Analysis
Anthropic's targeted IPO valuation has fallen from roughly $2 trillion in early October to a range of $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion, Bloomberg reported Friday, Nov. 6, as a broader AI-spending slowdown pressures both Anthropic and rival OpenAI ahead of their public debuts, according to TechCrunch.
Why Anthropic's IPO valuation is falling
The pressure traces to fresh transaction data from corporate card and spend-management company Ramp, which found that AI token spending flatlined over the summer even as usage kept climbing. Token spend grew only 1.5% across August and September, a sharp reversal from the 42% growth Ramp recorded from June to July, before a partial rebound of 8.9% between Sept. 23 and Oct. 23. Ramp economist Ara Kharazian said the slowdown reflects price competition rather than weaker demand, describing the current environment as a buyer's market where 'the era of hypergrowth may be over.' Because nearly all AI infrastructure spending comes from venture-backed, high-growth tech companies, he warned that a slowdown at the top could ripple across the sector simultaneously.
The headline number overstates how much of this is a pure demand problem. Both Anthropic and OpenAI cut their own prices this year to defend market share: OpenAI halved API prices for its GPT-6 Sol and Luna models in September, and Anthropic cut prices on its Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5 models, which the company disclosed in a filing reduced its revenue growth by roughly $600 million. A valuation reset driven partly by a company's own pricing strategy is a different story than one driven purely by falling demand, even if public investors are pricing the two the same way for now.
“The headline number overstates how much of this is a pure demand problem.”
How much has Anthropic raised?
Anthropic's valuation has climbed in steep steps since the company's 2021 founding, most recently:
- Series F (Sept 2025) -- $13 billion at a $183 billion valuation, led by ICONIQ Capital, with Fidelity Management & Research and Lightspeed Venture Partners co-leading, and additional capital from the Qatar Investment Authority, Blackstone and Coatue, according to Yahoo Finance.
- Series G (Feb 2026) -- $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation, led by GIC and Coatue Management, with DE Shaw, Dragoneer Investment Group, Founders Fund, ICONIQ Capital and MGX co-leading, per Outlook Business.
An IPO priced at the reported range would still be several times that Series G mark, even after the pullback from early October's reported level. Pulse previously covered Anthropic's path toward a mid-November IPO debut as its nine-month revenue climbed more than 1,200% to $33.2 billion.
Is AI spending slowing down across the industry?
Anthropic isn't alone in trimming expectations. OpenAI reportedly lowered its own proposed IPO valuation to $1.25 trillion from $1.4 trillion and cut its fundraising target by about $10 billion, according to the same TechCrunch report. Anthropic is also said to be facing a high junk credit rating as it approaches its debut, a signal that rating agencies see real balance-sheet risk even as revenue grows. Ramp's data shows the top 1% of AI-spending firms dipped slightly below the roughly $10,000-per-employee-per-month they hit at summer peaks, while median firms spend only $12 to $15 per employee monthly and the top 10% spend $600 to $1,000 -- a gap that shows how concentrated the current AI revenue base really is. Notion co-founder Akshay Kothari posted internal spending data that matched Ramp's findings, summarized as 'tokens go brrr, costs go ahhh.'
What to watch next
Investors are watching whether new consumer-facing products -- personal AI agents from OpenAI, Meta and others -- can reignite the growth that funded both companies' trillion-dollar price tags. Kharazian is skeptical, telling TechCrunch that agents are 'not as economically productive as coding' and may not sustain the spending levels that justified those marks in the first place. Anthropic's actual IPO pricing, expected around its reported mid-November debut window, will be the clearest test of whether $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion holds or slips further.