Anthropic, the company behind Claude, launched its IPO roadshow on November 10, 2026, offering 825 million Class A shares at an indicative price of $70–$78. Pricing is expected on November 18, with NaAnthropic, the company behind Claude, launched its IPO roadshow on November 10, 2026, offering 825 million Class A shares at an indicative price of $70–$78. Pricing is expected on November 18, with Na

Anthropic IPO: Is a $1.4 Trillion Valuation Justified by an $81 Billion Revenue Run Rate?

#Industry Perspectives

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Author: Van Dat Phan

2026/11/13 16:26

The public offering could raise approximately $64 billion at the top of the range, second only to SpaceX. Including a concurrent private placement, total proceeds could approach $90 billion, exceeding the roughly $86 billion SpaceX raised in June.

Valuation is the central question. Just over a month ago, investors were discussing $2 trillion. Following the early November technology selloff, the official range implies a fully diluted valuation of up to approximately $1.4 trillion. Meanwhile, Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate reached roughly $81 billion at the end of October, up $10 billion in one month.

For investors following AI stocks and crypto markets, the opportunity comes down to whether that growth can justify the price and the enormous infrastructure commitments behind it.

Key Takeaways

Anthropic's proposed IPO combines rapid revenue growth with a lower valuation than earlier expectations.
The $81 billion figure is an annualized run rate, not recognized annual revenue.
Enterprise adoption and coding tools support the bull case, while compute commitments and pricing pressure dominate the risks.
Pre-IPO perpetual contracts provide speculative exposure, not ownership of Anthropic shares.

1. What Is Anthropic, and Why Does Its Structure Matter?

Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives, Anthropic is led by siblings Dario Amodei, its CEO, and Daniela Amodei, its president. The founding thesis was that AI capabilities and safety systems should advance together, rather than treating safety as an afterthought.

Claude uses Constitutional AI, an approach in which models critique and revise responses against a stated set of principles. This reduces reliance on manual human scoring within that process.

For enterprise buyers, the appeal goes beyond ethics. Banks, hospitals and other regulated organizations need systems whose behavior they can explain to internal risk teams. Predictability and governance can therefore become commercial advantages.

Anthropic's corporate structure also matters. As a public benefit corporation, it can weigh its public mission alongside shareholder returns. Its board may favor a slower or less profitable path when safety considerations warrant it.

The Long-Term Benefit Trust elects a majority of directors, while seven cofounders hold 50.1% of voting power through Class F shares. Public investors are therefore buying economic exposure with limited control over strategic decisions.

Google and Amazon are the largest outside shareholders, together owning approximately one quarter of the company. They also provide infrastructure and distribution. Those relationships help Anthropic scale, but create dependence on partners with competing AI interests.

2. Anthropic IPO: Pricing, Timeline and Deal Structure

Anthropic confidentially filed its S-1 on June 1, published the public filing on October 26, added third-quarter results on November 2 and disclosed the price range on November 10.

A Valuation Reset Before Listing

Early October discussions centered on $2 trillion, before expectations shifted toward $1.4–$1.5 trillion following a mid-month presentation.

Sentiment weakened further on November 5, when the Nasdaq 100 fell 6.4% after the US midterm elections. Some large investors argued for a valuation closer to $1 trillion, while others raised the possibility of a delay. The $70–$78 range reflects that more cautious backdrop.

Demand nevertheless remained strong. Bloomberg reported that the offering was multiple times subscribed just one day after the roadshow began. Underwriters were reportedly considering pricing above the range, although the official indication remained $70–$78 as of November 12.

What Crypto Traders Should Understand?

Anthropic plans to allocate up to approximately 20% of the offering to retail investors, substantially above conventional levels.

Meanwhile, on-chain pre-IPO perpetual contracts traded near $105 on November 11, roughly 35% above the $78 ceiling. That premium reflects speculative expectations, not a guaranteed opening price.

The distinction matters: a perpetual contract does not confer ownership of actual shares. Its price can diverge from the eventual stock price, particularly when liquidity is thin and positioning is crowded.

3. Financial Performance: Growth, Profitability and the Compute Bill

Revenue Is Scaling Rapidly

Anthropic recognized approximately $4.6 billion in revenue in 2025. Revenue for the first nine months of 2026 reached roughly $33 billion, around 13 times the prior-year period.

Third-quarter revenue approached $17 billion, increasing almost 47% from the second quarter and more than twelvefold year over year.

The annualized run rate rose even faster: approximately $9 billion at the end of 2025, $47 billion in May, $65 billion at the end of July and $81 billion by October 31.

However, run rate is not accounting revenue. It annualizes recent usage fees and monthly subscriptions, using the latest 28-day usage window. A particularly strong month can therefore lift the headline figure substantially.

