Anthropic filed to go public on Monday under the ticker ANT , and you may end up owning the stock soon even if you never buy it directly, because index funds and ETFs will be required to buy it within weeks of its debut.
Anthropic’s bankers are reportedly valuing Anthropic between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. Below is a simple, interactive tool to help you form your own opinion of what’s an appropriate valuation for Anthropic.
Disclaimer: this is highly simplified, and I’m not an investment advisor.
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The Anthropic IPO Calculator
The whole IPO debate comes down to two numbers nobody knows: how much revenue Anthropic will have in 2028, and how much of it will be profit. Pick yours.
Revenue in 2028
Anthropic told investors $195 billion. Today it runs at $67 billion a year. Meta’s is $243 billion.
Profit margin
Anthropic’s is 11% now by its own accounting. Amazon 14%, Meta 31%, Netflix 33%, Apple 33%, Alphabet 34%, Nvidia 66%.
Profit multiple
How many dollars the market pays for each dollar of yearly profit. Netflix 17x, Nvidia 22x, Meta 25x, Alphabet 26x, Apple 34x. Fast-growing stocks have traded at 50x and above.
Anthropic’s forecast
Half the forecast
Forecast, today’s margin
No growth at all
Your number
IPO valuation
$2T
Your number = revenue × margin × profit multiple. The IPO valuation is $2 trillion, the top of the reported range. The arithmetic ignores two things that roughly cancel: a 2028 profit is worth about 17% less today than the same profit earned now, and Anthropic’s $132 billion in cash adds about 7% to any result. Big Tech multiples are market value divided by the latest quarter’s operating profit, annualized; margins are operating margins from the latest quarter. Anthropic’s figures are from its S-1 and the forecast it gave investors. This is arithmetic, not investment advice.
(function(){
const IPO = 2000; // $ billions
const rev = document.getElementById(‘rev’), mar = document.getElementById(‘mar’), mul = document.getElementById(‘mul’);
const $ = id => document.getElementById(id);
const fmtT = b => b >= 1000 ? ‘$’ + (b/1000).toFixed(2).replace(/.?0+$/,”) + ‘T’ : ‘$’ + Math.round(b) + ‘B’;
function render(){
const r = +rev.value, m = +mar.value, x = +mul.value;
const worth = r * m/100 * x;
$(‘revV’).textContent = ‘$’ + r + ‘B’;
$(‘marV’).textContent = m + ‘%’;
$(‘mulV’).textContent = x + ‘x’;
$(‘formula’).innerHTML = ‘$’ + r + ‘B revenue × ‘ + m + ‘% margin = $’ + Math.round(r*m/100) + ‘B profit
× ‘ + x + ‘ = ‘ + fmtT(worth) + ‘ ‘;
const ratio = IPO / worth;
const v = $(‘verdict’);
v.className = ‘big’;
if (!isFinite(ratio) || m === 0) { v.classList.add(‘bear’); v.textContent = ‘No profit, no value. The bears win by default.’; }
else if (ratio > 1.1) { v.classList.add(‘bear’); v.textContent = ‘At $2 trillion you would be paying ‘ + (ratio >= 2 ? ratio.toFixed(1) + ‘ times’ : Math.round((ratio-1)*100) + ‘% more than’) + ‘ what it is worth.’; }
else if (ratio 0 ? IPO / (m/100 * x) : Infinity;
$(‘need’).innerHTML = isFinite(needRev)
? ‘To justify $2 trillion with a margin of ‘ + m + ‘% and a ‘ + x + ‘x multiple, Anthropic needs about $’ + Math.round(needRev/5)*5 + ‘ billion of revenue in 2028, which is ‘ + (needRev/67).toFixed(1) + ‘ times what it brings in today.’
: ‘With no margin, no amount of revenue justifies any valuation.’;
}
[rev, mar, mul].forEach(el => el.addEventListener(‘input’, render));
document.querySelectorAll(‘.presets button’).forEach(b => b.addEventListener(‘click’, () => {
const [r,m,x] = b.dataset.p.split(‘,’);
rev.value = r; mar.value = m; mul.value = x; render();
}));
render();
})();
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