Anthropic's IPO bets its valuation on a 2028 revenue forecast

Photo: Szymon Shields · Pexels

Before a company goes public, the market needs to put a price on it. In Anthropic's case, the company behind the Claude AI assistant, that price largely depends on a figure that doesn't exist yet: a revenue target of between 190 and 200 billion dollars for the year 2028.

It's a considerable bet. Setting an IPO valuation on a three-or four-year-out projection, in a sector that shifts month to month, forces investors to trust both the company's execution and that demand for its products keeps growing at the expected pace.

A pattern repeating across the sector

This situation isn't unique to Anthropic. OpenAI's own path to going public faces its own questions, including a talent exodus toward other firms that some analysts have described as a red flag ahead of an eventual listing. Both cases illustrate a broader phenomenon: the market is willing to pay today for future AI revenue promises, but that willingness has a limit nobody knows for certain.

For those watching these deals from the outside, the interesting exercise isn't so much guessing whether those figures will materialize, but understanding that much of the value currently assigned to these companies depends on exactly that.