Investors in Anthropic expect the company to be valued at at least $2 trillion in its planned October IPO, according to a report by the Financial Times. The estimate follows a jump in annualized revenue from $47 billion to $65 billion between May and the end of July. One investor considers $3 trillion possible if the pace holds.
Revenue rate jumps $18 billion in two months
Anthropic’s annualized revenue rate stood at around $9 billion at the end of 2025, climbed to $47 billion by May, and reached $65 billion by the end of July, according to TechCrunch citing investor sources. That amounts to $18 billion added between May and July alone. For comparison, rival OpenAI’s annualized revenue rate is reportedly around $40 billion, after the company posted about $20 billion in revenue for 2025.
The growth builds on the $965 billion valuation Anthropic reached in a funding round in May – revenue has since risen roughly 38 percent, while the valuation now under discussion is more than double that figure.
For all of 2026, several investors expect annual revenue between $100 billion and $120 billion – more than ten times the level at the end of 2025. Anthropic had already opened initial talks with the banking consortium led by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan back in July; the company still has not named an official IPO date.
One investor sees $3 trillion as plausible
Six investors familiar with the discussions expect Anthropic to be worth at least $2 trillion at the IPO – a firmer view than the caution analyst David Merkel expressed in mid-August, when he called such a valuation conceivable but warned that a forecast is not a filed financial figure. One investor argues that 800 percent annual growth would justify at least a 30-times-revenue multiple – equivalent to roughly $3 trillion. Anthropic itself has reportedly not set an internal valuation target.
For the second quarter of 2026, Anthropic had already told investors back in May, according to a Wall Street Journal report, to expect a first-ever operating profit of $559 million on revenue of $10.9 billion – a 130 percent jump from the first quarter. As Fortune points out, however, operating profit says nothing about interest or taxes, so whether an actual net profit follows remains open. The company reportedly also warned investors that planned data center spending for late 2026 and 2027 could push results back into the red.
High prices and export controls are slowing growth
The expected record valuation comes with risks the report lays out. Anthropic’s models cost roughly 2.5 times as much as OpenAI’s current flagship product, according to the investors surveyed – a price gap that could push cost-sensitive corporate customers toward cheaper alternatives. Revenue growth has also slowed at times following tighter US export controls on AI chips, and an unresolved legal dispute with the US Department of Defense weighs on the business, with investors unable to quantify its outcome.
The capital intensity behind the growth shows up elsewhere too: just in August, Google tied $200 billion in loans to chip deliveries that Anthropic is leasing to fill out its data centers. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan remain set to lead the planned IPO, having already guided the initial investor talks in July.
What remains open is whether Anthropic can back up its promised growth rate with audited figures rather than internally shared projections once it files with the SEC. Until then, the $2 trillion expectation rests on statements from investors who have a stake in the IPO’s outcome themselves – and on a growth rate that export controls and OpenAI’s price pressure could keep from continuing unchecked.
