Anthropic IPO Could Hit $2 Trillion Valuation, Surpassing SpaceX as Largest Public Debut Ever

Anthropic investors bet on $2tn valuation in record IPO

Anthropic investors expect the AI start-up to float at a valuation of $2tn or more in October, a dizzying figure that would vault SpaceX to make the AI lab's debut the largest ever initial public offering. Half a dozen of the company's backers told the FT that Anthropic's rapidly rising revenue would enable it to more than double its current valuation in a planned autumn float. A listing at that level could unlock billions of dollars in gains for the five-year-old company's early investors but would also test public markets that are becoming more nervous about the AI boom. Anthropic's backers say booming demand for the lab's advanced AI models and tools justifies their lofty expectations. Investors expect the Claude maker's annualised revenue to be between $100bn and $120bn by the end of 2026 -- using the start-up's preferred measure, which infers full-year sales from recent performance -- up by more than 10 times over the course of 2026. "If Anthropic is growing 800 per cent a year, you'd think at the incredibly low end they would trade at 30 times [revenue]," said one investor in the group. "That would make them a $3tn company." Anthropic lacks a publicly listed US peer that would provide a benchmark for its valuation. But companies that are seen as AI beneficiaries, such as data intelligence group Palantir and cloud company Nebius, have traded this year at roughly 55 times revenue. Several investors said senior Anthropic executives had yet to fix the valuation target for the IPO, even in private conversations. But investors have built their own financial models. Their bullish projections come despite mounting challenges, including rising competition from Chinese rivals, pressure for AI regulation and a simmering feud with the US government. Those concerns, particularly the commerce department's temporary ban on Anthropic's best models, contributed to overall revenue growth slowing in the month of June, according to two investors with knowledge of the matter. Even so, they said the company had rebounded and continued to grow at an extraordinary rate even by Silicon Valley standards. Anthropic declined to comment. The start-up led by Dario Amodei filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June, putting the company in a quiet period that limits public announcements about its financial performance. Anthropic has gained ground on rivals OpenAI and Google this year, releasing models that have outperformed competitors while focusing on sales to business customers. The group announced in May that its annualised revenue had surpassed $47bn. Venture capitalists, sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors have poured just under $100bn into the company in 2026. Anthropic's valuation leapfrogged OpenAI's for the first time in May, reaching $965bn including the new investment. But the group also faces considerable uncertainty. It has repeatedly clashed with the Trump administration and remains in active litigation against the US Department of Defense, which labelled Anthropic a supply chain risk earlier this year. Anthropic has since been forced to briefly pull its leading models Fable 5 and Mythos 5 after being hit with export controls by the commerce department in June. The episode spooked some customers who rely on Anthropic models. Customers are also increasingly sensitive to the price of accessing the best models. Faced with spiralling costs, they have in some cases reversed directives for employees to maximise their AI use and opted for less powerful, cheaper models. Anthropic's market-leading model costs more than two and a half times as much to use as OpenAI's flagship, according to Artificial Analysis, which analyses AI models. Chinese open-weight alternatives, which have also improved dramatically this year, are a fraction of the cost, according to Artificial Analysis. Anthropic increased its market share among US businesses last month, according to data from payments group Ramp. But analysts at the company found businesses were "hitting their limit on AI spend" and turning to cheaper alternatives. "It's easy to come up with challenges," said an Anthropic investor who has also backed AI groups including OpenAI and SpaceX, which went public at a $1.77tn valuation in June. "But the company continues to be in first position in performance, positioning and what people want exposure to." Additional reporting by Zijing Wu and Ivan Levingston

