Anthropic Pitches $190B-$200B 2028 Revenue in IPO Case

Bankers are being asked to underwrite a growth curve that pushes IPO math into unusual territory. Reuters reported that Anthropic is telling investors to price its coming listing off projected 2028 revenue of roughly $190 billion to $200 billion, a number two people familiar with the company's financials shared with the wire.

Set against the $47 billion revenue run rate Anthropic publicized as recently as May, the pitch asks buyers to bet on roughly a fourfold expansion in about two and a half years, and to price the deal today off a 2028 number rather than what the business is doing now. Reuters frames this as unusual: bankers and investors are applying enterprise value-to-revenue multiples to forecasts that far out because margins are still being squeezed by spending on compute, model training, and hiring.

The comparable multiples in the piece give a sense of scale. Reuters cites LSEG data showing Palantir trading at 53 times expected 2026 revenue and Cloudflare at 41.6 times. Even a compressed multiple applied to a $190B-$200B target implies a valuation in the trillions. For scale, OpenAI recently held its own valuation at $852B via a $7B employee stock deal. David Merkel, a principal at Aleph Investments, told Reuters, "Could they (Anthropic) get a $2 trillion valuation, yeah they could, and I just wonder if it would stay there over time," and questioned whether AI truly produces enough additional productivity to justify the price.

The story is sourced to two people familiar with the financials, not to a filing. It does not disclose Anthropic's own margin assumptions, how the 2028 number splits between API, enterprise, and consumer revenue, or what compute-cost trajectory gets there. It also does not name the banks running the book or a target listing date.

Anthropic is not the only name doing this. Reuters notes that backers of Cerebras Systems cited 2028 revenue expectations in the run-up to its IPO this year, and SpaceX projections stretched to 2029 before its June listing at a record valuation. For anyone tracking AI funding cadence or Anthropic specifically, the read-through is that the public-market window is opening for issuers willing to be judged on a two- and three-year revenue promise, and staying narrow for anyone whose story rests on trailing numbers.