Anthropic bets on $200 billion revenue by 2028 in IPO pitch
Anthropic is preparing for a major US IPO, projecting $190-200 billion in 2028 revenue and planning dual-class shares to protect founder voting power.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
Anthropic is laying financial and governance groundwork for a blockbuster IPO, telling bankers it could reach $190-200 billion in 2028 revenue and planning dual-class shares to shield founders like Dario Amodei, who holds just 2% of the company.
Anthropic is getting ready to sell pieces of itself to the public, like when a lemonade stand grows big enough to become a real store. They think they might make $200 billion by 2028, way more than now, and want to make sure the people who started the company still get to make the big decisions even if they only own a small slice.
Analysis
190 to 200 billion dollars
The headline number in Anthropic's IPO pitch is its 2028 revenue forecast, which Reuters reports sits in the $190-200 billion band, according to two people familiar with the financials. That figure, which has not been published before, dwarfs the $47 billion annual run rate the company disclosed in May 2026. The gap is striking because Anthropic is only two years out from that 2028 horizon, and bankers rarely anchor pricing on forecasts that far ahead. Reuters frames the choice as a reflection of how fast the business is growing and how hard it is to value a company still spending aggressively on AI infrastructure. The run rate itself has moved quickly: roughly $9 billion at the end of 2025, more than $47 billion by May, and $65 billion by the end of July. For Q2 2026, Anthropic is telling investors to expect at least $10.9 billion in revenue, more than double the prior quarter, and the company's first operating profit of $559 million.
Dario Amodei's 2 percent stake
Governance, not just growth, is shaping the IPO. Anthropic plans to grant CEO Dario Amodei and his co-founders a class of shares with extra voting power, the first time the founders will receive such an arrangement, according to The Information. The motivation is structural: Amodei owns only about 2 percent of the company, a small slice compared with founders of other large tech platforms. The new structure mirrors moves at SpaceX, where Elon Musk holds wide voting rights, and Meta, where Mark Zuckerberg controls around 60 percent of voting power through dual-class shares. Anthropic will also retain a board of non-shareholder trustees and a special share class able to elect a majority of the board. The exact mechanics are not final and could change, The Information reports. Anthropic is registered as a public benefit corporation and operates a Long-Term Benefit Trust, an independent body meant to keep the company aligned with its stated mission, layering an extra governance constraint on top of the founder protections.
10 billion dollars in revolving credit
On the financing side, Bloomberg reports that Anthropic's revolving credit facility is set to exceed its roughly $10 billion target, with banks competing for roles in the eventual IPO. The most active lenders have been asked to commit about $1.25 billion each, a second tier around $1 billion, and less active roles $750 million or below. Negotiations are ongoing and the company could still cap or trim the facility, according to Bloomberg. Bankers are pricing the IPO against three listed comparables: Palantir, trading at 53 times expected revenue this year, and Cloudflare and SpaceX, both at about 41.6 times expected 2026 revenue, per London Stock Exchange Group data. The pattern echoes Cerebras, whose 2028 revenue projections were used to price its IPO earlier this year, and SpaceX itself, whose 2029 forecasts fed into its June listing. Anthropic filed confidentially for a US IPO in June. For now, the questions David Merkel of Alife Investments raised to Reuters capture the open debate: a $2 trillion valuation is possible, he said, but the harder question is whether AI will actually deliver the productivity gains that justify it.
Key points
- Anthropic projects 2028 revenue of $190-200 billion, versus a $47 billion annual run rate disclosed in May 2026
- Founders, including CEO Dario Amodei, are to receive a dual-class share structure with extra voting rights ahead of the IPO
- Amodei owns only about 2 percent of the company, per The Information
- Revolving credit facility is set to exceed its roughly $10 billion target, with bank commitments of up to $1.25 billion each
- Bankers are pricing against Palantir at 53x forward revenue and Cloudflare and SpaceX at 41.6x expected 2026 revenue
- Anthropic filed confidentially for a US IPO in June 2026, and Q2 2026 is expected to deliver its first operating profit of $559 million
If Anthropic hits its $190-200 billion 2028 revenue range, the IPO would rank among the largest ever and could set a new valuation benchmark for AI-native software. The oversubscribed revolving credit facility signals strong institutional appetite, and the first projected operating profit in Q2 2026 would mark a transition from cash burn to a credible margin story, supporting a premium multiple close to Palantir's 53-times forward revenue.
The 2028 forecast looks aggressive even by recent AI-IPO standards and depends on AI productivity gains materialising at the scale investors are paying for, a point David Merkel of Alife Investments explicitly raised with Reuters. Heavy ongoing spending on GPUs, compute, training, and hiring means the EBITDA-based framework normally used for mature tech companies does not yet apply, and the dual-class structure could deter governance-sensitive institutional buyers.
