Is Anthropic Ready for a $2 Trillion IPO? Investors Weigh Valuation Against Actual Profit

Investors in Anthropic, one of the leading companies in artificial intelligence, are seriously discussing a deal that could become the largest initial public offering (IPO — a company's first sale of stock to the public market) in the company's history. According to the Financial Times, a number of the company's major investors are anticipating a potential market capitalization of $2 trillion — more than double the $965 billion valuation set during the company's Series H funding round (its next major investment round) in May.

The catch is that Anthropic isn't profitable yet. Large tech companies joining the Nasdaq 100 index after an IPO typically trade at price-to-earnings ratios in the low double digits or higher, a level Anthropic is nowhere near. Still, according to the Wall Street Journal, the company's second-quarter 2026 revenue is expected to more than double to $10.9 billion.

According to Avery Marquez, director of investment strategy at Renaissance Capital, for such an enormous valuation to look reasonable to investors, the company needs to move closer to operating profit. "Just seeing a $2 trillion number is genuinely eye-popping," he says. "But getting closer to operating profit, in my view, helps make that massive valuation seem a little less crazy."

A $2 trillion market cap would put Anthropic in the company of just six firms that have already reached that mark, plus Broadcom, which is closing in on it. For comparison, Nvidia, whose market cap tops $5 trillion, posted $120.1 billion in net profit on $215.9 billion in revenue in its most recent fiscal year, while Alphabet, valued at $4.55 trillion, earned $132 billion in profit on $403 billion in revenue. By the numbers, Anthropic is closest to Amazon, which reported $77.7 billion in net profit in its latest fiscal year — though part of that profit reflects the rising value of Amazon's own stake in Anthropic.

Meanwhile, Anthropic's annualized run-rate revenue (a method of projecting yearly revenue from current monthly figures) climbed from roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025 to $47 billion by mid-May. According to figures disclosed externally by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, that number has now reached $74.1 billion, overtaking OpenAI. Benioff described it as a "corporate hat trick": the best model (Claude), the best coding agents (Claude Code) and the best productivity tool (Cowork).

Analysts say that because OpenAI and Anthropic are such close rivals, whichever company goes public first will set the market benchmark for the other. Anthropic's edge lies in a more stable, predictable enterprise customer base compared to a consumer-facing focus, while OpenAI holds an advantage in brand recognition through ChatGPT. Another factor drawing investor attention is the question of compute supply for both companies.