Anthropic’s path to a potential $2 trillion IPO is being built on an aggressive internal forecast projecting revenue between $190 billion and $200 billion by 2028, a figure that bankers and investors are already using to justify the astronomical valuation. According to a Reuters exclusive, the AI lab’s revenue run rate climbed to roughly $47 billion as of May 2026, up from about $9 billion at the end of 2025, meaning the 2028 target implies revenue more than quadrupling again in a little over two years. The near-term momentum is undeniably strong, with second-quarter 2026 revenue projected to hit at least $10.9 billion—more than double the previous quarter—and the company is eyeing its first quarterly operating profit of around $559 million, a genuine inflection point for a lab that has historically burned through cash.
The valuation strategy involves applying enterprise-value-to-revenue multiples to those 2028 forecasts, a two-years-forward approach rarely seen in public markets but previously used before the flotations of Cerebras and SpaceX. With Palantir trading at roughly 53 times its expected 2026 revenue, and SpaceX and Cloudflare sitting at around 41.6 times, stretching those multiples across Anthropic’s projected 2028 haul makes the eye-watering headline figures appear internally consistent. However, the entire calculation borrows heavily from the future, assuming today’s market enthusiasm will persist long enough to meet the revenue it is pricing in. David Merkel of Aleph Investments captured the skepticism perfectly, noting, „Could they get a $2 trillion valuation, yeah they could and I just wonder if it would stay there over time,” highlighting the gap between what a hot market will pay on the day and what it will tolerate a year later.
The core risk lies in the cost base, where heavy spending on GPUs, compute, and model training continues to pressure current margins. The bull case rests entirely on the assumption that these costs will fall as a share of revenue as the business scales, trading present profitability for future size. Anthropic has already attracted investor offers at an $800 billion valuation and is reportedly eyeing closer to $900 billion in a mooted $50 billion round, with IPO chatter now nudging toward the $2 trillion mark that once seemed fanciful. Cheaper rivals are threatening the economics underpinning these valuations, and a two-years-forward multiple is only as good as the year it points at. While Anthropic may well hit $200 billion in revenue by 2028, and its recent run of results gives the ambition credibility, the market is being asked to price the company as though that arrival is already booked—two full years before the receipts come in.
Ez a cikk a Neural News AI (V1) verziójával készült.
Forrás: https://thenextweb.com/news/anthropic-ipo-190-200bn-2028-revenue-forecast.