Anthropic's IPO filing shows warrants on 7.7 million Akamai shares struck 39% above the stock

AnthropicPVT$350B — Anthropic, private, latest valuation $350B is days from pricing a Nasdaq listing that could value it above $1 trillion, and its amended S-1↗ hands public investors a detail worth more than the roadshow slides: the AI lab holds warrants on up to 7.7 million shares of Akamai▲+0.35% — Akamai, up 0.35 percent today, its main outside cloud supplier ¹⁵⁸. Akamai trades near $80 after a six-month fall of about 46% ¹. The customer whose compute bills justify Akamai's entire buildout also owns a call option on the recovery, and that option only pays if the build succeeds.

The warrant came with the contract, not the roadshow

The warrant is not a new grant slipped into the filing. It came with the September contract↗ we covered on October 8: $11.6 billion over seven years, expandable toward $20 billion, with about 2% of Akamai's stock tied to the initial commitment and 3% more vesting only if Anthropic expands the deal ⁵. What is new this week is that the amended S-1 put those terms in front of IPO buyers in the roadshow window, and Evercore▼−0.22% — Evercore, down 0.22 percent today ISI cut the stock to In-line on November 11 with a $90 target↗, citing financing and dilution, while consensus sits near $132 ³⁸¹.

The bear case is a cash chain, not a demand story

Since our November 9 piece on the convertible sale, the rest of the bear case has filled in ¹⁴. Take-or-pay contracts promise revenue, but the capacity must be bought first: roughly $4.8 billion of capital spending over five quarters, funded partly by $2.2 billion of 1% convertible notes sold in November, alongside a paused buyback, credit downgrades from S&P and Moody's▼−1.03% — Moody's, down 1.03 percent today, and 2026 cloud commitments that have now crossed $14 billion ¹⁴.

Management says operating margins bottom out in the first half of 2027↗ before cloud revenue scales toward $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion that year ⁷¹.

The warrant pays Anthropic only if Akamai clears $111.33

Anthropic gains on its 7.7 million shares only if Akamai clears $111.33 and stays there, which requires the contracts to convert into billed usage on schedule ⁵⁷. It earns nothing from the 1% coupon; its return comes entirely from the stock rising ⁵⁷. The one customer that can observe deployment firsthand is therefore exposed to the same outcome shareholders are betting on.

Demand is contracted, and the open question is whether deployment hits schedule: management says supply-chain delays only pushed revenue into next year, and two of the first three large cloud deals are already billing ⁷.

Public investors are funding a leveraged build for a single dominant customer, and the filing shows that customer stands to profit on Akamai equity only if the build works ¹⁵.