The price tag attached to Anthropic's IPO looks set to reflect 2028 revenue rather than current profitability. Reuters reported on August 14 that the company projects $190 billion to $200 billion in revenue for 2028, and that banks and investors are building their valuations by applying a revenue multiple to that forecast. The revenue run rate the company disclosed in May exceeded $4.7 billion. Banks and investors are effectively trying to price a forecast that assumes the current pace of sales will grow more than fourfold.
Pricing 2028 Revenue Ahead of Time
According to Reuters, two people familiar with Anthropic's financials described the 2028 revenue forecast as $190 billion to $200 billion. Four people, including others familiar with the matter, said banks and investors are applying enterprise-value-to-revenue multiples to that projected figure. While valuing high-growth software companies without stable profits based on revenue is not unusual, looking two years beyond the IPO date is described as atypical.
$190–200 billion represents roughly 4.0 to 4.3 times the $4.7 billion run rate disclosed in May. However, a run rate is an annualized figure based on recent sales pace, not actual full-year revenue. Comparing $4.7 billion as if it were 2026 revenue against a figure two years later risks overstating the certainty of that growth.
The same caution applies to profit figures. Reuters reported that Anthropic had projected at least $10.9 billion in revenue and $559 million in operating profit for the second quarter of 2026. If realized, this would mark a quarterly operating profit—but this is a projection based on anonymous sources and non-public documents, not audited full-year financial results. Furthermore, operating profit differs from net income or free cash flow.
The Multiple Fell from 27.1x to 20.5x in Three Months
Comparing Anthropic's two officially disclosed funding rounds shows that the growth in revenue pace outpaced the rise in valuation. In the Series G round in February, the company raised $30 billion at a post-money valuation of $380 billion, with a revenue run rate of $14 billion. In the Series H round in May, it raised $65 billion at a post-money valuation of $965 billion, with the run rate rising to over $47 billion.
| Disclosure Date | Post-Money Valuation | Revenue Run Rate | Valuation ÷ Run Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 2026 | $380 billion | $14 billion | ~27.1x |
| May 2026 | $965 billion | Over $47 billion | ~20.5x or less |
Over roughly three months, valuation rose about 154%, while the run rate rose about 236%. As a result, the simple multiple compressed from about 27.1x to about 20.5x or lower. While the absolute valuation figure appears to be surging, the price investors are paying per dollar of revenue has actually declined. That said, this is a private post-money valuation divided by point-in-time revenue, which is not strictly the same metric as an enterprise-value-to-forward-revenue multiple used for public companies.
This trajectory also explains why a two-year-forward figure became necessary. Simply applying the roughly 20.5x multiple from May to the current $47 billion run rate would bring the valuation back to roughly $965 billion. To justify a higher IPO valuation, one must either raise the multiple or point to a larger revenue figure further out in time. The method reported by Reuters takes the latter approach, anchoring the valuation to the $190–200 billion figure projected for 2028.
Why Three Comparable Companies Don't Quite Fit
Palantir, Cloudflare, and SpaceX have reportedly come up as comparables in the valuation process. According to LSEG data cited by Reuters, Palantir traded at 53 times projected 2026 revenue, while Cloudflare and SpaceX traded at 41.6 times. All three companies command high growth expectations, but none shares exactly the same business structure as Anthropic.
Reuters distinguishes the roles each plays: Palantir represents rapid growth and market expectations around AI; Cloudflare represents high-growth software and infrastructure; and SpaceX represents a company whose valuation reflects future business scale rather than current financials. Rather than fitting Anthropic into a single business category, this approach measures growth rate, infrastructure, and future scale separately. Which comparison is weighted more heavily will change the multiple applied.
If a $2 trillion valuation were applied to the 2028 revenue forecast, the resulting multiple would be roughly 10.0 to 10.5 times. However, $2 trillion is not a figure Anthropic has confirmed as its IPO target. It is a level that an investor interviewed by Reuters suggested was potentially reachable, while also raising doubts about its sustainability. Conditional estimates and finalized pricing need to be kept separate.
Reserving Compute Resources Ahead of Revenue
The infrastructure underpinning the 2028 revenue figure is already being secured through contracts. In April, Anthropic announced it would invest over $100 billion over ten years in AWS technology, securing up to 5GW of capacity. The company plans to bring roughly 1GW of combined Trainium2 and Trainium3 capacity online by the end of 2026. Multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU capacity procured from Google and Broadcom are scheduled to come online starting in 2027.
In May, the company also announced a contract to use the entirety of SpaceX's Colossus 1 compute capacity, exceeding 300MW. This includes access to over 220,000 NVIDIA GPUs. In the same announcement, Anthropic raised usage limits for Claude Code and its API, explaining that the new contract and other capacity expansions made this possible. Increased compute resources correspond directly to increased service capacity available to customers.
At the same time, securing capacity alone does not guarantee that $190–200 billion in demand will materialize. The AWS commitment of over $100 billion is a ten-year usage commitment, and the various contracts also differ in their activation timelines. Only if revenue grows faster than compute costs—and if efficiency gains in training and inference translate into gross margin—will a valuation based on a two-year-forward figure connect to actual profitability today.
What should be confirmed in public offering documents is not the run rate, but full-year revenue, along with the trajectory of compute costs embedded in cost of goods sold and profit margins. After next-generation TPU capacity comes online in 2027, will revenue growth diverge from cost growth? The credibility of the 2028 forecast will hinge on whether that gap widens quarter by quarter.