Anthropic targets $2T valuation in October IPO challenging SpaceX’s record

Investors expect Anthropic to reach a valuation of $2 trillion or more in October, easily surpassing SpaceX’s market debut as the largest IPO in history.

So far, the firm’s backers have asserted that its accelerating revenue growth and the growing demand for its cutting-edge AI models would justify a twofold increase in valuation for its autumn listing.

“If Anthropic is growing 800 percent a year, you’d think at the incredibly low end they would trade at 30 times [revenue]. That would make them a $3tn company,” one investor even contended.

At the moment, Anthropic has no obvious publicly listed US counterpart to help investors gauge its worth. However, AI-focused companies, including Palantir and Nebius, have been valued at roughly 55 times their revenue this year. 

Investors anticipate over $100 billion in earnings for Anthropic

Some internal sources noted that Anthropic management has yet to establish an official valuation target. Nevertheless, investors have proactively developed independent financial models, estimating that the company’s value could surpass $2 trillion with the IPO.

They also expect that by the year’s close, the Claude maker could be generating revenue at an annual rate of $100 billion to $120 billion, up more than tenfold from the start of the year. 

Their optimistic predictions come even as Anthropic contends with tougher competition from China, increasing demands for AI regulation, and friction with the US government.

In early June, the Trump administration had implemented export control restrictions on the company’s advanced Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 artificial intelligence models, which tempered June’s revenue growth. However, since then, the firm has reportedly staged a robust recovery, sustaining exceptional growth metrics, especially since the restrictions were eased. 

Ideally, Anthropic has had to keep quiet about its numbers since its confidential filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC) in June. But the company is already giving OpenAI and Google a run for their money by dropping top-tier models and winning over enterprise customers. 

As of May, the firm was pulling in $47 billion annually, with customers using Claude for software development as well as various professional and personal tasks.

Additionally, nearly $100 billion has flowed into Anthropic from institutional backers this year, including venture capital firms and sovereign wealth funds. The funding pushed its valuation to $965 billion in May, surpassing OpenAI for the first time.

At the time, investors were taken aback by the firm’s pace. Patrick Corrigan, a law professor at Notre Dame University who studies IPOs, had even remarked, “I think we were all expecting OpenAI to go first, so it was a little bit surprising.

Public investors are going to be comparing them roughly around the same time, and so there seems to be a bit of a first-mover’s advantage here.” 

With the upcoming listing, the firm’s early backers could see billions in returns. Besides, it would also help gauge public market appetite for AI development.

SpaceX raised over $75 billion from its IPO listing

For the SpaceX IPO, over 20 backers received tranches valued at $1 billion or more, ten times the prior record. However, pulling off the largest IPO ever required serious planning by SpaceX and Goldman Sachs.

They had to convince investors to back a sci-fi dream, overlook deep losses, stomach a massive price tag, and give total control to a controversial founder. After the offering, one banker even noted, “There’s no better builder than Elon and SpaceX. There’s no other company that can turn fiction into fact.”

In total, SpaceX pocketed $75 billion at a valuation of over $2 trillion. They gave around 70 percent of the deal to long-term managers, sovereign wealth funds, and Elon Musk’s close friends, while everyday retail investors got another 20 percent, leaving hedge funds with a 10 percent slice.

Earlier, Corrigan noted that the AI race among SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI closely mirrors the early internet rush. He believes that just like back then, some will win big like Amazon, and others will crash, but the underlying technology will still reshape the world.

However, he questioned whether the steep price tag for investors aligns with the actual value and real-world business results AI can deliver.