The biggest financial winner from Anthropic's IPO may be Amazon, not venture capital. On October 28, 2026, TechCrunch analyzed Anthropic's S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and found that Amazon's convertible notes were valued at nearly $98 billion as of June 30, 2026, while no venture firm on the list owned 5% or more. The analysis focuses not on revenue itself, but on who actually gets paid when the company goes public.
| Amazon's holdings and commitments | Amount |
|---|---|
| Convertible note principal (as of June 30, 2026) | $6.2 billion |
| Convertible note value (same date, Amazon's filing basis) | $97.9 billion |
| Additional preferred stock investment (second quarter of 2026) | $10 billion |
| Total invested, cumulative | About $18 billion |
| AWS purchasing commitment over the next 10 years | At least $110 billion |
Why the Convertible Notes Rose So Fast
Amazon first backed Anthropic in 2023 with a commitment to invest up to $4 billion, and later added billions more. Much of that money did not convert directly into stock; instead, it took the form of convertible notes that turn into shares at an IPO or sale. As Anthropic's valuation rose across successive funding rounds, the shares those notes could convert into became more valuable. The accounting cost landed on Anthropic: in the first half of 2026, it recorded $72.4 billion in fair-value changes for convertible notes, derivative liabilities, and SAFEs on its income statement, a charge with no cash outflow. The filing also says the notes could convert into as many as 1.84 billion shares, but Amazon's stake is subject to a 12% cap, which Amazon may waive, and any notes that cannot convert will remain outstanding and convert later under the same rule.
Where Venture Capital and Google Stand in the Same Filing
The contrast is sharpest for venture capital. At a $965 billion private-market valuation, a 1% stake is worth nearly $10 billion, so Menlo Ventures' roughly $14 billion position (Bloomberg figures) amounts to only about 1.5%, below the 5% threshold for disclosure as a principal stockholder, which is unusual for a large technology IPO. Google is also a major winner: court filings show it held about 14% in early 2025, it kept investing afterward, including $10 billion in April 2026, and PitchBook analyst Harrison Rolfes estimates its current stake at close to 5.6%, alongside at least $114 billion in cloud commitments through 2033. The filing also warns that cloud providers build models that compete with Anthropic's, and their interests may not always align. For investors, the real question is not whether Anthropic can go public, but whether its largest shareholders, largest customers, and largest suppliers can cooperate and compete at the same table.
Amazon therefore gains on two levels: the rising value of its stake, and Anthropic's commitment to spend at least $110 billion on AWS over the next 10 years. After listing, Anthropic will have to show public markets not only its models and revenue, but also that it can keep enough independence from the giants that both fund it and supply its compute.
