Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI models, was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, and its rapid sales ramp is starting to reshape the mathematics of the wider artificial intelligence market. As of the end of July, the company's projected revenues exceeded $65 billion, and investment bankers have begun treating its initial public offering as a precedent that other large AI businesses waiting to list could use to set their valuation terms.

The sequencing matters: Anthropic is predicted to go public before OpenAI, perhaps this autumn. Investment banks have told both companies that whichever lists first will "create a model for the entire industry." Anthropic is seeking a valuation above $2 trillion, which would make it the biggest IPO in history and surpass Saudi Aramco's 2019 listing — until now the largest ever, at roughly $1.7 trillion.

A run rate that tripled in seven months

Investors continue to measure the company by its growth curve. At the end of 2025, Anthropic had a run rate of almost $9 billion — an estimate of future annual revenue based on recent history. That climbed to $47 billion in May and reached $65 billion in late July. Anthropic itself said in a May announcement: "our run-rate revenue crossed $47 billion earlier this month."

Investors expect the momentum to continue, putting 2026 revenue between $100 billion and $120 billion, the Financial Times reported. OpenAI, meanwhile, has doubled its revenue to $40 billion this year, up from $20 billion at the end of 2025, Bloomberg reported. The two companies may measure revenue differently — run-rate figures annualize recent sales rather than audited full-year results, so they are not standardized across firms — but Anthropic's trajectory is drawing the attention of investors preparing for its IPO.

Bankers are pricing on 2028, not today

The effects of Anthropic's IPO could reverberate well beyond this one company. Anthropic has told those engaged in the IPO process that it anticipates revenues of $190 million to $200 million in 2028 — previously unreported information. Banks and investors are applying an enterprise value-to-revenue multiple — a ratio that weighs a company's total worth against its sales rather than its profits — based on these forward projections instead of actual income figures, a method historically associated with high-growth software firms rather than traditional public companies.

Measured against the 2028 target, Anthropic's $965 billion valuation from its May Series H translates to roughly five times its future revenue. Cryptopolitan compared that with Palantir trading at about 53 times its anticipated revenues, and SpaceX and Cloudflare at approximately 41.6 times, although those figures are calculated on 2026 estimates.

The important message is not that Anthropic is undervalued. Rather, the company would not warrant such a high multiple if it delivers the revenue bankers are forecasting. Should public investors accept multipliers based on revenue a couple of years away, it would become simpler for other AI firms to justify their multiples on present-day revenues.

The demand behind the number

The projections are backed by current business demand. Ramp's July AI Index shows Anthropic ahead of OpenAI on adoption among U.S. businesses, with 43.5% of American companies paying for either its subscriptions or tokens, compared with 39.7% for OpenAI. Anthropic raised $65 billion in May from Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital, giving it a larger pool of capital to invest in compute, research and enterprise products that feed its growth.

The valuation model also raises the stakes. The 2028 forecast assumes revenue can keep its wide edge over the massive expenses of chips, model training and talent. Ramp's data also points to the limits businesses face when pouring resources into frontier AI.

If those economics improve, Anthropic's IPO is likely to produce a new valuation playbook for the AI sector. In the opposite scenario, sophisticated valuation playbooks built on price-to-revenue measured two years out could become a trap for investors.