VCs will make billions on Anthropic’s IPO, but Amazon is set to make much (much) more
- ID
- 40250
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 28 Oct 2026, 9:15 AM
- Fetched
- 28 Oct 2026, 9:16 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/27/vcs-will-make-billions-on-anthropics-ipo-but-amazon-is-set-to-make-much-much-more/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 6.0
- Created
- 28 Oct 2026, 9:16 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- saas_foundersai_ml_learners
What happened
Ahead of Anthropic's IPO at a $965 billion private valuation, none of its VC backers — Menlo Ventures (~$14B position, roughly 1.5%), Sequoia, Sound Ventures, Spark Capital — holds the 5% stake required to appear on the S-1's principal stockholders table, which the article calls highly unusual for a tech IPO. Amazon is positioned as the largest financial beneficiary: per the S-1 it holds convertible notes with $6.2 billion in principal outstanding as of June 30, which is Anthropic's entire debt load, and Amazon's own filings value those notes at $97.9 billion. As the notes revalued upward, Anthropic recorded $72.4 billion on its income statement under 'change in fair value of convertible notes, derivative liabilities, and SAFEs.'
Why it matters
Concrete structural lesson for anyone raising from a corporate/cloud strategic: Amazon committed up to $4B in 2023 but structured most of it as convertible notes rather than equity, so $6.2B principal became a $97.9B position at IPO. Second, if you read Anthropic's S-1, the $72.4B line is a non-cash fair-value adjustment from that note revaluation, not an operating loss — misreading it would give you the wrong picture of the business. The article contains no Malaysia or Southeast Asia detail, so there is no local policy, funding, or infrastructure angle to extract here.
Discussion angle
Convertible notes from a strategic partner vs. equity: Amazon's $6.2B principal converting to a $97.9B stake looks great for Amazon, but it forced a $72.4B fair-value charge onto Anthropic's income statement — how would a smaller startup handle that volatility, and what terms would you negotiate before taking cloud-partner debt?