Anthropic’s Private Shares Soar to $185 Amid AI Frenzy – $183B Valuation, Major Deals & $1.5B Lawsuit

Private “Forge” share price: ~$185.90 as of Oct. 29, 2025 ^[1], implying roughly a $241 billion valuation ^[2]. That reflects a mind-blowing +1,555% jump in one week ^[3].
Series F funding: In Sept 2025 Anthropic raised $13 billion at a $183 billion post-money valuation ^[4]. The company reports run-rate revenue growing from ~$1 billion in early 2025 to over $5 billion by Aug 2025 ^[5], and Reuters says it’s targeting roughly $9 billion annual run-rate by year-end ^[6].
Key partnerships: Anthropic has inked high-profile deals: London Stock Exchange Group will feed market data into Claude (Oct. 27) ^[7]; Salesforce expanded Claude’s use in financial services and Slack (Oct. 14) ^[8]; IBM integrated Claude into a new AI coding IDE (Oct. 7) ^[9]; and Anthropic is in talks for a Google Cloud compute deal worth “tens of billions” (reported Oct. 21) ^[10].
Product launches: The company released new Claude features – e.g. a Claude for Excel beta and live financial data connectors (Oct. 27) ^[11] – to automate tasks like DCF modeling. It also debuted Claude for Life Sciences (Oct. 20) in partnership with 10x Genomics, letting researchers run single-cell analysis via natural-language prompts. As 10x Genomics CEO Serge Saxonov explains, this makes advanced genomics “accessible… through natural conversation, without needing a computational background” ^[12].
Legal and regulatory: In late Sept 2025 a U.S. judge gave preliminary approval to a $1.5 billion settlement of a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic ^[13]. Authors had sued over Anthropic’s training of Claude on copyrighted books. This is the first major copyright penalty in the AI era. Anthropic’s deputy GC said the deal lets the company “focus on developing safe AI systems” ^[14].
Market reactions: Related stocks jumped on the news – LSEG’s shares rose ~1.7% on the Claude announcement ^[15], and Alphabet (Google) climbed ~2.3% after Bloomberg broke the cloud-deal story ^[16]. Still, many analysts caution that AI valuations are very high. For example, a Bank of America survey found 54% of fund managers say AI stocks are in a “bubble” ^[17]. TechStock² (ts2.tech) notes big tech and semiconductor stocks now trade at sky-high multiples, reflecting investors’ optimism on AI even amid warnings of a frothy market ^[18] ^[19].

Private Valuation and Growth Surge

Anthropic remains privately held, but secondary-market pricing gives a clear picture of investor sentiment. According to Forge Global data, Anthropic’s derived share price hit $185.90 on Oct. 29, 2025 ^[20]. That figure implies an eye-watering ~$241 billion valuation ^[21]. Remarkably, Forge’s charts show the price jumped about +1,555% in one week during late October ^[22]. (Hiive, another private market site, similarly values Anthropic around $190–200 per share.) This caps a year of rapid growth: Anthropic’s Sept 2025 press release notes that its revenue run-rate exploded from roughly $1 billion in early 2025 to $5 billion by August 2025 ^[23]. Reuters has reported the company expects to reach about $9 billion annualized run-rate by the end of 2025 ^[24] – a testament to how quickly enterprises are adopting Claude. In announcing the $13 billion Series F, Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao highlighted “exponential growth in demand” and said the financing reflects investors’ “extraordinary confidence” in Anthropic’s performance ^[25].

New Partnerships and Product Innovations

Anthropic’s meteoric growth has been fueled by major partnerships and product launches. On Oct. 27, the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) announced a deal to integrate its financial data products into Claude ^[26]. Nicholas Lin of Anthropic explained that with LSEG’s data Claude can now “summarize earnings calls, scan diligence materials… and surface instant market signals – all with enterprise-grade controls” ^[27], illustrating Claude’s power in real-world finance workflows. Earlier in October, Salesforce unveiled an expanded Claude integration for regulated industries. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff praised the initiative, saying that by linking Claude with Salesforce and Slack they are giving companies “the power to work in entirely new ways” ^[28]. IBM also joined the mix: in early Oct. IBM launched a new AI-first coding environment that embeds Claude for enterprise software development ^[29], a partnership Anthropic’s Chief Product Officer Mike Krieger said reflects Claude being the “go-to AI for developers at the world’s largest companies” ^[30].

