Anthropic IPO Buyers See Valuation Down as Low as $1.2 Trillion

Anthropic PBC’s initial public offering plans ran into a punishing post-election selloff, prompting a rethink among prospective investors of the company’s expected valuation.

Ahead of the AI lab kicking off formal IPO marketing next week, potential buyers are discussing a $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion valuation range for the company, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the information isn’t public.

Some investors weighing bids previously told bankers on the IPO that their estimate of a fair valuation had moved to around $1.4 trillion to $1.5 trillion, Bloomberg News has reported. That has shifted again after the Nasdaq 100 index plunged 6.4% on Thursday, wiping out $2.3 trillion in market value, a record for a single day.

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Deliberations are ongoing and no final decisions have been made, the person said. A spokesperson for Anthropic declined to comment.

Volatile Environment

A volatile environment for tech stocks has already dented the outlook for what would be the first IPO by a so-called frontier AI model maker. Investors estimated a fair valuation for Anthropic as high as $2 trillion in early October, people familiar with the matter have said. The retreat to around $1.4 trillion to $1.5 trillion came after a company briefing on its latest financials in October, Bloomberg News reported at the time.

Questions about the Claude chatbot maker’s valuation in the IPO accelerated after the Democratic sweep of Congress triggered the prospect of greater scrutiny over the pace and impact of data center expansion. The Cboe Volatility Index rose to the highest since April 2025 on Thursday, making any IPO more difficult for investors to stomach.

“I would expect, based on the derating we saw in the AI space, valuations might need to be at least at the very low end of the rumored target range of $1.5 to $2 trillion, maybe some 10% to 15% below that,” said Stephan Kemper, chief investment officer at BNP Paribas Wealth Management Germany.

Michael Alfaro, the chief investment officer of Gallo Partners, a long-short and event-driven hedge fund, told Bloomberg News before Thursday’s market rout that Anthropic needed to target a valuation between $1.3 trillion and $1.4 trillion “in order to build a quality book.”

“If they set a valuation toward the bottom of the range, say $1.2 trillion, they shouldn’t have a problem finding investors,” said David Rainville, a technology portfolio manager at Sycomore Asset Management.

Still, Max Kettner, chief multi-asset strategist at HSBC Holdings Plc, said around $1 trillion could be a more comfortable level for the valuation, reducing the risk of elevated volatility once trading begins.

“I don’t think we need the headline ‘oh my god, it is a trillion dollar IPO,’ because I think what’s actually more important is the secondary,” Kettner told Bloomberg Radio. “If we get a dynamic like we had with SpaceX, that you get it on secondary and then stock rips for a couple hours, but then it dumps, in the current environment you don’t want to have that.”

Anthropic and its selling shareholders may start the formal marketing with a conservative size and valuation target and increase it based on a positive initial response from investors. Chipmaker Cerebras Systems Inc. and design software firm Figma Inc. both sold more shares than they initially marketed as bankers gauged rising demand. However, both are now trading well below their IPO prices.

Another, less palatable option is for Anthropic to delay its plans. Companies have to have their IPO filings available to the public for at least 15 calendar days before they can begin formal marketing, typically followed by pricing and trading a week later, but some choose to wait weeks or even months after filing publicly to kick off marketing, updating additional quarterly financial data to keep their disclosures fresh.

“The selloff poses a slight risk for the Anthropic IPO, of course, but when you think of it, maybe it’s better to go to the market when the valuation excesses have already been purged,” said Alexandre Baradez, chief market analyst at IG in Paris.

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