Anthropic's Investors Want a $2 Trillion IPO. The Last Record-Setting IPO Has Made Its Buyers Nothing in Two Months.

Anthropic's backers reportedly want the artificial intelligence (AI) company to go public in October at a valuation of $2 trillion or more. The Financial Times reported the figure this month, citing the company's investors.

Anthropic itself has confirmed far less. It filed a confidential draft registration statement on June 1, and it hasn't publicly set a valuation, a date, an exchange, or a ticker. Bloomberg reported Thursday that the company expects to match or beat the size of SpaceX's record raise, and could file publicly as soon as the end of this month.

A $2 trillion debut would be the largest initial public offering (IPO) ever, and the company it would take the record from is barely two months into public life. SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) priced the current largest IPO on record in June, at a valuation of about $1.77 trillion.

That makes SpaceX a timely case study. Anyone weighing whether to chase the next record listing can look at exactly what the market did with the last one.

Image source: Getty Images.

A $2 trillion ask

The reported appetite for Anthropic rests on explosive growth. Preliminary figures the company shared with prospective investors put second-quarter revenue above $11.5 billion, more than double the first quarter's $4.73 billion, according to documents seen by Bloomberg News. Investors who spoke to the Financial Times expect annualized revenue of $100 billion to $120 billion by the end of the year.

Days before filing, Anthropic raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation. In other words, its backers are now discussing a price about double what they paid in late May.

Worth noting, too: According to the same reporting, Anthropic's own senior executives haven't fixed a valuation target, even privately. The $2 trillion figure belongs to the investors, not the company.

Up 67%, down 22%, back to even

SpaceX sold 555,555,555 shares at $135 apiece on June 11, raising $75 billion at the offer in the largest IPO on record -- and about $86 billion in all, once its underwriters exercised their option to buy 83.3 million more shares. Trading began the next day, and the first public trade came at $150.

The 10 weeks since gave buyers the full range of outcomes. Shares ran as high as $225.64, a 67% gain from the offer price. They then fell as low as $104.83, which is 22% below it.

As of this writing, the stock sits within a few percent of $135 -- about 40% below its high, and almost exactly where it started.

So the investors who got shares at the offer price have made essentially nothing in two months. And anyone who bought at the opening trade is down about 9%.

The sellers set the record

The business performed the whole time, which is what makes the return so instructive. SpaceX grew second-quarter revenue 92% year over year to $7.81 billion, and its AI segment's revenue more than tripled year over year to $2.6 billion. The company signed $14.1 billion of cloud computing contracts during the quarter, narrowed its net loss to $541 million from $1 billion a year earlier, and ended June with $47.5 billion in backlog.

Growth like that usually moves a stock. Across the full 10 weeks, on net, it hasn't moved this one -- because the offer price had already charged for it. Even today, SpaceX trades at about 57 times revenue, annualizing its second-quarter figure. The sellers, in short, set a record price precisely because the growth story was at full strength -- and the buyers have spent two months waiting for the story to catch up to what they paid.

Anthropic's math could work out better. If revenue lands where its backers project, a $2 trillion valuation would be about 18 times the annualized revenue they expect by December. That is a lower price against hoped-for sales than SpaceX commanded.

But it still assumes annualized revenue grows another 50% or more from the $65 billion annualized run rate the company reported for late July. And it prices that assumption in before the company has reported a single quarter in public.

Of course, SpaceX's two months prove nothing about the next two years, and a business that keeps doubling can outgrow any starting price eventually. But I think the two-month record is worth taking at face value.

The largest IPO ever delivered a 67% surge, a 53% collapse from that peak, and, for the investor who simply bought and held from the start, a return of about zero -- all while the business nearly doubled its revenue year over year. A record-setting price means the growth is charged upfront. Two months in, that is exactly how it has traded.

Daniel Sparks and his clients do not have positions in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.