Anthropic’s potential IPO valuation is being shaped by unusually aggressive long-term growth assumptions, with investors reportedly focusing on projected 2028 revenue of between $190 billion and $200 billion.
The forecast is far above the company’s current revenue run rate of about $47 billion, underlining how much future growth investors may need to price into the offering. Bankers and investors are reportedly using forward enterprise value-to-revenue multiples rather than relying heavily on near-term profitability.
That approach is common for fast-growing software companies, but looking two years ahead is less typical and reflects the speed of Anthropic’s expansion as well as the difficulty of valuing an AI business still spending heavily on GPUs, model training, inference and hiring.
Potential comparison companies include Palantir, Cloudflare and SpaceX, all of which trade at high revenue multiples and are valued largely on expectations of future scale.
Anthropic’s valuation case therefore depends on whether revenue can continue growing faster than infrastructure and operating costs. If computing efficiency improves and expenses become a smaller share of sales, margins could expand significantly as the company scales.
Still, the projections also introduce substantial risk. Investors will need to decide whether AI demand can support such rapid revenue growth and whether current infrastructure spending will ultimately translate into sustainable profits.
