Anthropic bankers are pricing a $2 trillion IPO off projected 2028 revenue of $200 billion, skipping three years of actual results entirely.
Anthropic’s revenue surged from $9 billion to $47 billion in just five months, the tenfold annual growth bankers cite to justify trusting the forecast.
Both Cerebras and SpaceX, priced on future-growth narratives, fell 40% or more from their post-IPO peaks once quarterly results replaced the excitement.
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The IPO season in 2026 has developed a specialty: pricing companies on results they haven’t produced yet. Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ:CBRS) leaned on ramping AI infrastructure demand when it priced its shares. SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) built its $135-a-share debut around a $28.5 trillion addressable-market model that stretched years past its current financials.
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Now Anthropic is testing how far that logic stretches, and it’s reportedly planning an October IPO to find out. Bankers are pricing that deal off a 2028 revenue forecast, not this year’s results, and not next year’s either. That’s unusual. Public investors typically price a stock off trailing 12-month numbers, or at most next year’s estimate. Reaching three years into the future is a bet that a growth curve holds its current shape for a long time.
Here are the mind-numbing numbers Anthropic is actually showing investors, and what happened the last two times a mega-IPO tried this same approach.
The Growth Curve Anthropic Is Selling
Anthropic’s revenue run rate stood at roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025, then climbed past $47 billion by May, according to company figures. Now, according to two people familiar with its financials cited by Reuters, Anthropic is projecting 2028 revenue of roughly $190 billion to $200 billion — a figure not previously reported and more than four times the May run rate.
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The near-term numbers back it up. Anthropic has projected revenue of at least $10.9 billion for the second quarter of 2026, more than double the previous quarter, putting it on track for its first quarterly operating profit of $559 million, and its revenue run rate grew more than tenfold annually in each of the three years through early 2026. That’s the receipt bankers are pointing to when they ask investors to trust a 2028 number today.
Why Bankers Are Pricing Three Years Out
Bankers and investors are using enterprise value-to-revenue multiples based on these forecasts, according to four sources — a method common for high-growth software companies that haven’t yet settled into a mature profit margin. The logic is, if spending today is funding a business that eventually generates far higher revenue and thicker margins, then paying up for that future stream can still work out.
Applying a multiple to 2028 revenue rather than 2026 revenue is what gets Anthropic to the IPO valuation it seeks: $2 trillion.
Here’s how that stacks up against public peers already trading on forward growth:
2028 estimated revenue of $190 billion to $200 billion
Implied by $2 trillion IPO target
David Merkel, a principal at Aleph Investments, put the uncertainty plainly: Anthropic could get a $2 trillion valuation, he said, but he wonders whether it would hold there over time. Granted, tenfold annual growth for three straight years earns the benefit of the doubt. That said, a forecast is still a forecast, not a filing.
What Happened to the Last Three Mega-IPOs
Three other 2026 debuts already asked investors to underwrite years of future growth, and both cooled fast after opening day.
Metric
Cerebras
SpaceX
SK Hynix
IPO Price
$185
$135
$149
Opening Price
$350
$150
$170
First-Day/Post-IPO High
$386.34
$225.64
$194.80
Recent Price
$219.52
$140.57
$166.60
Cerebras opened near double its offer price, touched $386, and now trades around $219.50 — still above its IPO price, but 43% below its high. SpaceX opened at an 11% premium, spiked to $225.64 within days, and has since fallen to around $140.50, down nearly 38% from that peak. Similarly, SK Hynix (NASDAQ:SKHY) also burst forth out of the gate, only to unravel fast afterward.
In all three cases, the excitement that justified pricing off a distant future faded once quarterly results replaced the forecast.
Key Takeaway
Anthropic’s growth is real — a run rate that went from $9 billion to $47 billion in five months is hard to argue with — and a blowout IPO debut is a reasonable expectation. But the pattern from this year’s other two mega-IPOs is just as real: strong openings followed by first-year drawdowns of 40% or more from the peak.
Investors should separate two questions — is the business good, and is the debut price good — because in 2026, mega-IPOs have answered those very differently. Buying the first-week euphoria has been the losing trade so far this year.
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