Anthropic's $65 billion run rate sets stage for blockbuster IPO

Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate hit $65 billion at the end of July, up from $9 billion at the close of 2025, ahead of an IPO that could value the AI startup at $2 trillion.

"Reasonable minds can disagree" on how to read the numbers, Gavin Baker, founder of Atreides Management, told Axios, noting Anthropic had previously been more token-efficient than OpenAI though the rival has narrowed part of that gap.

The $65 billion figure, corroborated by Bloomberg, CNBC and Reuters, marks a jump from the $47 billion run rate Anthropic reported in May and roughly seven times the $9 billion at the end of 2025. Booked revenue for the first half totaled about $16.2 billion — $4.73 billion in Q1 and more than $11.5 billion in Q2, a 14-fold increase from the $787 million recorded a year earlier. Bloomberg reported positive adjusted operating income in Q2, though the figure excludes stock-based compensation and remains unaudited.

Anthropic filed a confidential S-1 with the SEC in June, with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan underwriting. The IPO, expected in the fall, could value the company at $2 trillion or more — a milestone that would revalue the stakes held by Amazon, Alphabet, Salesforce and Zoom.

The $65 billion figure is a projection, not booked revenue. A run rate takes revenue from a recent period and extrapolates it across a full year, assuming current performance holds. The $16.2 billion in first-half booked revenue paints a different picture of scale, and the gap between the two determines whether Anthropic looks like a $16 billion business or a $65 billion one.

The comparison with OpenAI is also less direct than it appears. Bloomberg and Axios both cautioned that the two companies may account for revenue differently — Anthropic may record gross revenue counting the full amount spent by end customers who access Claude through cloud partners like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, while OpenAI records something closer to net revenue. No authoritative source has confirmed the distinction, and neither company has disclosed its accounting basis.

Investors are watching the run rate as a gauge of commercial momentum ahead of the listing. Harrison Rolfes, an analyst at Pitchbook, told Axios that while Anthropic's per-token pricing is higher, the cost per successfully completed task may be lower because its models require fewer retries and less human verification. Baker, by contrast, said Anthropic is losing share at the margin to OpenAI, open-source models and Grok, even as it grows rapidly.

The S-1 will settle the open questions: whether Anthropic records revenue gross or net, what "adjusted operating income" excludes, the methodology behind the run rate, audited 2025 and first-half 2026 figures, and customer concentration. Until then, the $65 billion figure carries weight as a headline but not as a verified financial statement.

For investors, the stakes are concentrated in the public companies holding Anthropic equity. Amazon's $33 billion investment gave it a 21% stake, Alphabet holds 15%, Salesforce holds $5 billion and Zoom holds $1.3 billion. Amazon reported $53.4 billion in income from a revaluation of its Anthropic stake in the second quarter, and a blockbuster IPO would revalue those holdings higher again. Alphabet and Amazon shares have delivered modest gains in 2026 as investors weigh heavy AI infrastructure spending against returns, while Salesforce is down 22 percent year to date on concerns that AI tools could erode its software franchise.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.