On the product front, Anthropic released powerful new features. Its Oct. 27 blog announced Claude for Excel (beta) – allowing users to ask Claude to build or analyze spreadsheets directly in an Excel sidebar ^[31] – plus new connectors to real-time market data (e.g. Moody’s, Morningstar, and even LSEG) ^[32]. Anthropic also rolled out six new “Agent Skills” for finance, automating tasks like discounted-cash-flow modeling and earnings analysis. And on Oct. 20 Anthropic teamed with biotech leader 10x Genomics to launch Claude for Life Sciences ^[33]. This integration connects Claude to 10x’s single-cell and spatial genomics tools via Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol. As 10x CEO Serge Saxonov put it, researchers can now “interact with their data through natural conversation” instead of writing code ^[34] – a breakthrough that could accelerate scientific discovery.

Legal and Regulatory Update

Anthropic’s rapid ascent is happening under a spotlight of legal scrutiny. In September 2025 a California federal judge gave preliminary approval to a $1.5 billion class-action settlement against Anthropic ^[35]. The suit (filed by authors including Andrea Bartz and others) accused Anthropic of using millions of copyrighted books to train Claude. Although Judge Alsup had earlier ruled Anthropic’s training was fair use, he agreed to settle after the company conceded it kept a “central library” of the works ^[36]. If finalized, this would be the first major copyright penalty for an AI developer. Anthropic’s deputy general counsel, Aparna Sridhar, said the settlement lets Anthropic “focus on developing safe AI systems” and serves as a warning that AI companies can’t “shortcut the law or override creators’ rights” ^[37] ^[38]. Industry observers note this outcome underscores growing calls for accountability and standards in AI development.

Market Reaction and Analyst Commentary

Investors have reacted eagerly to Anthropic’s newsflow, but many analysts caution the sector is overheated. LSEG’s stock (LSEG.L) jumped about 1.7% when its Claude partnership was announced ^[39], and Alphabet (GOOGL) rallied roughly 2.3% after reports of the Anthropic-Google cloud talks ^[40]. Meanwhile, U.S. stock indexes remain near record highs driven by AI excitement. However, veteran market watchers warn valuations are lofty. For instance, TechStock² (ts2.tech) notes that IBM is trading around 45× forward earnings after its AI initiatives ^[41], and Palantir’s stock now tops a $400 billion market cap despite far smaller sales ^[42]. Bank of America found 54% of fund managers believe AI stocks are in a bubble ^[43], echoing regulators’ concerns about a potential selloff if growth disappoints. As ts2.tech sums up, “anything attached to AI is garnering a significant amount of attention” ^[44] – a testament to the sector’s fever pitch. Analyst David Jaffe warns that “the recent rally has been disproportionately fueled by a handful of AI and semiconductor stocks, pushing their valuations to euphoric, and frankly, unsustainable levels” ^[45]. In short, the market mood is “cautiously euphoric”: investors don’t want to miss out, but some admit this may not last forever ^[46] ^[47].

Outlook and Investment Analysis

With all these developments, what’s next for Anthropic’s future “stock” (if it ever lists) and its investors? On the one hand, the company’s growth trajectory and enterprise traction are impressive. Anthropic has signed marquee customers (Citi, RBC, Panasonic and others) and its model performance (e.g. Claude Sonnet 4.5 on finance tasks) is industry-leading. It has a massive $13 billion war chest to expand capacity, enter new markets (Asia-Pacific offices in Tokyo and Seoul are open) and refine safety research. If Anthropic can sustain its momentum – as it projects – its high private valuation could be justified by robust revenue growth. However, parallels to past tech frenzies make analysts cautious. The sky-high valuation (well above $200 billion implied) leaves little room for disappointment. As one tech strategist notes, the very hype that lifts these stocks can “deepen the impact” if growth slows ^[48]. For now, excitement is high: Anthropic’s cutting-edge technology, partnerships, and financials are winning praise. But investors will be watching closely whether its fundamentals (actual sales, profitability) keep up with the stratospheric expectations baked into its price.

Sources: Anthropic press releases and blog ^[49] ^[50] ^[51] ^[52] ^[53]; Reuters news coverage ^[54] ^[55] ^[56]; private market data from Forge/Hiive ^[57] ^[58]; industry analysis and expert commentary ^[59] ^[60] ^[61].

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