Anthropic Targets $200B Revenue by 2028 Ahead of Landmark IPO

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company, is advancing toward an initial public offering that could rank among the largest ever conducted. Its valuation hinges on aggressive revenue growth forecasts for the next two years.

Two individuals familiar with the company’s financial data anticipate Anthropic will generate between $190 billion and $200 billion in revenue by 2028. That projection far exceeds its current annualized revenue figure of $47 billion, which the company announced in May. It also underscores the scale of expansion investors are being asked to underwrite.

Bankers and investors are valuing Anthropic using forward revenue multiples — a standard approach for high-growth software firms whose profitability remains unestablished. However, relying on projections extending two full years into the future is less common, reflecting both Anthropic’s rapid growth trajectory and its substantial investment in AI infrastructure.

Revenue Growth and Profitability Outlook

Anthropic’s annual revenue has surged from approximately $9 billion at the end of 2025 to over $47 billion as of May 2026. The company expects revenue of at least $10.9 billion for the second quarter of 2026 and anticipates recording its first quarterly operating profit of $559 million during that period.

The firm states its annual revenue growth rate has exceeded tenfold each year across the three-year period leading up to early 2026. This explosive pace has led investors to anchor their valuation on the 2028 revenue forecast rather than near-term metrics.

Benchmarking Against Public Peers

According to sources cited by Reuters, Cloudflare, Palantir, and SpaceX serve as key public comparables for valuing Anthropic. These companies are used to assess growth rates, business models, and appropriate revenue or earnings multiples.

Data from LSEG shows Palantir trades at roughly 53 times its expected 2026 revenue, while SpaceX and Cloudflare trade at approximately 41.6 times their respective projected revenues.

Challenges in Valuation Methodology

Anthropic’s valuation reflects the difficulty of applying conventional profit-based metrics, given its heavy spending on graphics processing units (GPUs), computing capacity, model training, inference, and deployment.

OpenAI has intensified competitive pressure by expanding its cybersecurity service “Daybreak” and launching a new AI model for specialized cyber operations. That move followed closely after Anthropic introduced its own domain-specific model, “Mythos.”

Investors are betting that revenue growth will outpace cost increases, supporting improved profit margins. Yet elevated AI-related capital expenditures have recently weighed on shares of comparable technology firms.

David Merkel, a managing director at Alev Investments, suggested Anthropic’s valuation could reach $2 trillion. However, he questioned the company’s ability to sustain that level, raising concerns about whether AI can deliver large and lasting productivity gains.