Anthropic IPO: Here's What a $5,000 Investment Could Be Worth in 5 Years

One of the most anticipated initial public offerings (IPOs) in market history could soon be here.

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude family of large language models (LLMs), is preparing to go public in what may be the biggest debut in history -- even bigger than the record-setting Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) IPO just months ago.

While a firm date has yet to be set, the company is expected to list next month and is targeting a valuation between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion.

Given that the company is at the bleeding edge of artificial intelligence and is growing at a pace virtually unheard of on this scale, investors are understandably excited and clamoring to get a piece of it.

So, assuming the company ends up with the $2 trillion valuation its insiders are seeking when it does list, what might a $5,000 investment made in it at that level be worth in five years?

Image source: Getty Images.

What you're actually buying with Anthropic stock

Here's the basic model: Anthropic develops its Claude AI models and chatbots, and sells access to them. While plenty of individuals pay monthly subscription fees for that access, the vast majority of Anthropic's revenue comes from businesses, especially technology companies that now rely on Claude Code to help their developers write code. That has been Anthropic's golden goose up to this point.

According to Reuters, which reviewed the company's draft IPO prospectus, Anthropic had about $4.6 billion in sales in 2025, roughly 12 times its 2024 level. But its top line has absolutely exploded in 2026, and last week, Reuters reported that the company's Q3 revenue reached $16.8 billion, up 45% from Q2.

However, that top-line growth was achieved on the back of massive spending. Anthropic spent $7.33 billion on compute and infrastructure alone in 2025, contributing to an operating loss of more than $8 billion. It also clocked a staggering $42 billion net loss, although about $34 billion of that came from an accounting adjustment and wasn't reflective of actual operational profitability.

Anthropic reportedly posted positive adjusted profit in the second quarter of 2026. While that's an encouraging sign, what "adjusted" means in this context is unclear, and the difference between that and GAAP profitability is very important. Which of its real costs management is leaving out of the calculation to arrive at that adjusted profit matters.

What $5,000 could be worth in five years

A $2 trillion market cap would have Anthropic stock trading at more than 400 times 2025 revenue, but about 30 times its third-quarter revenue annualized (multiplied by four). That's still a pricey premium, but it's within the bounds of reason.

The bull case for the stock assumes, among other things, that demand for Claude continues to grow rapidly over the next several years, especially among enterprise clients. It assumes Anthropic remains a clear leader and its LLMs continue to offer the cutting edge of AI capabilities. It also assumes that the cost of serving its customers falls considerably and its margins improve until it's genuinely profitable.

The base case assumes that while Claude remains a leading model, its growth slows somewhat as businesses opt for cheaper competing models that can get the job done. Demand for Claude outside of the coding market, while there, doesn't materialize to the same degree. It also assumes that its losses contract somewhat, but the company still spends much more than it takes in.

Finally, the bear case posits that demand for LLMs remains, but that Anthropic's growth seriously slows down as the company is forced to compete on price against a field of competent competitors while customers become more budget-conscious. It also assumes that the costs of supporting its LLMs don't really budge, and the company keeps burning through any cash that comes in.

Here are my calculations for where the company's revenues and its price-to-sales ratio could go over the next five years under those three scenarios. Each assumes you invest $5,000 in Anthropic while it's at a $2 trillion market cap, and that there are no subsequent rounds of share issuance that dilute your ownership stake.

Why I'm skeptical of the bull case

The bull case is built around a pair of assumptions that, in my view, are basically incompatible. If Anthropic wants to keep Claude models far enough ahead of the pack that customers will keep paying full price for them, it will not be able to materially slow the training of new models. Sustaining those high model-training expenses will leave it with much less capacity to improve its margins, and I can't see how it would ever break even.

In truth, I think even the base case is optimistic. A more bearish scenario is likely to prevail five years from now as AI essentially becomes a commodity.

The bottom line on the Anthropic IPO

Of course, that bearish take is my opinion; plenty of analysts would argue in favor of the bull case as a likely outcome.

What a $5,000 investment made in Anthropic early in its publicly traded life will be worth five years from now could be very different depending on numerous hard-to-predict factors. That's the nature of high-multiple, high-growth companies in new fields. Their futures are much more uncertain -- and the endpoints more divergent.

Johnny Rice 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.