Anthropic, the AI lab behind the Claude family of models, is preparing what could become the largest initial public offering in history. Bankers advising the company have told potential investors that the listing could raise more than $100 billion and value the five-year-old startup at $2 trillion or higher, according to multiple reports citing people familiar with the discussions.

The figures would place Anthropic’s debut well above SpaceX’s record-setting raise earlier in 2026 and position the company as one of the most valuable technology firms in the world upon listing. A public filing could arrive as soon as the end of August, with a potential market debut in October, ahead of rival OpenAI’s expected timeline in 2027.

Revenue Momentum Fuels Valuation Ambitions

The aggressive valuation targets rest on Anthropic’s extraordinary revenue trajectory. The company’s annualized revenue run rate surpassed $65 billion by the end of July 2026, according to Bloomberg and people briefed on investor updates. That figure represents a more than sevenfold increase from roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025 and a sharp rise from the $47 billion run rate reported in May.

Investors and analysts project the run rate could reach between $100 billion and $120 billion by the close of 2026. Longer-term internal forecasts cited in reporting point to $190 billion to $200 billion in revenue by 2028. These numbers underpin models that support a $2 trillion valuation, with some investor scenarios stretching toward $3 trillion.

Anthropic’s growth has been driven heavily by enterprise demand, particularly for coding and agentic tools built on Claude. The company has outpaced OpenAI on several reported revenue metrics in recent months, though the two firms may calculate annualized figures differently. OpenAI’s own run rate recently exceeded $40 billion.

Deal Structure and Timeline

Anthropic confidentially filed IPO paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in June 2026. Underwriters including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Citi are working on the offering. 

A raise in the range of $100 billion would exceed SpaceX’s approximately $75 billion to $85 billion raise from its June listing and dwarf previous records such as Saudi Aramco’s 2019 debut.

Senior Anthropic executives have not publicly set a firm valuation target. Reporting indicates the $2 trillion figure originates primarily from banker discussions with prospective investors and from backers modeling the company’s rapid growth. 

Private secondary trading had already implied valuations around $1.2 trillion in the weeks before the latest reports.

The company is exploring structures that could include super-voting shares for co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei and other founders, preserving control after the listing. Amodei currently holds a relatively small ownership stake of around 2 percent.

Context in the Broader AI Race

Anthropic’s path to a potential record IPO reflects a dramatic shift in the competitive landscape. Once viewed as an underdog relative to OpenAI, the Claude maker closed a $65 billion private funding round in May that valued it at approximately $965 billion, briefly surpassing OpenAI’s then-private valuation. 

Capital has poured into Anthropic throughout 2026 from venture firms, sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors, totaling nearly $100 billion in the year according to some accounts.

The company has emphasized safety-focused development and enterprise reliability. 

Claude models have gained particular traction in coding and agent workflows, areas where performance benchmarks and customer adoption have supported the revenue surge. Anthropic has also expanded partnerships for compute capacity, including deals involving AMD and other infrastructure providers, as demand for training and inference continues to climb.

Public market investors will scrutinize whether the growth rate can be sustained. Critics note that justifying a $2 trillion valuation requires continued high growth and healthy margins over multiple years.

One valuation analysis suggested the company would need on the order of $1.2 trillion in annual revenue within a decade under certain assumptions to support that price tag. Anthropic’s own 2028 forecasts of roughly $200 billion form the nearer-term foundation for current modeling.

What Comes Next

If the timeline holds, Anthropic could begin trading shares this autumn, giving public investors direct exposure to one of the leading frontier AI labs. 

The offering would test appetite for AI pure-plays at unprecedented scale, especially as markets digest the broader capital intensity of the industry, including massive data-center and chip investments.

For the AI sector, a successful Anthropic listing would set a high-water mark for valuations and capital formation. It would also intensify the race with OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and other major players competing for talent, compute, and enterprise customers. The outcome will influence how capital flows to both closed and open-weight model developers in the years ahead.

Anthropic has not issued a detailed public statement confirming the precise raise size or valuation targets beyond its earlier confidential filing. All figures on the $100 billion raise and $2 trillion valuation derive from reports citing bankers, investors, and people familiar with the process. 

Market conditions, regulatory review, and final company decisions will determine the ultimate size and timing of any offering.

The next weeks will clarify whether Anthropic moves forward with a formal public filing and roadshow. If it does, the listing stands to become one of the defining financial events of the AI boom.