FT: Investors eye $2trn Anthropic valuation in record IPO

Fervour for a lofty valuation comes as a result of Anthropic's rapidly growing revenue, sources told FT. Investors expect Anthropic to be valued at $2trn or more in its October initial public offering (IPO), doubling its initial aim of $1trn and dwarfing SpaceX as the largest public listing in history. The AI giant, which filed to go public in June, is yet to fix on a target. Several of the company's investors told The Financial Times (FT) that the fervour for a lofty valuation comes as a result of Anthropic's rapidly growing revenue which reportedly hit nearly $11bn in the second quarter this year. That number has more than doubled from the $4.8bn in the first quarter. The company's backers expect the five-year-old AI giant to reach an annualised revenue of between $100bn and $120bn this year. Anthropic's Claude AI products are a repeat headline-maker, competing for leadership in the space with its biggest rival OpenAI (which also hopes to go public), and the more recent crop of Chinese-made models taking the industry by storm with their cheaper alternatives. Confident backers, including venture capitalists, other industry giants and institutional investors have poured nearly $100bn into the company just this year, fuelling the business as it looks to build its own AI chips to keep up with the demand. Last month, AMD pledged $5bn into Anthropic in a deal that allows the AI giant access to 2GW of its latest-generation chips, while Amazon announced plans to pour $25bn into the company in April in exchange for Anthropic tapping more than $100bn to use the e-commerce juggernaut's cloud technologies. While Anthropic does not share how many use Claude, Statista placed it around 245m a month as of June this year. Comparatively, OpenAI's ChatGPT crossed 1bn users that same month. Despite this, Anthropic trumped OpenAI's valuation earlier this year, owing to its growing share of the more money-making enterprise sector, where it has been capturing a higher volume of first-time users. Earlier this year, the US government temporarily banned Anthropic from exporting two of its highly capable cybersecurity models over security concerns. While that ban was eventually lifted after a little more than two weeks, investors told FT that Anthropic's revenue suffered as a result in June. The company, however, rebounded at an "extraordinary rate" once the ban was lifted. The company is separately embroiled in an ongoing legal battle with the US government over the banning of its products for official use. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Anthropic to beat SpaceX? Investors bet on $2 trillion valuation in record IPO

Anthropic is heading towards a potential record-breaking IPO, with investors reportedly expecting a valuation of more than $2 trillion as the AI startup's revenue continues to surge. The Claude maker's rapid growth, strong demand for AI tools and lofty revenue projections are fuelling bullish expectations despite intensifying competition, regulatory pressure and other challenges. After SpaceX's historic market debut, investors are now eyeing the upcoming mega initial public offering of AI startup Anthropic, which is expected to smash the record for the world's largest-ever IPO with a valuation of $2 trillion or more. Anthropic, which is behind popular AI assistant Claude, confidentially filed for a US initial public offering last month. It did not disclose the size or the terms of the offering. This comes after it raised $65 billion at a post-money valuation of $965 billion in late May, putting it ahead of rival OpenAI. US MarketsPowered By As on 13 Aug 2026, 01:30 AM IST S&P 500 Top Gainers Super Micro Computer37.61(19.02%) Dell Technologies484.50(9.87%) Hewlett Packard58.79(8.11%) Seagate Technology Hldgs878.21(7.03%) Gainers" S&P 500 Top Losers Coterra Energy32.56(-8.62%) Texas Pacific Land342.77(-6.08%) Cencora314.17(-5.90%) First Solar226.77(-5.87%) Losers" While investors await the details of the IPO, around six of the company's backers told the Financial Times that Anthropic's rapidly rising revenue would enable it to more than double its current valuation in a planned autumn float. The report quoted the unnamed backers as saying that booming demand for the lab's advanced AI models and tools justifies their lofty expectations. Investors forecast Anthropic's annualised revenue to be between $100 billion and $120 billion by the end of 2026. If Anthropic is growing at 800% a year, even at the incredibly low end, the shares of the company would trade at 30 times its revenue, and that would make the AI startup a $3 trillion company, the report quoted a source as saying. Also read | The $965 billion AI company behind ChatGPT's biggest rival is finally going public, and it could be the biggest Wall Street debut ever Anthropic, however, does not have a publicly listed US peer that would help investors have a benchmark to assess its valuation. But companies which are seen as AI beneficiaries, such as data intelligence group Palantir and cloud company Nebius, have traded this year at around 55 times revenue, FT reported. These bullish expectations come despite rising challenges, including rising competition from Chinese rivals, growing stress on AI regulation and a simmering feud with the Donald Trump-led US government. Those concerns, especially the US Commerce Department's temporary ban on Anthropic's best models, contributed to overall revenue growth slowing in June, FT cited two investors with knowledge of the matter as saying. However, they added that the company had rebounded and continued to grow at an extraordinary rate even by Silicon Valley standards. Anthropic IPO and AI boomThe Anthropic IPO filing reflects growing confidence among investors seeking exposure to the artificial intelligence boom. Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, Anthropic has emerged as one of the strongest challengers in the AI industry. The company gained recognition through its Claude family of AI chatbots, which compete directly with ChatGPT and other advanced AI systems. After SpaceX's IPO raised $75 billion, making it the biggest-ever IPO by proceeds, the company began trading at $150 per share in June, marking an 11% premium to its IPO price of $135. Its market capitalisation topped $2 trillion on its debut day. After listing, the shares of the company surged more than 50% over three sessions. The shares of the Elon Musk-led company have jumped 36% over the past five sessions, but remain 3% below their listing price. Also read | South Korea's Kospi swings from bear to bull market in just a month. Is AI trade regaining strength? (With inputs from agencies) (Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times.)

