Anthropic’s $65B revenue run rate could reset how AI firms are valued

Anthropic has quickly ramped up its sales, such that it is expected to impact the mathematics of the larger AI space. As of the end of July, its projected revenues exceeded $65 billion while investment bankers have started viewing its initial public offering as a precedent for other companies waiting for a listing to be able to set the terms of valuation for other big AI businesses.

This is significant since Anthropic is predicted to go public before OpenAI, perhaps this autumn. Investment banks have informed both firms that whoever is the first to go public is going to “create a model for the entire industry.” Anthropic is looking for a valuation over $2 trillion, making it the biggest IPO in history.

A run rate that tripled in seven months

Investors continue to use the growth curve as a measure. At the end of 2025, Anthropic had almost $9 billion in run rate, or the estimate for future annual revenue based on recent history. It increased to $47 billion in May and reached $65 billion in late July. According to Anthropic itself, in an announcement in May, “our run-rate revenue crossed $47 billion earlier this month.”

Investors expect that momentum to continue, putting 2026 revenue between $100 billion and $120 billion, the Financial Times reported. OpenAI, meanwhile, has doubled its revenue to $40 billion this year from $20 billion at the end of 2025. The companies may measure revenue differently, but Anthropic’s trajectory is getting the attention of investors preparing for its IPO.

Bankers are pricing on 2028, not today

The effects of Anthropic’s initial public offering could reverberate far beyond the particular case of this one firm. Anthropic indicated to those engaged in the IPO process that it anticipates revenues of $190 million to $200 million in 2028, information that is previously unknown. Banks and investors are applying a multiple of enterprise value-to-revenues based on these projections instead of actual income figures, a method usually associated with high-growth software firms in the past rather than traditional public companies.

With respect to the target for 2028, Anthropic’s valuation of $965 billion from the May Series H translates to about five times its future revenue. Cryptopolitan made a comparison with Palantir having about 53 times its anticipated revenues, and SpaceX and Cloudflare approximately 41.6 times, although these numbers are calculated using 2026 estimates.

The important message is not that Anthropic is undervalued. Rather, it is that the company will not warrant such a high multiple if it delivers the revenue the bankers are forecasting. Should public investors accept multipliers based on revenue a couple of years away, it would be simpler for other AI firms to justify their multiples based on present-day revenues.

The demand behind the number

In terms of businesses now, the projections are justified by actual business demand. The July AI Index put out by Ramp indicates that Anthropic comes ahead of OpenAI in terms of adoption figures in US businesses, with 43.5% of American companies paying for either its subscriptions or tokens, compared with 39.7% for OpenAI. Anthropic raised $65 billion in May, thanks to Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital, thereby giving it a bigger number to invest in compute, research as well as enterprise products contributing to its growth.

However, the valuation model also increases the stakes involved in the situation. The forecast for 2028 assumes that revenue can continue its large edge in terms of exceeding the massive expenses of chips, model training, and talent. Ramp’s data also indicates what limitations businesses have about investing their resources into frontier AI.

If those economics improve, it is likely that the IPO of Anthropic will yield a new valuation playbook in the AI sector. In the opposite scenario, it is possible that creating sophisticated valuation playbooks based on the current price to revenues made in two years could become a trap for investors.

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