Anthropic IPO Valuation Depends on $200 Billion Revenue Forecast
NEW YORK — August 15, 2026
Anthropic's planned initial public offering is being valued on expectations for how quickly the artificial intelligence company can expand its revenue over the next two years. People familiar with the company's financials said Anthropic is forecasting about $190 billion to $200 billion in revenue for 2028.
That forecast is far above the company's current revenue pace. Anthropic reported a revenue run rate of more than $47 billion in May, meaning the company was generating business at an annual rate based on its recent performance. The large gap shows how much future growth investors may need to expect to support a high IPO valuation.
Bankers and investors are using enterprise value-to-revenue ratios to estimate what Anthropic could be worth, according to four people familiar with the process. This method is commonly used for fast-growing software companies that have not yet developed a mature profit record.
Looking two years ahead is less common, but Anthropic's rapid expansion makes current financial results a difficult basis for valuation. The company is still spending heavily on computing power, AI model training and hiring, while investors are trying to determine how those costs could change as the business becomes larger.
The approach has some recent precedents. Investors considering Cerebras Systems' IPO used expectations for its 2028 revenue, while SpaceX's valuation before its June public listing was based partly on projections extending to 2029.
Anthropic's valuation is also being compared with several publicly traded companies. Cloudflare, Palantir and SpaceX are among the businesses being considered as reference points ahead of Anthropic's analyst day, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Public-company comparisons are an important part of IPO pricing because they give investors a way to judge how businesses with similar growth characteristics are valued. They can also help determine which revenue or earnings multiples should be applied to a company's financial forecasts.
Palantir is valued at about 53 times its expected 2026 revenue, while SpaceX and Cloudflare each trade at about 41.6 times expected revenue for the year, according to LSEG data cited by the sources. The companies provide different comparisons: Palantir represents rapid growth and AI exposure, Cloudflare offers a high-growth software and infrastructure comparison, and SpaceX illustrates how investors can place substantial value on future scale.
For established companies, investors usually pay more attention to earnings and EBITDA, a measure used to assess operating performance before certain costs. For Anthropic, however, current earnings may not reflect the economics investors expect once the company reaches a much larger scale.
Anthropic is spending substantial amounts on GPUs and other computing capacity, model training, AI inference and employees. Investors are betting that revenue will eventually grow faster than those expenses, allowing profit margins to improve as the company expands.
The company's recent financial performance has strengthened that argument. Anthropic's revenue run rate was about $9 billion at the end of 2025 before rising to more than $47 billion by May 2026. The company has also projected at least $10.9 billion in second-quarter 2026 revenue and was on track for its first quarterly operating profit of $559 million.
Anthropic has said its revenue run rate increased more than tenfold annually in each of the three years through early 2026. That pace of growth is a major reason investors are willing to consider forecasts as far out as 2028 when assessing the company's potential value.
The long-term valuation case depends on whether Anthropic can turn its rapid revenue growth into stronger margins. Improvements in computing efficiency could reduce some costs, while employee and other operating expenses could become a smaller share of revenue as the company grows.
The scale of the forecast also creates significant uncertainty. Investment firm Aleph Investments principal David Merkel said Anthropic could potentially reach a $2 trillion valuation, while questioning whether such a valuation could remain sustainable over time and how much additional productivity AI will ultimately generate.
Anthropic's potential IPO therefore depends not only on its current business performance, but on whether investors believe its extraordinary growth can continue while the cost of building and operating advanced AI systems becomes more manageable.
