有望从此次上市及其与 Anthropic 的云计算合作协议中获得巨额横财。根据纽约时报报道的法庭文件，截至去年初，这家搜索巨头持有 Anthropic 约 14% 的股权，此后又进行了追加投资，包括今年 4 月的 100 亿美元。（谷歌的持股比例可能在随后庞大的融资轮次中被稀释，PitchBook 分析师 Harrison Rolfes 向 TechCrunch 表示，他估计谷歌目前的持股比例接近 5.6%。）此外，谷歌还锁定了 Anthropic 截至 2033 年至少 1140 亿美元的云服务承诺。

尽管即将迎来巨额回报的风投们没有什么理由抱怨，但 S-1 招股书明确表明，Anthropic IPO 的最大赢家很可能是像亚马逊这样的科技巨头——它们早早投资了一家未来的竞争对手，如今又向其出售其运行所需的大部分算力。

S-1 本身也提出了警告：其中一些云服务商也在开发相竞争的 AI 模型，它们的诉求与 Anthropic 并不总是一致。

Many investors stand to win big when Anthropic goes public. Stakes held by firms including Menlo Ventures, Sequoia, Sound Ventures, and Spark Capital are expected to return billions.

Yet according to Anthropic’s S-1, none of those VC firms owns 5%, the threshold for being included in the principal stockholders’ table. That’s highly unusual. In a typical tech IPO, lead venture investors hold double-digit-percentage stakes in the startups they backed. The reason is Anthropic’s size. At its $965 billion private valuation, a 1% stake is worth nearly $10 billion, so, for example, Menlo’s roughly $14 billion position is only about 1.5% of the company, according to recently reported Bloomberg figures.

While the venture firms may lack sizable percentage stakes, Anthropic sold large stakes to strategic partners, companies that are also its business partners. Indeed, Amazon is likely the single largest financial beneficiary of the IPO.

Amazon first backed Anthropic in 2023 with a commitment to invest up to $4 billion in the AI company. Since then, Amazon has poured billions more into Anthropic. Instead of taking stock upfront, Amazon structured much of its investment as convertible notes, a type of debt that converts into shares upon an IPO or sale.

According to the S-1, Amazon holds convertible notes with $6.2 billion in principal outstanding as of June 30. That is Anthropic’s entire debt load. But as Anthropic’s valuation soared across successive funding rounds, the shares those notes will convert into became far more valuable. Amazon’s own filings valued its note holdings at $97.9 billion as of June 30.

As the value of Amazon’s convertible notes surged, Anthropic had to record the growing value of what it owes on its books. It reported the adjustments on its income statement under “change in fair value of convertible notes, derivative liabilities, and SAFEs,” a line that totaled $72.4 billion for the first half of 2026. The charge is non-cash, meaning no money left the company.

Amazon’s notes could convert into as many as 1.84 billion shares, according to the S-1. But a cap limits Amazon to 12% of Anthropic’s “partially diluted” share count, a figure that counts some shares not yet issued, such as stock options. Amazon can waive the cap. Notes that can’t convert will stay outstanding and convert in later quarters, subject to the same limit.

But the notes are only part of Amazon’s holdings. It further invested $10 billion in nonvoting preferred stock (a type of equity), in the second quarter, according to Amazon’s quarterly report for the period ended June 30. Amazon did this by investing $5 billion in each of Anthropic’s last two funding rounds. Combined with the $8 billion it invested in the notes from 2023 through 2025, that brings Amazon’s total investment to about $18 billion.

Beyond its stock gains, Amazon will also continue to earn significant revenue from Anthropic, which has committed to spend at least $110 billion on AWS over the next 10 years.

Google, too, is set for a major windfall from both the listing and its cloud computing deals with Anthropic. The search giant held about 14% of Anthropic as of early last year, according to court filings that were reported by The New York Times, and has invested more since, including $10 billion in April. (Google was likely diluted in subsequent and massive funding rounds, with PitchBook analyst Harrison Rolfes telling TechCrunch he estimates its current stake at closer to 5.6%.) It has also secured at least $114 billion in cloud commitments from the Anthropic through 2033.

While VCs set for massive paydays have little reason to complain, the S-1 makes it clear that the biggest winners of Anthropic’s IPO may well be tech giants like Amazon, which backed a would-be rival early on and now sell it much of the computing power it runs on.

The S-1 itself warns that some of those cloud providers also build rival AI models and that they may not always want the same things that Anthropic does.