Anthropic is preparing to file publicly for an initial public offering as soon as the end of August 2026, with expectations that the deal could match or exceed the record size set by SpaceX earlier this year. 

The Claude AI developer has shared preliminary financial figures showing explosive growth that positions it ahead of rival OpenAI in the race to public markets.

According to people familiar with the matter, Anthropic expects its IPO to rival or surpass SpaceX’s roughly $75 billion raise, which later reached about $86.2 billion with the overallotment option. 

Investor briefings led by Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao have focused on the company’s trajectory while largely avoiding specific valuation targets. Banks including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase are working on the offering, with additional underwriters possibly joining.

Explosive Revenue Growth Underpins the Ambition

The scale of the planned offering rests on remarkable recent financial performance. Preliminary second-quarter 2026 revenue exceeded $11.5 billion, more than 14 times the $787 million recorded in the same period a year earlier. Sequential growth was also sharp: first-quarter revenue stood at approximately $4.73 billion, meaning the company more than doubled in a single quarter.

By the end of July, Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate had climbed above $65 billion. That figure represents a more than sevenfold increase from the roughly $9 billion run rate at the end of 2025 and a significant jump from the $47 billion level reported in May. 

Adjusted operating income turned positive in the second quarter, a notable milestone for a frontier AI lab that had previously recorded heavy losses. Full-year 2025 net losses reached nearly $42 billion, roughly five times the prior year’s figure, reflecting the intense capital intensity of large-scale model training and infrastructure.

These numbers place Anthropic ahead of OpenAI on several key metrics. OpenAI’s recent quarterly revenue was reported lower, and its annualized run rate has been cited in the $40 billion range, though measurement methodologies may differ.

Anthropic’s last private funding round in May raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation. Some investors and reports have discussed post-IPO valuations approaching $2 trillion, grounded in internal projections of $190 billion to $200 billion in revenue by 2028.

Timing and Structure Details

Anthropic confidentially filed for an IPO earlier in 2026. A public filing could come by the end of this month, potentially leading to a listing in September or October. That timeline would put Anthropic on public markets well ahead of OpenAI, which is now expected to target 2027.

Before the public filing, the company is finalizing a revolving credit facility expected to exceed its original roughly $10 billion target. Anthropic is also considering the use of super-voting shares that would give CEO Dario Amodei (who owns about a 2 percent stake) and other co-founders greater control, a structure similar to those used by other technology companies seeking to insulate leadership from short-term market pressures.

The company has a substantial compute relationship with SpaceX that could be worth tens of billions of dollars over three years, adding an interesting layer to the IPO comparison. 

Anthropic’s growth has been driven in significant part by enterprise adoption of Claude for coding, knowledge work, and agentic tasks, with tools such as Claude Code contributing meaningfully to the revenue acceleration.

Why This Matters for the AI Industry

An IPO of this magnitude would mark a major validation of the commercial trajectory of frontier AI models. Anthropic has positioned itself as a leader in enterprise and safety-focused AI, and the revenue figures demonstrate that demand for high-capability systems is translating into substantial cash flow even amid intense competition and high compute costs.

Success in raising capital at or above SpaceX’s record would provide Anthropic with significant resources for further model development, infrastructure expansion, and talent acquisition at a time when the industry continues to race toward more capable systems. It would also set a public-market benchmark for AI valuations that other companies, including OpenAI, will be measured against.

The offering comes against a backdrop of rising scrutiny of AI infrastructure costs, data-center impacts, and safety considerations. Anthropic has emphasized its focus on responsible development, including restricted access programs for its most capable cybersecurity-oriented models. 

Investors will closely examine risk factors related to competition, regulation, compute dependencies, and the sustainability of current growth rates once the public prospectus becomes available.

What Comes Next

If the public filing proceeds on the expected timeline, detailed financial disclosures, risk factors, and an initial price range should become available in the coming weeks. 

An institutional roadshow would follow, with pricing and listing dependent on market conditions and investor demand. Prediction markets have assigned high odds to an Anthropic listing by the end of 2026.

For the broader industry, the deal will test public-market appetite for AI companies at multi-hundred-billion or trillion-dollar valuations. Strong demand could accelerate other AI-related listings and reinforce confidence in the sector’s long-term economics. 

Any signs of caution could temper valuations across the AI ecosystem.

Anthropic’s preparation for a record-scale IPO underscores how rapidly the leading AI labs have scaled from research organizations into major commercial enterprises. The coming weeks will reveal how public investors price that transformation.