Anthropic’s $300-350B Pre-IPO Valuation: Legit or AI Bubble Warning?

Anthropic, the AI startup behind Claude, is gearing up for a potential IPO as early as 2026 that could value it at $300 billion or more. The Financial Times reports talks of up to $350 billion, while it’s negotiating a private funding round above $300 billion after a $13 billion raise in September that hit $183 billion.

Prep Work Signals Serious Intent

The company hired Wilson Sonsini, a Silicon Valley law firm that’s advised it since 2022, to handle IPO checklists and banker talks, per TechCrunch and CNBC. No underwriter yet, but this matches moves at OpenAI, valued privately at $500 billion and eyeing a public debut.

Revenue Ramp to Back the Price?

Anthropic expects a $9 billion annual revenue run-rate by end of 2025, jumping to $20-26 billion in 2026, according to Benzinga. Current run-rate nears $7 billion, up from over $5 billion in August, fueled by enterprise demand and backers like Google and Amazon.

CEO Sounds Alarm on AI Spending

Even Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei worries about the frenzy. At the New York Times DealBook Summit, he called out “YOLO” investors overspending on AI, warning timing mistakes could cause “bad things.” He flagged uncertain compute forecasts and economic value lags, per Benzinga.

How It Stacks Against Past IPOs

Crunchbase News notes no U.S. venture-backed IPO has come close: Meta debuted at $104 billion in 2012, Coinbase at $86 billion, Uber at $82.4 billion. Only six hit $40 billion or more at pricing. Anthropic’s private push past $300 billion dwarfs these, raising questions on public market tolerance.

Bubble Test Ahead

Inkl frames this as a “financial smoke alarm”: a three-year-old firm seeking giant status. Success could spark an AI IPO wave; failure might crash valuations across startups like Cohere or Mistral. With IBM’s CEO also doubting the math on $8 trillion in AI capex, Anthropic’s path tests if private hype holds up publicly.