Anthropic is projecting annual revenue of between $190 billion and $200 billion by 2028 as the artificial intelligence company prepares for what could become one of the largest Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in history.
The ambitious forecasts are shaping how Wall Street is approaching Anthropic’s potential valuation, with bankers and investors looking beyond the company’s current financial performance and placing greater emphasis on its projected revenue two years into the future.
According to sources familiar with Anthropic’s financials, the AI company expects its revenue to increase dramatically over the next two years, highlighting the scale of growth investors are being asked to factor into its valuation.
Anthropic reportedly ended 2025 with an annualised revenue run rate of $9 billion. That figure had risen to $47 billion by May 2026, while projected revenue for the second quarter of 2026 stands at $10.9 billion.
The company is also expected to record its first quarterly operating profit, estimated at $559 million, during the second quarter.
Anthropic has reportedly achieved roughly tenfold annual growth in its revenue run rate for three consecutive years through early 2026.
For a company growing at such a pace, traditional valuation measures based heavily on current earnings or EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation) may provide an incomplete picture of its potential.
Anthropic’s margins are currently under significant pressure from substantial spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure and development. The company is investing heavily in acquiring GPUs and computing capacity, training next-generation large language models, expanding inference infrastructure and recruiting highly skilled engineers.
As a result, bankers are reportedly relying on enterprise value-to-revenue multiples based on forward projections rather than placing primary emphasis on current profitability.
The investment thesis is that Anthropic’s revenue will eventually grow substantially faster than the infrastructure costs required to support it. As AI systems mature, improvements in training and inference efficiency could reduce operating costs as a proportion of revenue and result in significantly wider margins.
Wall Street is also turning to other high-growth technology companies to establish benchmarks for Anthropic’s potential valuation. Companies such as Cerebras Systems and SpaceX have previously used extended financial projections, including forecasts for 2028 and 2029 respectively, to support their market valuations.
Ahead of Anthropic’s analyst day, Palantir, SpaceX and Cloudflare are reportedly among the companies being used as reference points.
Palantir is trading at about 53 times current-year expected revenue, making it a key benchmark for companies experiencing rapid growth and significant exposure to artificial intelligence.
SpaceX and Cloudflare are each valued at about 41.6 times expected 2026 revenue, providing further comparisons for businesses whose valuations are driven heavily by future growth, digital infrastructure and technological potential.
However, the aggressive approach to valuing Anthropic also carries considerable risk. Heavy spending across the AI infrastructure sector has already contributed to pullbacks in several high-profile technology stocks, raising questions about whether the enormous investments being made in artificial intelligence will ultimately translate into equivalent economic returns.
The success of Anthropic’s eventual IPO valuation could therefore depend on whether generative AI delivers the productivity gains and commercial value investors currently anticipate.
David Merkel, a principal at investment firm Aleph Investments, encapsulated the market hesitation: “Could they get a $2-trillion valuation, yeah they could, and I just wonder if it would stay there over time. Does AI really produce so much additional productivity… These are just questions that we have to ask if we were thinking of pricing this, buying this.”
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