Anthropic investors are preparing to back a valuation of $2 trillion or more when the artificial intelligence company goes public in October, a figure that would surpass SpaceX’s record IPO valuation and make the Claude developer’s debut the largest initial public offering by valuation at pricing.
The Financial Times reported Aug. 13 that roughly half a dozen Anthropic backers expect the company’s rapidly expanding revenue to support a valuation above $2 trillion. The investors’ projections are not an official valuation target from Anthropic, and the company’s executives have not publicly set a price for the planned offering.
Anthropic confidentially filed for an IPO in June, according to reporting cited in the supplied material. The company’s most recent private financing, announced May 28, valued Anthropic at $965 billion post-money after it raised $65 billion in Series H funding. Anthropic also said its revenue run rate had crossed $47 billion earlier that month.
A valuation above $2 trillion would exceed the $1.77 trillion valuation at which SpaceX priced its IPO on June 11. SpaceX raised $75 billion in the offering, which Reuters described as the largest IPO at the time.
Revenue Growth Underpins the Bull Case
The central argument for Anthropic’s prospective valuation is the speed at which its revenue has expanded.
Investors cited by the Financial Times expect Anthropic’s annualized revenue to reach between $100 billion and $120 billion by the end of 2026. The figure represents a run rate, meaning the latest pace of sales is annualized, rather than revenue that Anthropic has already booked over a full year.
Anthropic said May 28 that its revenue run rate had crossed $47 billion earlier that month, up from about $9 billion at the end of 2025, according to Reuters. The company has said its revenue run rate grew more than tenfold annually in each of the three years through early 2026.
One investor cited by the Financial Times argued that the growth rate could justify an even higher valuation.
“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.”
That calculation is an investor’s assessment, not an Anthropic forecast or an independently established valuation.
Wall Street Is Looking to 2028
Reuters reported Aug. 15 that Anthropic is projecting revenue of roughly $190 billion to $200 billion for 2028, according to two people familiar with the company’s financials.
The forecast has not previously been reported and is substantially above Anthropic’s $47 billion revenue run rate disclosed in May. Reuters said bankers and investors are using enterprise-value-to-revenue multiples based on future forecasts to assess the company’s potential IPO valuation.
Looking as far ahead as 2028 is less typical for an IPO valuation, but Anthropic’s rapid expansion and heavy investment in computing infrastructure make current earnings an imperfect measure of the business investors expect it to become.
Reuters reported that Anthropic is spending heavily on GPUs and other computing capacity, model training, inference and hiring. Investors are betting that those costs will decline as a proportion of revenue as the company scales and that improvements in computing efficiency will eventually support wider margins.
Public-Market Comparisons
Anthropic lacks a directly comparable publicly traded US company, forcing investors to assemble a group of companies with different business models and exposure to artificial intelligence.
Reuters reported that Palantir, Cloudflare and SpaceX are among the companies being considered as reference points for Anthropic’s valuation ahead of its analyst day.
Palantir provides a comparison with a high-growth enterprise software company that has benefited from AI demand. Cloudflare offers a reference point for high-growth software and infrastructure, while SpaceX provides an example of a company whose valuation reflects expectations for future scale as well as its current financial performance.
Reuters reported that Palantir was valued at 53 times expected 2026 revenue, while SpaceX and Cloudflare were trading at 41.6 times expected 2026 revenue, based on LSEG data.
Those multiples help explain the assumptions behind Anthropic’s prospective valuation, but they also show how much investors would be paying for continued growth.
Profitability Remains a Key Question
Anthropic’s revenue growth has been accompanied by substantial spending, making profitability an important part of the IPO debate.
Reuters reported that Anthropic has projected second-quarter 2026 revenue of at least $10.9 billion and is on track for its first quarterly operating profit of $559 million. Those figures are projections rather than reported second-quarter results.
The valuation therefore depends on whether Anthropic can eventually increase revenue faster than the costs associated with computing, training, inference and personnel.
Investors are effectively betting that the economics of frontier AI will improve with scale. If computing becomes more efficient and operating costs fall as a share of revenue, Anthropic could generate substantially higher margins in the future. If those costs remain elevated, a valuation based on very high forward revenue multiples would face greater pressure.
Merkel Questions Whether a $2 Trillion Valuation Can Hold
David Merkel, a principal at Aleph Investments, said a $2 trillion valuation was possible but questioned whether it could be sustained.
“Could they (Anthropic) get a $2 trillion valuation, yeah they could and I just wonder if it would stay there over time,” said David Merkel, a principal at investment firm Aleph Investments.
He also questioned the broader economic case underpinning the AI boom.
“Does it (AI) really produce so much additional productivity… These are just questions that we have to ask if we were thinking of pricing this, buying this.”
Merkel’s comments underscore the distinction between an IPO valuation and the long-term economic value of the company. A strong public-market debut would establish a market price, but sustaining that valuation would require Anthropic to deliver the revenue and profitability investors are anticipating.
Competition and Government Pressure
The valuation debate is unfolding as Anthropic faces competition from other frontier AI developers and growing scrutiny from governments.
The Financial Times reported that rising competition from Chinese AI companies, pressure for AI regulation and tensions with the US government are among the challenges facing the company. Two investors familiar with Anthropic’s business said those factors contributed to slower overall revenue growth in June, although they said the company subsequently rebounded.
Anthropic has also continued expanding its infrastructure and technology capabilities. Reuters reported Aug. 5 that the company was building an in-house chip design team for its Claude AI models, a move that could eventually give it greater control over some of the computing infrastructure underlying its products.
The IPO Will Test the AI Market
Anthropic’s prospective listing will give public investors a new way to assess the economics of frontier AI.
Its May financing already established a private-market valuation of $965 billion, while the proposed IPO would ask public investors to value the company at more than twice that level within months.
The difference between those valuations will depend heavily on what investors see in Anthropic’s public financial disclosures and whether they believe the company can translate its rapid revenue growth into sustainable profitability.
SpaceX’s experience illustrates how quickly market perceptions can change. The company priced its IPO at a $1.77 trillion valuation on June 11, but its shares rose 28% in Nasdaq trading the following day, pushing its market value above $2.25 trillion during the session.
Anthropic will face its own test if it reaches the public market in October. A $2 trillion valuation would represent a historic milestone for the AI industry, but sustaining it would require the company to deliver on exceptionally ambitious expectations for revenue growth, enterprise adoption and improving economics.
For now, the $2 trillion figure remains an investor expectation rather than an announced IPO valuation. The definitive test will come when Anthropic sets the terms of its offering and public investors begin assigning a price to the company every trading day.