Anthropic Is Reportedly Gearing Up for an IPO This Year That Could Be Bigger Than SpaceX. 3 Things Investors Should Know.

Anthropic, the parent company of the large language model (LLM) family known as Claude, is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering that could happen as soon as later this month or in October, according to various media outlets. The company confidentially filed for an IPO back in June.

It would mark the second monster artificial intelligence (AI)-related IPO since Space Exploration Technologies went public in June, raising nearly $86 billion at a $1.77 trillion valuation, in the largest IPO ever.

Given the amount of interest and hype surrounding this company and this topic, Anthropic could surpass SpaceX in total funds raised and valuation. Here are three things investors should know.

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1. Anthropic may try to raise as much as $100 billion at a $2 trillion valuation

As if SpaceX didn't go big enough, Anthropic will reportedly attempt to top it by raising up to $100 billion at a valuation as high as $2 trillion.

This is, of course, no guarantee, as even SpaceX faced some pushback, despite its successful raise. SpaceX's stock has also been up and down since the IPO, as investors worry about the high valuation, the intense capital expenditures required by the business, and the future release of additional shares into the market. Whether Anthropic can reach a $2 trillion valuation will depend in part on the financials reported in its registration statement.

The company reportedly doubled revenue in the second quarter to $11.6 billion and reported positive adjusted operating income, though I'm sure investors will be curious to see the adjustments. The Financial Times also reported that investors in Anthropic believe that annualized revenue could reach $120 billion by the end of this year.

2. Anthropic could be targeting a $30 trillion TAM

Perhaps one of the most surprising figures in SpaceX's registration statement was its $28.5 trillion total addressable market (TAM), essentially the opportunity at play for the company. The bigger the TAM, the bigger the revenue potential.

Citing anonymous sources, The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Anthropic is supposedly eying a $30 trillion TAM.

Investors should be skeptical of TAMs, but the sheer size of SpaceX's TAM seemed to excite the market, even if it rested on some pretty spectacular assumptions.

I'll be curious to see how Anthropic justifies such a TAM, as its business is quite different from SpaceX, which owns data centers and has plans to build orbital data centers in space.

Anthropic sells subscriptions to consumers and businesses, partners with cloud providers to offer its models through their networks, and uses a metered approach for developers and businesses that use its models. There's also likely a strong advertising opportunity.

But there are plenty of other LLM companies, including open-source models, that may prove more cost-efficient for people and businesses, and could eventually erode any moat in the LLM business.

3. Anthropic will set the tone for LLM IPOs

Anthropic looks set to be the first major LLM company to go public, which could set the tone for others, including OpenAI. Investors have been able to access many financial disclosures from chip companies and neoclouds, but not from a pure-play LLM company. Investors will naturally be very curious to see how the sausage is made.

OpenAI's financials were leaked earlier this year, revealing how much money the company was spending and losing, but Anthropic's registration statement will be hundreds of pages long and offer the most direct look yet into the LLM business.

"Gross margins after inference compute, I think, is one metric that the market will probably focus on," Thad Pollock, who leads the active equities division for Mutual of America Capital Management, told Investor's Business Daily recently. "Not over short time frames. The profitability will not be the near-term focus, but I think investors will want to see a path to more sustainable profitability over the long run."

Anthropic has also been touted as one of the better-positioned LLMs from a financial perspective, so if investors don't deem the financials to be up to snuff, it could set a bad precedent for future LLM IPOs.

Bram Berkowitz has no position 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.