Anthropic's Planned IPO Could Surpass SpaceX as the Largest in History
Nashnova编辑部
Anthropic is evaluating whether its IPO can match or exceed SpaceX's $86.2 billion record listing — potentially filing by month's end — in what would be the most direct market test yet of AI's commercial thesis.
How big could this IPO actually be?
SpaceX's IPO raised $86.2 billion after the greenshoe, the largest ever recorded by Bloomberg.
If Anthropic surpasses that, 2026 would become the biggest year for U.S. IPO fundraising in history — year-to-date proceeds already stand at $160.6 billion, still short of 2021's full-year record of $195.2 billion.
This means → a company less than four years old is attempting to reset the ceiling for capital markets fundraising.
How much is Anthropic actually earning?
Preliminary Q2 revenue exceeded $11.5 billion, up from just $787 million in Q2 2025 — more than a tenfold increase year-on-year.
Annualized revenue run-rate reached $65 billion as of end-July.
But losses are equally striking: full-year 2025 net loss approached $42 billion, roughly five times the ~$8.3 billion lost in 2024. In plain terms = revenue is exploding, but cash burn is accelerating in lockstep.
What justifies a valuation this high?
A $65 billion funding round in May valued the company at $965 billion, overtaking OpenAI's $852 billion valuation from its March round.
Q2 marked the first quarter of positive adjusted operating profit — the initial proof point that the business can generate earnings.
Yet CFO Krishna Rao deliberately avoided valuation discussions in recent investor briefings. This reflects caution at the top: management does not want to anchor a number that markets might challenge before the offering.
How is the listing structured?
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan are leading the IPO, with additional banks likely to join.
Anthropic is considering a dual-class share structure — a setup that gives minority shareholders outsized voting power — so that CEO Dario Amodei and co-founders retain control despite holding roughly 2% of equity.
Anthropic expects to list ahead of OpenAI, which currently targets 2027. This means → Anthropic wants to capture the pricing power of being the first major AI pure-play on public markets.
Where is the biggest risk?
Compute costs are the core pressure: a single data-center deal with SpaceX could be worth tens of billions of dollars over the next three years.
The company also plans to secure a revolving credit facility exceeding $10 billion — a bank loan it can draw and repay repeatedly — before the public filing, to cover operating-cash gaps.
Put simply = whether the IPO prices at a level that matches the current valuation will directly answer one question: how large a bet is the market willing to place on AI's future.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.