Anthropic is AI trade's last big hope for a major IPO this year

A SpaceX advertisement on a digital billboard in Times Square celebrates the launch of SpaceX's initial public offering in New York on June 12, 2026.Angela Weiss | Afp | Getty ImagesHeading into 2026, investors were excited at the prospect of a host of new initial public offerings, including ones from mega-cap private companies like SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI. But now investors will have to settle for less than they expected at the start of the year, with OpenAI ruling out its debut on the public markets in 2026 and several other planned offerings postponed this year. On prediction market platform Kalshi, speculators think the only major company left that might officially announce an IPO this year is Anthropic, which confidentially filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission in early June. The market on Kalshi asks traders if they think a series of companies will officially announce an IPO in 2026. The question of what constitutes an official announcement is resolved by the SEC declaring a company's S-1 effective, an IPO pricing or an exchange assigning a ticker to the stock. Contracts are resolved using various news outlets as sources. Of the 23 companies that...