A Pre-IPO Valuation of Anthropic
We discuss Anthropic's highly anticipated IPO and provide a crude valuation analysis of the company.
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Anthropic's anticipated IPO may be the largest in history, so it is stirring up a lot of interest in the investment community. The company has confidentially issued its S-1, meaning the S-1 isn't publicly available as of the time of writing. Nevertheless, in this article we gather what is known - and speculated - about Anthropic's financial position to provide a crude valuation of the company.
What We Know
Anthropic's revenues are growing exponentially.
Anthropic - Run-Rate & Historic Annual Revenues
Notes
| Date | Series | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-10-03 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $100M | Investing.com |
| 2024-01-01 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $87M | Anthropic |
| 2024-12-31 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $1B | CNBC |
| 2024-12-31 | Company Actual Annual Revenues | $381M | The Information (Paywalled) |
| 2025-03-01 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $1.4B | LinkedIn News |
| 2025-03-31 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $2B | CNBC |
| 2025-05-30 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $3B | CNBC |
| 2025-07-01 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $4B | Los Angeles Times |
| 2025-07-29 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $5B | Bloomberg |
| 2025-10-21 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $7B | Anthropic |
| 2025-11-30 | Claude Code Run-Rate Revenues | $1B | Anthropic |
| 2025-12-31 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $9B | Anthropic |
| 2025-12-31 | Company Actual Annual Revenues | $4.6B | Yahoo Finance |
| 2026-02-12 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $14B | Anthropic |
| 2026-02-12 | Claude Code Run-Rate Revenues | $2.5B | Anthropic |
| 2026-03-03 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $19B | The Decoder |
| 2026-04-06 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $30B | Anthropic |
| 2026-05-01 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $47B | Anthropic |
| 2026-05-31 | Claude Code Run-Rate Revenues | $8B | AI Business Weekly |
| 2026-07-31 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $65B | CNBC |
| 2026-09-18 | Company Run-Rate Revenues | $100B | Axios via Yahoo |
| |||
Anthropic has engaged in numerous funding rounds at substantially growing valuations.
Anthropic - Equity Funding Rounds
Notes
| Date | Round | Raised | Post-money | Pre-money | Step-up | Dilution | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-05-28 | Series A | $124M | Not disclosed | - | - | - | Anthropic |
| 2022-04-29 | Series B | $580M | Not disclosed | - | - | - | Anthropic · TechCrunch |
| 2023-02-03 | Google (strategic) | $300M | - | - | - | - | VentureBeat |
| 2023-05-23 | Series C | $450M | Not disclosed | - | - | - | Anthropic · TechCrunch |
| 2023-08-13 | SK Telecom (strategic) | $100M | - | - | - | - | Anthropic · SK Telecom |
| 2023-09-25 | Amazon (strategic) | $1.25B | - | - | - | - | TechCrunch · Anthropic |
| 2023-10-27 | Google (strategic) | $500M | - | - | - | - | CNBC · TechCrunch |
| 2024-01-11 | Series D | $750M | $18.4B | $17.65B | - | 4.1% | TechCrunch · CNBC |
| 2024-03-27 | Amazon (strategic) | $2.75B | - | - | - | - | Amazon · CNBC |
| 2024-11-22 | Amazon (strategic) | $4B | - | - | - | - | Anthropic · Amazon |
| 2025-01-22 | Google (strategic) | $1B | - | - | - | - | CNBC · TechCrunch |
| 2025-03-03 | Series E | $3.5B | $61.5B | $58B | 3.3x | 5.7% | Anthropic |
| 2025-09-02 | Series F | $13B | $183B | $170B | 3.0x | 7.1% | Anthropic |
| 2026-02-12 | Series G | $30B | $380B | $350B | 2.1x | 7.9% | Anthropic |
| 2026-05-28 | Series H | $65B | $965B | $900B | 2.5x | 6.7% | Anthropic |
| Total raised, Series A–H | $113.4B | ||||||
| Strategic investments | $9.9B | ||||||
| Total, rounds and strategic | $123.3B | ||||||
| |||||||
This chart does not include all of Anthropic's funding: only the lettered rounds and the strategic investments with a definite, dated amount are counted. The most recent reports indicate Anthropic has raised over $130 billion in total (Yahoo Finance).
Anthropic primarily rents (rather than owns) compute infrastructure, for now.
Anthropic - Compute Commitments As of September 2026
Note: the timing of some commitments is assumed where no information is readily available.
