On 13 August, media reported that several Anthropic investors said the Claude maker could launch an initial public offering as early as October this year, at a valuation of 2 trillion US dollars or more. If realised, Anthropic would surpass SpaceX as the largest IPO in history. Management has not yet fixed a listing valuation target.
The high expectations rest on fast-growing revenue. In May, Anthropic said annualised revenue had passed 47 billion dollars. Some investors, modelling recent performance, project annualised revenue of 100 billion to 120 billion dollars by the end of 2026.
Anthropic has entered the preparation phase. It secretly filed IPO papers with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in June. Its valuation reached 96.5 billion dollars in May, and since the start of the year venture firms, sovereign wealth funds and other institutions have put close to 100 billion dollars into the company.
The 2 trillion dollar figure is still investor expectation, not a set target. Anthropic also faces high model-call costs, sharper AI competition and regulation. Artificial Analysis data shows its flagship model’s call cost is more than 2.5 times OpenAI’s flagship, and some enterprise clients are moving to cheaper alternatives.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original Sohu report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience.