Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTManali Pradhan, CFA, The Motley FoolFri, September 4, 2026 at 10:20 PM GMT+2 4 min readAnthropic has confidentially filed for an initial public offering (IPO) and reportedly plans to release its prospectus after Labor Day. The company is considering allowing existing shareholders to sell shares in its IPO. However, it is not clear whether those sellers would be early investors, employees, executives, or a combination of the three.Image source: Getty Images.Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »Anthropic is also considering lockup periods longer than the customary 180 days for shares that are not sold in the IPO. Hence, the combination could allow some existing shares to enter the public market initially while delaying when a much larger pool of pre-IPO shares becomes available for sale.An IPO can include new shares that raise cash for the company, or existing shares sold by shareholders. The latter do not add new shares outstanding.Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX, has already demonstrated why this could matter. Only around 5% of its shares were available for public trading after its June IPO. Another 911.5 million shares became eligible to trade after its first lockup expired in August 2026. This has more than doubled its public float (shares available for public trading). Scheduled lockup releases could make as much as 40% of