Notes
| Counterparty | Disclosed terms | Modeled | Window | Assumption | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft | Anthropic committed to purchase $30 billion of Azure compute capacity and to contract additional compute capacity up to one gigawatt. | $30B | Q1 '26 – Q4 '30 | No term or spending schedule disclosed: five years assumed, from the first full quarter after the announcement. | Microsoft · Anthropic |
| Amazon | Anthropic committed to more than $100 billion of AWS spending over the next ten years, for up to 5 GW of capacity, with nearly 1 GW of Trainium capacity to come online by the end of 2026. | $100B | Q3 '26 – Q2 '36 | "More than $100 billion" taken at $100 billion; no spending schedule disclosed, so ten years from the first full quarter after the announcement, though capacity under the deal was already coming online in Q2 2026. | Anthropic · Amazon · TechCrunch |
| Anthropic committed to spend roughly $200 billion on Google Cloud and its TPU chips over five years, in exchange for about five gigawatts of capacity, The Information reported; the deal was reported to start in 2027, and neither company confirmed it. Anthropic's own announcements - access to up to one million TPUs, an expansion it called worth tens of billions of dollars (October 2025), and multiple gigawatts of TPU capacity with Google and Broadcom from 2027 (April 2026) - give no contract value. | $200B | Q1 '27 – Q4 '31 | Five calendar years from the reported 2027 start, when the TPU capacity comes online, at an even rate; no month or ramp was disclosed. The 2027 start and the five gigawatts rest on The Decoder's account of the report; Reuters carried only the $200 billion and five years. | Yahoo Finance · The Decoder · Anthropic (Apr 2026) · Anthropic (Oct 2025) | |
| SpaceX | Cloud services agreements, announced May 6, 2026 (Anthropic: all of the capacity at Colossus 1, over 220,000 Nvidia GPUs) and disclosed in SpaceX's IPO filing, for compute capacity across Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 (about 325,000 Nvidia GPUs, per summaries of the filing) at $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, with a discounted rate for the first two months as the capacity ramps; after an initial three-month period either party may terminate on 90 days' notice. | $46.25B | Q2 '26 – Q2 '29 | Drawn at the disclosed monthly fee from May 2026; the reduced fee for May and June 2026 is undisclosed, so those months are modeled at the full fee, an upper bound: SpaceX reported $1.6 billion of AI infrastructure revenue for all of Q2 2026. Terminable on notice after the initial three months, so not a noncancelable minimum beyond about six months. | SpaceX (S-1) · SpaceX (Q2 2026 results) · Anthropic · TechCrunch · Axios |
| Akamai | $1.8 billion committed over seven years for Akamai's cloud infrastructure services, disclosed with Akamai's first-quarter results on May 7, 2026, which named only a "leading, U.S.-based frontier model provider"; Bloomberg identified Anthropic on May 8, citing people familiar with the matter, and both companies declined to comment. | $1.8B | Q4 '26 – Q3 '33 | Akamai guided that revenue from the commitment begins in Q4 2026 at $20-25 million, that 2027 is a partial year as the remaining capacity is deployed, and that the full run rate then continues for the remaining six-plus years: Q4 2026 at the $22.5 million midpoint, the remainder spread evenly over the rest of the seven-year term to Q3 2033 (the ramp within 2027 is undisclosed). | Yahoo Finance · Akamai (Q1 2026 call) · Akamai (8-K) |
| TeraWulf | A 20-year lease of approximately 401 MW at the Justified Data Campus in Hawesville, Kentucky, expected to generate approximately $19 billion of contracted revenue over the initial term; rent on each tranche starts on its delivery, with delivery in phases from late 2027 and the full 401 MW by early 2028. | $19B | Q4 '27 – Q3 '47 | Rent starts per tranche on delivery (first tranche late 2027, full delivery early 2028), modeled as an even 80-quarter spread from Q4 2027. The two five-year extension options (to about $33 billion) are excluded, and the escalators their pricing implies are not modeled. | TeraWulf (8-K) · TeraWulf (Q2 2026 results) · DCD |
| Volta | A $10 billion, six-year deal (the term as Bloomberg reported it; Volta's own release names neither the lab nor a term) for cloud compute from Bitdeer's 133 MW (121 MW IT) Tydal, Norway campus on Nvidia Vera Rubin systems. | $10B | Q1 '27 – Q4 '32 | Bitdeer targets Phase 1 of the campus for December 31, 2026 and Phase 2 for March 31, 2027 (phase sizes undisclosed): six years from Q1 2027 assumed. | TechCrunch · Bitdeer · Volta |
