Apollo expects AI startups to seek debt financing earlier than previous tech companies

Apollo executives are now openly predicting that AI companies will turn to debt markets far sooner in their lifecycles than software predecessors ever did. The reason is straightforward: building AI requires physical infrastructure on a scale that equity financing alone cannot comfortably absorb. On June 5, 2026, Apollo and Blackstone closed a roughly $35 billion debt package for Anthropic, structured to help the AI company procure and lease Google Tensor Processing Units through a special-purpose vehicle called Apollo Atlas SP Partners. The deal is tiered: senior portions yield around 5.75%, backed by Broadcom’s credit support, while junior tranches carry a higher yield of 8.5% to compensate for additional risk. The structure is designed so that Anthropic’s balance sheet stays relatively clean. Hardware acts as collateral, lease payments provide cash flow, and the SPV absorbs the liability. Earlier in 2026, Apollo had already put roughly $7 billion to work in Elon Musk’s xAI, specifically to fund access to Nvidia GPUs. That deal carried a 10% coupon, and Apollo has since reported approximately $250 million in paper gains on the position. The firm is also exploring a potential incr...