Anthropic IPO valuation: investors doubt the $1.5 trillion target

Felix Laurent 6 Nov 2026 5 min read

Funding

Anthropic's IPO, planned for this month, may not reach the $1.5 trillion valuation the company hoped for. Three major investors who planned to buy shares spoke to The Wall Street Journal. They said the target will likely have to come down after the latest tech sell-off. One of them put the value "closer to $1 trillion."

The report, published late on November 5, 2026, follows Anthropic's IPO filing in October. It came the same day as a Reuters exclusive that doubts the IPO can still happen in November. Anthropic declined to comment.

What the investors told the WSJ

None of the three investors was named. According to outlets that summarized the WSJ story, their main argument is timing. Tech stocks have fallen sharply, and funds that lost money on AI may not want more of it right now.

One investor suggested delaying the IPO altogether. Another said the raise could shrink to about $80 billion from up to $100 billion. Some want to see Anthropic's October results before they commit.

Anthropic had been aiming to raise up to $100 billion and list on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT the week of November 16. That would be the largest IPO ever, ahead of SpaceX in June. According to the WSJ, executives and advisers were to meet "in the coming days," and no decision on size or timing had been made.

The WSJ also reported a new revenue figure, citing a person familiar with the numbers. Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate topped $80 billion at the end of October, up from just over $65 billion at the end of July. Anthropic's amended filing leaves October revenue blank.

Strong revenue growth has not settled the debate, because the market around the deal has changed.

Why the timing turned against Anthropic

On November 5, the Nasdaq Composite lost about $2.5 trillion in market value, TipRanks reported. Over the past month, tech stocks trailed the S&P 500 by 10.7%, according to Truist data cited by Reuters. That is the widest gap since May 2002.

"We are now seeing something of a buyers' strike in tech," Keith Lerner of Truist told Reuters. The sell-off followed the Democrats' midterm election wins and new calls in Congress to rein in AI.

Reuters spoke to four people familiar with the deal. They doubt the roadshow, the series of investor meetings before pricing, can start the week of November 9 and still lead to a November listing. Some potential investors see $1.5 trillion as the high end. They expect a bigger discount, given Anthropic's quarterly losses and its huge commitments to compute partners.

Not everyone expects a long delay. "They're going to become public," Rick Meckler of Cherry Lane Investments told Reuters.

The disagreement comes down to how much Anthropic's fast growth is worth.

How Anthropic got to a trillion-dollar price tag

Anthropic's valuation has grown about 16 times in 14 months. Each round reset the bar for the next.

Anthropic valuation history: $61.5 billion in March 2025, $183 billion, $380 billion, $965 billion in May 2026, IPO target $1.5 trillion — Funding round valuations from company announcements and press reports. The $1 trillion figure is one investor's estimate, according to the WSJ

Revenue grew even faster. Anthropic's annualized run rate rose from about $1 billion at the start of 2025 to $65 billion at the end of July 2026, CNBC reported. In the third quarter, revenue reached $16.96 billion, up more than eleven times from a year earlier, according to its filing.

The filings also show the costs. Anthropic posted a third-quarter operating loss of $567 million, driven by about $5 billion spent on short-term compute. Its net losses, mostly non-cash accounting charges, add up to about $104 billion over the first nine months of 2026.

Its compute commitments total about $895 billion, including deals with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, SpaceX and AMD. About $447 billion of that is due before 2030. The question for investors is whether revenue can keep growing fast enough to pay for it.

What $1.5 trillion means in numbers

Valuations of fast-growing companies are often compared to their revenue. The multiple changes a lot depending on which revenue figure you use.

Valuation	October run rate, $80 billion	Q3 revenue × 4, $67.8 billion	Last 12 months, $35.3 billion
$1.5 trillion	18.8x	22x	42.5x
$1 trillion	12.5x	14.7x	28x

By the trailing measure, $1.5 trillion is rare territory. Jay Ritter, a University of Florida professor who studies IPOs, gave Fortune the history. Only 14 of 4,110 IPOs since 1980 priced above $40 per $1 of trailing sales. On average, they underperformed the market afterward.

Other analysts see the price as defensible. NYU professor Aswath Damodaran's model, published in late October, values Anthropic at about $1.475 trillion. At the other extreme, David Trainer of New Constructs told CNBC in October that it was "the most ridiculous IPO of 2026."

A $1 trillion IPO would value Anthropic less than 4% above its May funding round, which was priced at $965 billion. That leaves little gain for the private investors who bought in this year.

How Anthropic compares with OpenAI and SpaceX

Elon Musk's rocket company set the record for this year's listings in June. It priced at $135 a share and closed its first day up about 19%, at a value of about $2.1 trillion. Within a week, it fell about 20% from its peak, CNBC reported.

OpenAI is the closest comparison. Its latest private round was cut in late October to about $20 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation, according to press reports. That is about 25 times its run rate of roughly $50 billion. OpenAI filed for an IPO confidentially in June but has not set a date.

So Anthropic's IPO is also a test for OpenAI. "OpenAI has a free option" to see how investors react to Anthropic first, PitchBook analyst Harrison Rolfes said, according to Tech Funding News.

Will Anthropic's IPO still happen this year

Probably, but likely at a lower price or a later date than planned. Anthropic has the revenue story: its run rate grew from $65 billion to more than $80 billion in three months, according to the WSJ. What it lacks right now is a calm market and investors willing to pay a record price for AI after a sharp sell-off.

The next signal is the price range in Anthropic's filing. A range near $1 trillion would mean the company accepted the investors' view. A delay into December or 2027 would mean it decided to wait for a better market instead.