Anthropic Plans Healthcare Push to Improve AI Image Before IPO | PYMNTS.com

That is one of the strategies Anthropic is sharing with potential investors in meetings ahead of its upcoming initial public offering (IPO), according to the report. Anthropic is also telling investors that it will fend off any threat from lower-priced offerings from Chinese AI developers by retaining its focus on building cutting-edge models. Most users want the best model that is currently available, the company said, per the report. The company is sharing these strategies with investors at a time when the company and other leading AI developers are facing tougher questions about potential challenges such as lower-cost models, growing public opposition to data center construction and, in the case of Anthropic, tension with the Trump administration, according to the report. Anthropic's upcoming initial public offering, and its performance after going public, will gauge investors' sentiment about all the top AI developers, per the report. Anthropic is aiming to launch its IPO in September or early October, according to the report. Anthropic did not immediately reply to PYMNTS' request for comment. Anthropic announced June 1 that it confidentially filed for an IPO by submitting a draft registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). "This gives us the option to go public after the SEC completes its review," the company said in its announcement. "The proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors." About a week earlier, on May 28, Anthropic became the most valuable AI startup in the world when it was valued at $965 billion post-money in a Series H funding round in which it raised $65 billion. That valuation was up from the $380 billion valuation Anthropic achieved three months earlier in a February Series G funding round in which it raised $30 billion. Anthropic President and Co-Founder Daniela Amodei said June 4 that the cost of training AI models is driving companies like Anthropic to go public. It was reported in July that Anthropic planned to meet with potential investors ahead of an IPO that could take place as soon as October.

Anthropic goes on charm offensive with investors ahead of massive IPO that could rival SpaceX: report

Anthropic has been meeting with potential investors ahead of what could be a record-breaking IPO to assuage their concerns around the many challenges facing the AI industry, according to a report. The Silicon Valley giant - worth a whopping $965 billion - is targeting a stock market debut this fall that could end up surpassing Elon Musk's mammoth SpaceX IPO, though the AI industry is facing several hurdles that have left investors wary. In recent weeks, potential investors have grilled Anthropic on how it expects a handful of challenges to hit growth. Those range from cheaper Chinese rivals and regulatory hurdles to heated backlash against data centers and concerns about massive spending, according to the Wall Street Journal. During these pre-IPO meetings, Anthropic executives have played down the threat of Chinese competition, arguing that they are focused on delivering the latest cutting-edge technology that can beat out rivals, the Journal reported. Anthropic also told some investors that it plans to push into AI's healthcare and biology uses, which could tamp down the growing negative public sentiment around the new tech, sources told the Journal. There has been huge uncertainty around whether tech companies' multibillion-dollar commitments to AI spending will eventually pay off, or whether it's a repeat of the late 1990s "dot-com bubble" - resulting in choppy trading for AI-exposed stocks. Anthropic has been seen as the front-runner in the global AI race largely thanks to its successful coding tool, Claude Code, and its ultra-powerful bot, Claude Mythos. But reports of Mythos running rampant during internal testing and trying to hack into services using fake identities has fueled safety concerns around the potential risks surrounding top AI models. All eyes are on Anthropic's public debut - which is expected in September or early October - since the price it selects will set the tone for how investors value other major AI companies, according to the Journal. Rival OpenAI is expected to make its own stock market debut as late as next year. The AI public offerings come in the wake of SpaceX's recording-breaking IPO in June. The tech giant surpassed $2 trillion in trading, briefly making Musk the world's first trillionaire. Since then, the stock has slumped more than 16% to $134.60 a share, just below its IPO price of $135 - a potential warning sign of the rocky trading that other massive IPOs, which are mostly trading on public sentiment and potential payoffs, could see. In the meantime, Anthropic has been signing huge, multibillion-dollar computing partnerships with AI startups and large companies like SpaceX and Google, as firms compete for a limited supply of the computing power needed to power data centers. In May, Anthropic reported that its run-rate revenue - a prediction of annual revenue - had surpassed $47 billion on resilient demand for its Claude Code tool. It has continued to see robust demand for its AI and coding tools. CEO Dario Amodei has repeatedly insisted that most users want the latest and greatest AI models, meaning Anthropic should stay in the lead as long as it can continue to churn out bots that beat China's alternatives. Anthropic did not immediately respond to The Post's request for comment.

