Anthropic is targeting a November initial public offering at a valuation of roughly $2 trillion, a deal that would top Space Exploration Technologies' $1.77 trillion debut as Wall Street's largest-ever IPO. Prediction markets already show skepticism that the AI lab's market cap will hold above $1.25 trillion at the close of IPO day, and historical data on the hottest tech IPOs points to steep first-year drawdowns.
Anthropic, the developer of the Claude large language model, is targeting a November IPO at a valuation in the neighborhood of $2 trillion, according to various reports. The roughly $100 billion the company could raise would surpass Space Exploration Technologies' $1.77 trillion IPO, which raised $85.7 billion including the underwriters' overallotment.
Prediction markets doubt the valuation holds
Market activity suggests skepticism that Anthropic's market cap will exceed $1.25 trillion at market close on IPO day, with some sub-markets showing low support for that scenario. The spread of predictions across different market cap ranges points to uncertainty about where Anthropic's valuation will settle once trading begins.
Hot IPOs usually stumble out of the gate
Analysts at Truist Financial found that 30 of the most popular tech-driven IPOs since mid-2012 endured an average peak-to-trough drawdown of 55% in their first year of trading. As investor Puru Saxena put it on X: "do NOT chase hot IPOs". SpaceX itself has already fallen as much as 54% from the all-time high it hit just days after its debut.
A statistical outlier on price-to-sales
Anthropic's debut price-to-sales ratio should sit well above 30 when it goes public in November, despite the company's fast sales growth. Companies at the forefront of a next-big-thing trend have historically struggled to sustain a trailing 12-month ratio that high for long once their financials come into full focus after the debut.
Once Anthropic's financials come into focus several weeks after its debut on the stock market, keeping that ratio elevated may prove difficult.
Sources: Crypto Briefing, The Motley Fool
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