| Riot | A 20-year lease of 191 MW at Riot's Rockdale, Texas campus through June 2048, expected to generate approximately $9.1 billion of contract revenue; 96 MW by December 2027 and the full 191 MW by June 2028. Riot's filing names "one of the world's leading frontier AI labs"; Bloomberg identified Anthropic, and neither company has confirmed it. | $9.1B | Q3 '28 – Q2 '48 | Twenty years from full deployment (June 2028) to the disclosed end date, spread evenly; the 96 MW expected in December 2027 is not modeled ahead of full deployment, and any rent escalation is undisclosed and not modeled. The two five-year extension options (to $16.1 billion) are excluded. | Riot Platforms (8-K) · DCD · CNBC |
| Nscale | Anthropic agreed to pay roughly $45 billion over six years to rent around 460 MW of Nvidia Vera Rubin capacity at Nscale's Monarch campus in West Virginia, expected to come online in late 2027; neither company has confirmed it. | $45B | Q1 '28 – Q4 '33 | Six years from the facility's expected online date (late 2027); no ramp or payment schedule has been reported. | CNBC · DCD · TechCrunch |
| Lambda | A $35 billion cloud contract (six years, per a source cited in later press; Reuters, the WSJ and Bloomberg gave no term) for Nvidia capacity at roughly 350 MW of Hut 8's 704 MW Beacon Point campus in Nueces County, Texas; no party has confirmed it. | $35B | Q2 '28 – Q1 '34 | Which of Hut 8's two 352 MW phases carries Anthropic's capacity is undisclosed; Hut 8 targets the first Phase 1 hall for Q3 2027 (May 2026 release) and the first Phase 2 hall for Q2 2028 (July 2026 release). Six years from Q2 2028 assumed, the Phase 2 lease having been signed six weeks before this deal was reported; the six-year term itself is the least-supported figure on this row. | Reuters via Yahoo · Hut 8 (8-K) |
| Other (terms undisclosed) | The balance of the $518 billion of cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations in Anthropic's IPO prospectus, as Reuters reported on September 28, 2026, after the ten deals listed above; The Information's September 6, 2026 report names CoreWeave, AMD and Fluidstack among the signed deals, and no dollar terms are disclosed for them. | $21.85B | Q1 '27 – Q4 '36 | The amount is the reported $518 billion less the ten deals above. No schedule is disclosed; spread evenly over 2027-2036, since The Information's report says the commitments stretch mostly across the next decade. | Yahoo Finance · Yahoo Finance |
| Counted in Other - no dollar terms from a party | |||||
| Fluidstack | Anthropic's own $50 billion investment in US data centers, built with Fluidstack - spending on Anthropic's sites, not a purchase from a counterparty; timing undisclosed. | Anthropic | |||
| CoreWeave | A multi-year agreement for Nvidia GPU capacity; financial terms not disclosed. | CoreWeave | |||
| AMD | Up to 2 GW of Instinct MI450 GPUs from the first half of 2027, with AMD to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic; no dollar terms for the hardware. | AMD | |||
| Total commitments | |||||
| Total modeled, 10 commitments and Other | $518B | ||||
| Of which drawn through Q4 '35 | $493.96B | ||||
| Anthropic's IPO prospectus puts its cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations at $518 billion (Yahoo Finance), a total that also counts the deals above with no dollar terms. The Other row is that total less the deals with stated terms, and its timing is assumed. The total comes from a prospectus the press has seen and Anthropic has not published, and it is not cash already spent. | |||||
| Additional notes | |||||
| |||||
However, Anthropic will likely increase capital expenditures over time to build its own infrastructure. For example, the company recently announced a $50 billion investment to build its own infrastructure and data centers with FluidStack.
Anthropic and news outlets are reporting the following data points, which are either unaudited or estimates:
- ~$4.6B2025 revenue, 12 times the 2024 totalYahoo Finance ↗
- ~$42B2025 net lossYahoo Finance ↗
- ~2,300Employees at the end of 2025Fortune (Paywalled) ↗
- $559MQ2 2026, the first quarter of positive operating profit, at a 4.8% marginFT via Yahoo ↗
- >80%Pre-revshare gross margin in September 2026, also before model training costsFT via Yahoo ↗
- ~$518BCloud, computing and infrastructure obligations as of September 2026Yahoo Finance ↗
- 77%Gross margin the company has guided to for 2028TechCrunch ↗
- $190-200B2028 annual revenue forecast the IPO was priced againstReuters via X ↗
- $17BProjected 2028 cash flowTechCrunch ↗
Key risks facing Anthropic include the following:
1. Competition from rival frontier and cheaper models
Anthropic competes with OpenAI at the frontier, and also competes with cheaper open-weight models such as Kimi and Qwen that are nearly as capable as frontier models.
