Analysis
Anthropic is moving ahead with its IPO roadshow as soon as next week, according to The Information, even as institutional investors are reportedly pushing for a valuation closer to $1.5 trillion than the nearly $2 trillion once floated for the offering. The roadshow timing and the valuation pushback mark the latest turn in a number that has moved substantially in the past five weeks.
Pulse has previously covered how Anthropic's targeted IPO valuation fell from about $2 trillion in early October to $1.2 trillion-$1.3 trillion by early November, with OpenAI cutting its own IPO target over the same stretch. The newer reporting on a roughly $1.5 trillion floor, relayed by InvestingLive citing the Wall Street Journal, suggests the number is still moving as bankers test investor appetite ahead of pricing -- not settling cleanly at the lower end Pulse reported on November 6.
What does Anthropic do?
Anthropic, headquartered in San Francisco, was founded in January 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei along with several other former OpenAI employees. Its flagship product is Claude, a family of large language models sold through an online chatbot, an API, and agent-based developer tools. The company has also taken on government work, reportedly signing a two-year, $200 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense in July 2025 -- part of the broader enterprise and public-sector push that underpins the revenue growth now central to its IPO pricing debate.
“Anthropic, headquartered in San Francisco, was founded in January 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei along with several other former OpenAI employees.”
What's driving the pushback
The Journal's reporting, as relayed by InvestingLive, ties the lower ask to a broader tech selloff and to Anthropic's own disclosed growth trajectory: third-quarter revenue reportedly grew on the order of 45% sequentially, a healthy rate but a deceleration from the near-doubling pace of the prior quarter. Reuters coverage cited by AI Weekly framed the same slowdown as a reason investors are discounting the offering, alongside Anthropic's heavy infrastructure commitments -- Pulse has reported those commitments at $895.4 billion in its coverage of Anthropic's amended S-1.
Who decides the final number
Anthropic is reportedly planning to propose a price range rather than a single number when the roadshow opens, a more conventional structure than the fixed target the company had floated earlier in its IPO process. Some investors cited in the reporting expect a first-day pop regardless of where it prices, with one estimate suggesting the stock could reach $2 trillion in value by the end of its first trading day even if it prices closer to $1.5 trillion -- though nothing about that outcome is confirmed, and Anthropic has not finalized either the valuation or the share count it plans to sell.
The counterweight
However fast the number has moved, a $1.5 trillion debut would still rank among the largest technology IPOs ever attempted, and the revenue growth underlying it -- roughly 45% sequentially, even if slower than the prior quarter -- is a pace few public companies of any size are matching. What the lower target really reflects is institutional investors pricing Anthropic's infrastructure spending more conservatively than retail enthusiasm might, not a verdict that the business itself is faltering.
For VCs and late-stage investors still holding paper in frontier AI labs, the roadshow itself is the thing to watch next: whichever price range Anthropic's bankers settle on will become the reference point every other AI-infrastructure comp gets marked against for the rest of the year.