Anthropic IPO could value AI startup at $2 trillion

Anthropic investors expect the AI startup to go public in October at a valuation of $2 trillion or more, which would make it the largest IPO ever and surpass SpaceX. The five-year-old company, led by Dario Amodei, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in June and is now in a quiet period.

Half a dozen backers told the Financial Times that Anthropic's fast-growing revenue could more than double its current valuation. They project annualized revenue between $100 billion and $120 billion by the end of 2026, using the startup's preferred measure that infers full-year sales from recent performance. That would be more than a tenfold increase over the course of 2026.

Such a listing would unlock billions in gains for early investors but also test public markets that are increasingly nervous about the AI boom. One investor said that at 800 percent annual growth, even a low revenue multiple of 30 times would imply a $3 trillion company. Publicly listed AI beneficiaries like Palantir and Nebius have traded at roughly 55 times revenue this year.

Anthropic has no direct public US peer for benchmarking, and senior executives have not fixed the IPO valuation target even in private conversations, according to several investors. The company announced in May that annualized revenue had surpassed $47 billion, and venture capitalists, sovereign wealth funds, and other institutions have poured just under $100 billion into it in 2026. Its valuation leapfrogged OpenAI's for the first time in May, reaching $965 billion including new investment.

Challenges include rising competition from Chinese rivals, pressure for AI regulation, and a feud with the US government. The Commerce Department temporarily banned Anthropic's best models in June, which contributed to slower revenue growth that month, according to two investors. The company also remains in active litigation against the US Department of Defense, which labeled it a supply-chain risk earlier this year.

Anthropic was forced to briefly pull its leading models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, after export controls hit in June, spooking some customers. Its market-leading model costs more than two and a half times as much to use as OpenAI's flagship, while Chinese open-weight alternatives are a fraction of the cost, according to Artificial Analysis. Despite this, Anthropic increased its market share among US businesses last month, per data from payments group Ramp, though analysts found businesses were hitting their limit on AI spend and turning to cheaper options.