2. Gross and operating margins may not reach the guided levels
Guidance of 77% by 2028 or 2029 assumes Anthropic's compute costs keep falling relative to revenue. If that assumption is wrong, gross and operating margins land below the base case and earnings shift downward.
3. Signed compute commitments are fixed where revenue is not
Reports put Anthropic's signed compute commitments at about $518 billion across numerous counterparties. Those obligations may run over contracted windows whether or not revenue arrives on plan, so if revenue falls short, the payments stay the same and margins take the hit.
4. Reliance on a few big tech partners
Amazon, Microsoft and other big tech companies have each invested in Anthropic, sell it compute, and resell its models to their own customers, giving them bargaining power which could impact Anthropic's margins.
5. Regulation in the EU and the United States
Regulations such as the EU AI Act, along with changing US federal and state rules, add compliance costs and restrict what may be deployed, to whom and where. Restrictions that close markets could impact revenues.
6. Legal liabilities
Anthropic settled authors' copyright claims for $1.5 billion. Future claims over training data, or over harm caused by its models, could lead to more costly damages and settlements.
7. AI's harm to the economy could hurt Anthropic's customers
If AI replaces jobs faster than it creates them, Anthropic's customers could see weaker demand for their own products and cut their spending, which would reduce Anthropic's revenue. Anthropic cannot manage this risk away, because it comes from the product working as intended.
8. Catastrophic risks from advanced AI
Advanced AI could pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity. An event of this kind could damage not only Anthropic's revenue but the wider economy.
Our Model
Important
Our model does not reflect our personal expectations on Anthropic's financial performance. Rather, it was built to answer the question: assuming Anthropic meets its revenue projections, and assuming that the various reported data points are true, how much is the company worth?
Note
We will update our model once Anthropic releases its S-1.
Anthropic Pre-IPO Valuation Model
Valuation Date 15 Nov 2026Key Inputs
Equity Value Charts
Sensitivity Tables
- Columns: the terminal growth rate of free cash flows after 2035.
- Rows: the initial forecast year's unlevered cost of equity, then the 2035 rate after the beta glide, which the perpetuity uses.
- N/A: the terminal discount rate is at or below terminal growth, so the perpetuity has no finite value.
- The outlined cell is the modeled case.
| r ↓ · g → | 2.00% | 2.50% | 3.00% | 3.50% | 4.00% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11.59% → 6.33% | 2,016,628 | 2,239,679 | 2,529,668 | 2,922,047 | 3,482,669 |
| 13.59% → 8.33% | 1,293,744 | 1,381,017 | 1,484,657 | 1,609,746 | 1,763,708 |
| 15.59% → 10.33% | 923,206 | 966,299 | 1,015,270 | 1,071,408 | 1,136,412 |
| 17.59% → 12.33% | 699,941 | 724,153 | 750,960 | 780,802 | 814,225 |
| 19.59% → 14.33% | 551,959 | 566,737 | 582,818 | 600,385 | 619,651 |
| r ↓ · g → | 2.00% | 2.50% | 3.00% | 3.50% | 4.00% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11.59% → 6.33% | 2,026,628 | 2,249,679 | 2,539,668 | 2,932,047 | 3,492,669 |
| 13.59% → 8.33% | 1,303,744 | 1,391,017 | 1,494,657 | 1,619,746 | 1,773,708 |
| 15.59% → 10.33% | 933,206 | 976,299 | 1,025,270 | 1,081,408 | 1,146,412 |
| 17.59% → 12.33% | 709,941 | 734,153 | 760,960 | 790,802 | 824,225 |
| 19.59% → 14.33% | 561,959 | 576,737 | 592,818 | 610,385 | 629,651 |
| r ↓ · g → | 2.00% | 2.50% | 3.00% | 3.50% | 4.00% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11.59% → 6.33% | 110.0% | 133.1% | 163.2% | 203.8% | 261.9% |
| 13.59% → 8.33% | 35.1% | 44.1% | 54.9% | 67.8% | 83.8% |
| 15.59% → 10.33% | -3.3% | 1.2% | 6.2% | 12.1% | 18.8% |
| 17.59% → 12.33% | -26.4% | -23.9% | -21.1% | -18.1% | -14.6% |
