BT Explainer | Anthropic IPO: AI giant’s $2 trillion valuation in focus as losses, spending mount

The offering could influence Wall Street's confidence in the AI boom as investors grow concerned about the borrowing supporting it. Anthropic and rival OpenAI have led global AI development, while Anthropic has become part of interconnected investments involving major chipmakers and cloud providers. Its listing could also channel capital into AI startups and encourage more companies to go public after a prolonged IPO slowdown.

Anthropic’s IPO could also establish a benchmark for how public markets value frontier AI companies. “Anthropic’s IPO will mark a defining moment for the AI industry, bringing one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the US to the public markets and giving investors an opportunity to gain direct exposure to a company at the frontier of artificial intelligence,” said Roshan Farhan, Founder of MyriadAI and YC.

“It could also establish an important benchmark for how markets value frontier AI businesses,” he said, adding that investors would examine enterprise adoption, revenue growth, customer retention, infrastructure and computing costs, capital requirements, and the ability to turn rising AI demand into sustainable profitability.

“As frontier AI becomes increasingly capital-intensive, the relationship between technological progress and commercial returns will be critical to long-term shareholder value,” Farhan said.

Investors visited Anthropic's San Francisco offices this month to hear its executives' plans, while protesters outside called to “block the IPO” over concerns about the technology. Markets have closely examined its business, including non-standardised revenue figures.

Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees to develop AI more responsibly, Anthropic has called for slower development to reduce severe risks to humanity. At the same time, its listing could increase shareholder pressure for returns. It plans to invest the proceeds in chips, data centres and talent.

Anthropic IPO: Revenue growth versus mounting costs
Demand for its Claude software has risen, particularly for writing and debugging code, though Anthropic is seeking wider adoption beyond software engineers. After revenue growth exceeded 1,000 per cent in 2025, revenue reached $16.3 billion in the first half of 2026, more than 14 times the year-earlier figure. Bloomberg previously reported that quarterly growth slowed from about 140 per cent to 45 per cent between the second and third quarters of 2026.

Three technology companies' cloud marketplaces generated 48 per cent of customer sales in the first half of 2026. Some are developing their own models and could reduce their reliance on Claude.

The scale of Anthropic's spending and losses, however, raises questions about how quickly its growth can translate into profitability. Anthropic reported a net loss of nearly $42 billion in 2025 and almost $81 billion in the first two quarters of 2026, exceeding Uber Technologies Inc.'s annual losses before its IPO. Since the end of 2025, it has committed $417 billion to computing and infrastructure under agreements lasting between one and 20 years.

Himanshu Shah, Research Analyst at Shoonya, said Anthropic's financial disclosures reflected hypergrowth alongside substantial capital requirements.

“Anthropic’s prospectus shows hypergrowth paired with extreme capital intensity. Revenue rose 12-fold to $4.6 billion in 2025, yet compute and infrastructure spending of $7.33 billion was 1.6 times revenue and over half of operating expenses,” Shah said.

He added that the reported $42 billion net loss was distorted by liability writedowns, making the operating loss of more than $8 billion a clearer measure of the company's underlying performance.

Valuation is another key concern. Shah said a valuation of more than $2 trillion would imply roughly 430 times trailing revenue, while $518 billion in planned obligations would exceed 100 times the company's revenue in 2025.

“Investors would be paying for sustained exponential growth and eventual margin expansion,” he said.

Shah identified execution, funding and AI safety as key risks, citing Anthropic's own findings on unpredictable autonomous behaviour. “This is a high-risk, long-duration growth story, not a value one,” he said.

Anthropic IPO: What investors should assess
The IPO will test whether Anthropic's sales growth and demand for Claude can support its spending commitments, losses and prospective valuation while shaping investor appetite across the AI sector. Investors will need to assess whether its technological lead can translate into durable commercial advantages and whether its capital requirements leave room for attractive shareholder returns.

For Indian retail investors, participating in a US IPO also presents practical hurdles. “For Indian retail investors, participating in a US IPO is not as straightforward as applying for an IPO in India. There is no equivalent domestic IPO allotment mechanism through which Indian residents can directly subscribe to US IPO shares. The more practical route for most investors is to wait until the company lists on a US stock exchange,” said Viram Shah, Founder and CEO of Vested.

He cautioned investors against making decisions based solely on excitement around an AI listing.

“They need to understand how Anthropic generates revenue, whether its growth can translate into sustainable profitability, how much it spends on computing infrastructure and model development, and whether its valuation adequately reflects these costs and future risks,” he said.

The listing could therefore become a test not just of investor appetite for AI, but also of how much public-market investors are willing to pay for rapid growth when profitability remains uncertain.