Anthropic's $2 Trillion Bet Is Wall Street's Riskiest Gamble of the Year

Anthropic (NASDAQ:ANTP) wants to go public in October at a valuation of $2tn or more. Some of its own backers are modelling $3tn. Either number would make it the largest stock market debut in history, and I think it is the riskiest trade on offer anywhere in the market this year. I am not saying Anthropic is not a genuinely exceptional business, because it plainly is. What I am saying is that exceptional and correctly priced are two different questions, and right now the gap between them is wide enough to worry about. Here is the part investors keep skipping past. The valuation being pitched assumes annualised revenue will nearly triple by the end of 2026, and it is a bold assumption to hang the largest IPO in history on, especially with a listing date that arrives at exactly the wrong moment to test it. The number itself is not audited revenue. It is an annualised run-rate, a projection stretched forward from a few strong months rather than a certified year of sales. We already know how fast that projection can move. In June, a temporary Commerce Department restriction on Anthropic's top models slowed growth almost overnight. A single policy decision did that. I would want to know what the next one could do before I paid a $2tn price for the answer. A valuation this size does not price in one good quarter. It prices in years of near-uninterrupted acceleration, with no room for a repeat of June and no room for the regulatory and geopolitical friction that is still clearly in play around this company. Look at what is happening around Anthropic this very week. CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV), one of the AI infrastructure names most tightly bound to Nvidia, has admitted it would struggle badly if forced to shift away from Nvidia's chips. Far from a footnote, it is a signal of how tightly wound and circular the financing behind this entire boom has become, right as Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) walks into earnings shadowed by China licensing uncertainty and mounting questions over who is really funding whom across the AI supply chain. Then look at the public comparisons investors are actually using to justify Anthropic's number. Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR) and Nebius (NASDAQ:NBIS) are trading at somewhere between forty and fifty-five times revenue, and both are already drawing serious short-seller fire even as their share prices climb. If the market is this uneasy about paying up for AI names that already report audited, public numbers, it should give serious pause to anyone pricing a private AI lab off a forward-looking metric instead. I think about SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) as the clearest lesson in what happens when private valuations move faster than reality can confirm them. It went from roughly three hundred and fifty billion dollars to eight hundred billion in about a year, and there is already talk of it approaching two trillion before it has even listed. Momentum in a private market is not the same thing as durability in a public one, and Anthropic is walking the same path, only faster, straight into an IPO window where investors are already nervous. Pricing the largest IPO in history off unaudited, extrapolated numbers, in a market already flinching at AI multiples, is the central risk in this whole story, not a footnote to it. My advice to clients weighing exposure to this listing, directly or through the AI trade more broadly, is to separate genuine long-term conviction from October momentum. Those are not the same trade, and treating them as one is how sharp corrections get made. This is exactly the kind of moment where independent, professional guidance earns its keep, because the difference between participating intelligently and getting caught out comes down to timing and discipline, not enthusiasm. Anthropic may well prove every one of its bulls right eventually. But betting $2tn on it happening on schedule, in this market, this October, is not conviction. It is speculation dressed up as certainty.

Anthropic meets investors to shore up confidence ahead of planned September IPO- WSJ By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Anthropic is holding meetings with potential investors to build confidence ahead of what could become the largest initial public offering in history, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Anthropic is planning a public debut in September or early October, the WSJ report said. Its main competitor, OpenAI, is now expected to complete an IPO that could occur as late as next year. Investors have questioned Anthropic executives about these issues in pre-IPO meetings in recent weeks, asking how they might affect the company's growth, the WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the discussions. The conversations show the uncertainty around which companies will lead in AI and the financial strength of businesses in this sector. The $965 billion artificial intelligence company faces several challenges that have prompted investors to examine its business more closely. These include the recent rise of lower-cost AI systems from China, tensions with the Trump administration, and growing opposition to data center construction across the United States. Company executives have minimized concerns about Chinese competition in meetings, telling investors that Anthropic focuses on providing advanced AI models, the WSJ report said. Chief Executive Dario Amodei and other top U.S. AI leaders have stated publicly that most users prefer the most intelligent AI systems available, suggesting that Chinese systems pose less of a threat since their capabilities typically lag behind top AI models by at least several months. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.