Published: August 18, 2026 | Category: Markets

Six investors told the Financial Times the AI company’s revenue run rate will reach $100bn by year end, a case its own executives have not endorsed

Anthropic’s investors expect the company to go public in October at a valuation of $2tn or more, which would make it the largest initial public offering on record. Six backers told the Financial Times that revenue growth could support a figure more than twice the $965bn post-money valuation the company carried when its Series H closed on May 28.

The company itself has committed to far less. Anthropic said on June 1 that it had confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 to the Securities and Exchange Commission, an announcement published under Rule 135 of the Securities Act. That statement said the number of shares to be offered and the price had not been set, and that any offering would depend on market conditions and the completion of the SEC’s review. No public S-1 has appeared on EDGAR. The company has disclosed no ticker, no exchange and no underwriting syndicate. Senior executives have not fixed a valuation target even in private conversations, according to the FT.

The investor case rests on revenue. Anthropic said alongside the Series H that its run-rate revenue crossed $47bn in mid-May, its first disclosure since the Series G in February. The backers who spoke to the FT expect annualised revenue of $100bn to $120bn by the end of December, which would require the run rate to more than double again in seven months.

Priced against that projection, $2tn implies about 18 times forward annualised revenue. On the $47bn the company disclosed in May, the $965bn round valued it at roughly 20 times. Investors are underwriting faster growth rather than a richer multiple.

The Series H raised $65bn and was led by Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital, with Capital Group, Coatue, D1 Capital Partners, GIC, ICONIQ and XN co-leading. It included $15bn of previously committed hyperscaler money, $5bn of it from Amazon. “This funding will help us serve the historic demand we are experiencing,” Krishna Rao, Anthropic’s chief financial officer, said at the time.

The record Anthropic would break is not trading well. SpaceX listed in June at about $1.77tn and raised $75bn, the largest IPO ever completed. Its shares closed at $108.27 on August 5, an all-time low and roughly 20 per cent below the $135 offer price, then rose more than 6 per cent the next day as a lockup covering about 911.5mn insider shares expired.

A prospectus will also have to account for Anthropic’s regulatory record. On June 12 the Commerce Department ordered the company to restrict access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for any foreign national, inside or outside the United States, and Anthropic disabled both models for all customers rather than segment access. The restrictions were lifted on June 30 after the company shipped a safeguard addressing the reported vulnerability. Investors told the FT the episode slowed revenue growth in June and that business rebounded afterwards. Competition from lower-cost Chinese models sits alongside that in the risk column.

An October listing leaves little slack. The SEC review has to close, the S-1 has to go public with audited financials, and the company has to run a roadshow into a market that has already marked the last record-breaking technology listing below its offer price.

Sources