Anthropic’s reported $2T IPO would eclipse SpaceX’s — but why is it the riskier bet?

Anthropic investors are expecting the artificial intelligence start-up to seek a valuation of $2 trillion or more in a potential October stock market debut, a figure that would eclipse SpaceX's recent IPO valuation and make the Claude developer's listing the largest ever initial public offering, the Financial Times reported.

About half a dozen Anthropic backers told the FT that the company's rapidly increasing revenue could allow it to more than double its current valuation in a planned autumn listing.

Such a debut would deliver potentially billions of dollars in gains to early investors, but it would also put public markets under greater pressure to justify the extraordinary valuations attached to AI companies.

Investors backing Anthropic argue that strong demand for its advanced AI models and tools supports their bullish expectations.

But the proposed valuation comes as investors are becoming increasingly cautious about the sustainability of the AI boom, particularly as competition intensifies and customers become more sensitive to the cost of using frontier models.

Revenue growth drives $2 trillion expectations

The core argument behind the proposed valuation is Anthropic's rapid revenue growth.

Investors expect the Claude maker's annualised revenue to reach between $100 billion and $120 billion by the end of 2026.

The figure is based on Anthropic's preferred annualised run-rate measure, which extrapolates recent sales performance over a full year rather than representing audited revenue generated during a 12-month period.

That would represent more than a tenfold increase over the course of 2026.

Anthropic announced in May that its annualised revenue had surpassed $47 billion, as it gained ground on OpenAI and Google with models that have performed strongly in areas such as coding and enterprise applications.

One investor cited by the FT said 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],” the investor said.

“That would make them a $3 trillion company.”

Anthropic does not have a directly comparable publicly listed US rival, making its prospective valuation difficult to benchmark.

However, companies viewed as beneficiaries of the AI boom, including data intelligence company Palantir and cloud provider Nebius, have traded at roughly 55 times revenue this year.

Several investors told the FT that Anthropic's senior executives had yet to settle on a specific valuation target, even in private discussions.

Existing backers have nevertheless developed their own financial models based on the company's expected growth.

Investors face a rapidly changing AI market

The bullish projections come against a backdrop of growing challenges for the AI industry.

Anthropic faces increasing competition from Chinese developers, which have made significant advances in open-weight models while offering some systems at a fraction of the cost of leading US models.

The company is also facing pressure over AI regulation and an increasingly complicated relationship with the US government.

Anthropic has repeatedly clashed with the Trump administration and remains involved in litigation with the US Department of Defense, which labelled the company a supply-chain risk earlier this year.

The company was also forced to briefly withdraw its leading Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models after being hit by Commerce Department export controls in June.

The episode unsettled some customers that depend on Anthropic's models.

Two investors with knowledge of the company's performance told the FT that the regulatory dispute contributed to a slowdown in overall revenue growth in June.

They said Anthropic subsequently rebounded and continued to grow at an extraordinary pace.

The government disputes could nevertheless become a significant consideration for investors if Anthropic seeks to sell shares to the public later this year.

Customers are becoming more price-sensitive

Another challenge is the economics of using advanced AI models.

As businesses face rising AI bills, some have reversed earlier instructions encouraging employees to maximise their use of AI tools and instead opted for cheaper, less powerful models.

According to Artificial Analysis, Anthropic's market-leading model costs more than two and a half times as much to use as OpenAI's flagship model.

Chinese open-weight alternatives are available at a fraction of the cost and have improved significantly this year.

Anthropic nevertheless increased its market share among US businesses last month, according to data from payments company Ramp.

But Ramp analysts found that businesses were “hitting their limit on AI spend” and increasingly turning to cheaper alternatives.

That creates a potential tension for Anthropic.

Its strongest models may be helping it gain market share, but the high cost of accessing those models could make it harder to maintain the pace of revenue growth assumed by investors.

Nearly $100 billion has already flowed into Anthropic

Investor confidence in Anthropic remains substantial.

Venture capital firms, sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors have invested just under $100 billion in the company during 2026, according to the FT report.

Anthropic's valuation surpassed OpenAI's for the first time in May, reaching $965 billion after the company's latest investment round.

An IPO at $2 trillion or more would therefore represent a dramatic increase from that valuation within a matter of months.

One Anthropic investor, who has also backed AI companies including OpenAI and SpaceX, acknowledged that there were plenty of potential risks but remained bullish.

“It’s easy to come up with challenges,” the investor said.

“But the company continues to be in first position in performance, positioning and what people want exposure to.”

SpaceX, meanwhile, went public in June at a valuation of $1.77 trillion, according to the report.

An Anthropic listing above $2 trillion would therefore surpass that level.

Analysts warn about the IPO's valuation risk

Nigel Green, founder and chief executive of deVere Group, said an Anthropic IPO at $2 trillion or more could become the largest stock market debut in history, but also “the riskiest trade on offer anywhere in the market this year.”

Anthropic filed paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in June, placing the company in a quiet period that limits its ability to publicly discuss its financial performance.

Green argued that the proposed valuation assumes annualised revenue will nearly triple by the end of 2026, calling that a bold assumption on which to base the largest IPO in history.

“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,” he said.

He said the central risk was pricing the world's largest IPO on unaudited, extrapolated revenue at a time when investors were already becoming more cautious about AI multiples.

October could become a test for the AI trade

Anthropic's potential listing could ultimately become a broader referendum on how public markets value the AI industry.

If the company can sustain its extraordinary revenue growth, expand its enterprise customer base and maintain its technological lead, investors may be willing to accept a valuation well above $2 trillion.

But a slowdown in growth, intensifying competition or increasing pressure from customers to reduce AI spending could make such a valuation harder to defend.

Green urged investors to distinguish between confidence in Anthropic's long-term prospects and enthusiasm surrounding an October listing.

“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,” he said.

For Anthropic, the potential IPO therefore offers both an enormous opportunity and a formidable test: proving that explosive private-market growth can translate into a public-market valuation of $2 trillion or more.