| 19.59% → 14.33% | -41.8% | -40.2% | -38.6% | -36.7% | -34.8% |
Discounted Cash Flow Analysis (APV Method)
| 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 | 2031 | 2032 | 2033 | 2034 | 2035 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Years from Valuation Date | N/A | 0.063 | 0.625 | 1.625 | 2.625 | 3.625 | 4.625 | 5.625 | 6.625 | 7.625 | 8.625 |
| Unlevered Beta | N/A | 2.5 | 2.36 | 2.22 | 2.08 | 1.94 | 1.79 | 1.65 | 1.51 | 1.37 | 1.23 |
| Unlevered Cost of Equity | N/A | 15.59% | 15.01% | 14.42% | 13.84% | 13.25% | 12.67% | 12.08% | 11.50% | 10.92% | 10.33% |
| EBIT × (1 - Tax Rate) | N/A | -2,749 | 3,654 | 37,656 | 75,435 | 95,778 | 110,783 | 122,386 | 131,709 | 139,407 | 145,895 |
| Depreciation | N/A | 1,258 | 4,289 | 10,304 | 19,601 | 31,629 | 43,946 | 54,799 | 62,620 | 67,527 | 70,257 |
| Deferred Taxes | N/A | -755 | 2,595 | 1,410 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ∆ Net Working Capital | N/A | -2,273 | -2,510 | -10,416 | -7,641 | 2,313 | -2,869 | -2,830 | -2,025 | -177 | -858 |
| ∆ Legal Liabilities | N/A | -1,061 | 160 | 367 | 394 | 375 | 319 | 247 | 176 | 119 | 78 |
| ∆ Noncurrent Capital | N/A | -2,516 | -2,745 | -2,766 | -3,584 | -2,498 | 1,450 | -500 | 106 | 4,548 | 965 |
| Capital Expenditures | N/A | -8,775 | -21,541 | -38,610 | -54,364 | -65,910 | -69,832 | -69,013 | -69,351 | -72,695 | -74,876 |
| FCFF | N/A | -16,872 | -16,098 | -2,055 | 29,843 | 61,687 | 83,797 | 105,087 | 123,235 | 138,730 | 141,461 |
| Interest Tax Shields | N/A | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| FCFF + Interest Tax Shields | N/A | -16,872 | -16,098 | -2,055 | 29,843 | 61,687 | 83,797 | 105,087 | 123,235 | 138,730 | 141,461 |
| Stub Period Fraction | N/A | 0.125 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| FCFF for Valuation Period | N/A | -2,109 | -16,098 | -2,055 | 29,843 | 61,687 | 83,797 | 105,087 | 123,235 | 138,730 | 141,461 |
| Discount Factor | N/A | 0.991 | 0.916 | 0.8006 | 0.7033 | 0.621 | 0.5511 | 0.4917 | 0.441 | 0.3976 | 0.3604 |
| Discounted FCFF | N/A | -2,090 | -14,747 | -1,645 | 20,987 | 38,306 | 46,184 | 51,674 | 54,347 | 55,159 | 50,978 |
| $ Millions | |
|---|---|
| Sum of Discounted FCFF at 15.59% Gliding to 10.33% | 299,153 |
| Discounted Terminal Value at 3.00% Growth | 716,116 |
| Enterprise Value | 1,015,270 |
| + Cash at 15 Nov 2026 | 10,000 |
| - Debt at 15 Nov 2026 | 0 |
| Equity Value | 1,025,270 |
| Terminal Value Share of Enterprise Value | 70.5% |
Takeaways (Pre-S-1)
Right now, there is not enough data to value Anthropic reliably. The model will need to be refined once the company's S-1 is made public. Even so, it shows that a valuation of about $1 trillion is feasible under base-case assumptions, which are themselves aggressive.
For Anthropic to be worth $1 trillion on fundamentals, several things have to go right. Revenue has to keep growing quickly in 2027 and beyond. The company has to remain a leading frontier model provider over the forecast period, and keep growing demand even as cheaper competitors emerge. It has to avoid major regulatory and legal hurdles, and manage the costs of the ones it does face. It also has to balance rented and owned compute well, so that it has neither too much nor too little capacity to meet demand.
The model also shows that the valuation is especially sensitive to revenue growth, margins, and the cost of capital. Depending on what one expects of the company's financial performance, valuations ranging from $200 billion to $2 trillion are possible. Fundamentals are not the only thing that sets a price, either. If the market treats Anthropic the way it has treated SpaceX, which trades at around 80 times sales as of mid-September 2026, it is not a stretch to imagine the equity being worth $2 trillion or more.
Reach Out
Do you have questions, see errors, or have suggestions on how we can improve this model? We'd love to hear from you! Please reach out to info@presentvalue.ai.