Annualizing third-quarter revenue instead produces approximately $68 billion. Both measures are useful, but they describe different things: recent demand momentum versus a full quarter's revenue pace.

Profitability Remains Uneven

The second quarter marked Anthropic's first GAAP operating profit, at nearly $1 billion. The third quarter returned to an operating loss of approximately $570 million.

Major expenses included $5 billion of costly short-term compute capacity and around $2 billion in noncash charges associated with an employee donation program.

Excluding noncash items, adjusted operating profit remained positive at approximately $2.5 billion. However, the adjusted operating margin declined from 19% to 15%.

That combination matters. Revenue growth is translating into operating leverage, but infrastructure shortages and investment spending can still reverse quarterly profitability.

Compute Is the Main Variable

Compute and infrastructure expenses exceeded revenue in 2025. Their share fell to 48% of revenue in the second quarter of 2026, then rose to 58% in the third.

Compute used to serve customers represented only around 15% of revenue. Much of the remaining expense funded research and training for future models.

This suggests that serving existing Claude products has attractive economics before other expenses. The larger challenge is financing the next generation while remaining competitive.

The distinction should not be overstated: strong serving economics do not automatically make the whole business sustainably profitable.

Net Loss Versus Cash Flow

Anthropic reported more than $100 billion in net losses over the first nine months. Much of that reflected revaluations of convertible instruments and derivatives as its equity value increased.

Operating cash flow was nevertheless positive at approximately $6.6 billion.

Investors should therefore separate accounting remeasurement losses from operating cash consumption, while recognizing that positive cash flow alone does not eliminate future funding needs.

Liquidity, Commitments and Customers

At the end of September, Anthropic had approximately $147 billion in liquidity, including cash, short-term investments and undrawn credit facilities.

Against that stood roughly $895 billion in compute purchase and infrastructure lease commitments extending through 2045, around 25 times trailing twelve-month revenue. Approximately $214 billion was conditional on factors such as partners securing financing or sites.

The customer base is broadening quickly. More than 11,900 customers spend at least $100,000 annually, compared with approximately 950 a year earlier. Around 250 spend more than $10 million. No single customer accounts for over 10% of revenue.

4. Is a $1.4 Trillion Valuation Expensive?

The answer changes significantly depending on which share count and revenue measure investors use.

These are equity-value-to-revenue comparisons, not earnings multiples. They should not be mixed with enterprise-value multiples without adjusting the valuation basis.

The Bull Case

At the top of the range, Anthropic would list at a lower revenue multiple than its May private funding round.

OpenAI, by comparison, has reportedly secured an initial $11 billion for a new financing round at a $1.25 trillion valuation. Against a reported $40–$50 billion revenue run rate, that implies approximately 25–31 times revenue.

Anthropic's supporters can point to faster growth, positive operating cash flow and two consecutive quarters of positive adjusted operating profit. If revenue continues expanding at anything close to its recent pace, the current multiple could compress quickly.

From this perspective, a 12–21 times revenue range is easier to defend than the earlier $2 trillion valuation discussion.

The Bear Case

The denominator may be less durable than it looks.

Customer spending fell approximately 20% during the final two holiday weeks of 2025. The fourth quarter of 2026 ends during the same seasonal period, creating a potential gap between October's run rate and subsequent realized revenue.

Contracted revenue is only around $14 billion. Much of the remaining business depends on usage that customers can reduce, while long-term compute obligations are far less flexible.

The SpaceX precedent also offers a warning. It listed in June at approximately $1.77 trillion, exceeded $2 trillion on its first trading day, then lost roughly half its peak share price by late July.

Heavy oversubscription can support a strong debut without establishing a lasting price floor.

The valuation is therefore more defensible than earlier expectations, but still assumes sustained execution. It looks attractive if October marks a new baseline and expensive if October proves unusually strong.

5. Competitive Position: Where Anthropic Leads

Enterprise AI Is the Core Advantage

Menlo Ventures' annual survey, published in early November, put Anthropic at approximately 55% of enterprise spending on language-model APIs, up from 40% in 2025 and 12% in 2023.

OpenAI ranked second at 31%, while Google's share fell from 21% to 9%. Ramp's tracked enterprise token spending showed a similar pattern, with Anthropic accounting for roughly 60% in the week ending October 23.

These figures describe specific spending datasets, rather than the entire AI market. Even so, they support the view that Anthropic has established a strong enterprise position.

Coding Is the Revenue Engine

AI coding tools represent an approximately $34 billion market, the largest enterprise AI application category. Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex together account for around $24 billion, or 70%.

Coding is commercially attractive because customers can connect spending to productivity. Faster development, testing and maintenance provide a clearer purchasing rationale than many experimental AI applications.

For Anthropic, continued adoption in these workflows is central to sustaining growth beyond the initial wave of AI experimentation.

Rapid Releases Bring Pricing Pressure

Over roughly two weeks beginning in late September, Anthropic replaced its product lineup with Claude 5.5 models at lower prices.

Opus 5.5 reduced cost per task by approximately 40% versus Opus 5. Haiku 5.5 was around 90% cheaper than Haiku 4.5 for requests below 100,000 tokens.

Models released in the preceding six months generated over 80% of third-quarter revenue. Price cuts therefore feed through quickly, reducing third-quarter revenue by approximately $600 million.

Maintaining revenue growth requires usage gains to offset falling prices.

Rivals Retain Major Advantages

OpenAI has more than 900 million weekly ChatGPT users, an advertising business exceeding $1 billion in annualized revenue and lower-cost models.

Google controls infrastructure, chips and distribution. Meanwhile, approximately 44% of Anthropic's revenue flows through Amazon, Google and Microsoft cloud marketplaces.

Those channels expand reach, but leave Anthropic reliant on platforms that can also promote competing products.

6. Key Risks and MEXC Participation Considerations

Infrastructure obligations. Approximately $70 billion of the $895 billion commitment falls due within twelve months of September-end. Management also expects further reliance on expensive short-term compute, keeping margins under pressure.

Price competition. Anthropic is cutting prices to defend adoption while OpenAI and Chinese open-source models compete aggressively at the lower end. If customers become less willing to pay for premium performance, its pricing power could weaken.

Limited shareholder control. Founders retain majority voting power, and safety priorities may override near-term returns. The S-1 also warns that future models could approach internal safety thresholds that slow releases.

Legal and political exposure. A federal appeals court in Washington upheld the Pentagon's exclusion of Claude from the defense supply chain, with Anthropic seeking rehearing. Music-publisher copyright lawsuits and opposition to data centers add uncertainty.

Post-listing supply. Staggered lockup arrangements allow some insider shares to be sold from day one. Combined with fragile AI-stock sentiment, this could amplify early trading volatility.

For readers considering the MEXC Anthropic Pre-IPO event, eligibility is limited to invited users in supported regions using their main accounts. Rewards remain subject to MEXC risk review.

The source material does not specify the event's full participation mechanics or reward schedule. Users should consult the official event terms before participating. Leveraged futures amplify both gains and losses, particularly around price discovery and listing.

How to Join MEXC’s Anthropic Pre-IPO Carnival

MEXC’s USDT-margined Anthropic Pre-IPO futures let users trade Anthropic’s expected valuation before listing, without an IPO allocation. Once Anthropic starts trading on Nasdaq, the contract automatically converts to standard ANT stock futures, preserving open positions.

The Anthropic Pre-IPO Carnival offers a 600,000 USDT prize pool, including a 5 ANT grand prize. It runs from November 5, 2026, until 5–7 days after listing, with a tentative end date of November 21, 2026. Any listing delay will extend the event accordingly.

How to earn spins:

Register on the Anthropic Pre-IPO Carnival event page.
Complete Advanced KYC: 1 spin.
Make a first deposit of at least 100 USDT and maintain that net deposit balance for seven days: 1 spin.
Make your first stock futures trade worth at least 1 USDT: 1 spin.
Trade stock futures daily: volume milestones such as 20,000 and 100,000 USDT unlock up to 5 spins per day. Reaching 10 million USDT in daily volume across designated contracts earns 10 spins.

Only eligible stock futures volume counts, including contracts such as MSFT, GOOGL, AMZN and META. Check the event page for the full list.

Rewards include 5 ANT and 1 ANT prizes, $0.50–$2,026 in Futures Bonuses, a $50 Position Airdrop Voucher, and a 7% APR boost package for USDT Earn. Elite VVIP users also receive position limits up to 3× higher.

ANT rewards are distributed as ANTON tokens to Spot wallets after Anthropic lists. ANTON is an RWA-based tokenized certificate tracking Anthropic’s value; it grants no equity ownership or shareholder rights.

Conclusion

Anthropic's investment case combines exceptional growth, enterprise leadership and positive operating cash flow. Its revenue run rate increased from approximately $9 billion to $81 billion in ten months, while valuation expectations reset from $2 trillion toward $1–$1.4 trillion.

The central question is whether revenue and cash generation can keep pace with nearly $900 billion in long-term compute commitments while the company defends its position against OpenAI and Google.

For investors, the IPO is a bet on sustained demand, execution and infrastructure economics. For crypto traders, pre-IPO pricing adds a separate layer of speculation. Understanding that distinction is essential before treating

Disclaimer: This content does not constitute investment, tax, legal, financial, or accounting advice. MEXC Blog provides this information for educational purposes only. Always do your own research, understand the risks, and invest responsibly.

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