News · IPO Coverage ·
Anthropic's IPO: Own the Decade, Wait on the Price
The Firm initiates coverage of Anthropic, PBC (ANT) with a split view: Underperform through October 2028 and Outperform for 2029 and beyond.
Anthropic filed its S-1 registration statement with the SEC today for a Nasdaq listing under the symbol ANT, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley leading the deal. The filing has no price range yet. The Firm read all of it, and our view splits in two: we are cautious on the stock for the next two years and confident in the business for the decade after.
What the filing shows
Revenue grew from $4.6 bn in 2025 to $16.3 bn in the first half of 2026 alone. Second-quarter revenue of $11.6 bn produced an operating profit of $974 mn, an 8.4% margin. Compute, the Company's largest cost, fell from 251% of revenue in the first quarter of 2025 to 48% in the second quarter of 2026. The headline net loss of $80.7 bn for the half is almost entirely an accounting charge that marks convertible notes to a rising valuation, and those notes convert at the IPO.
Why the Firm is cautious through 2028
The bill arrives next. Anthropic has named compute commitments of about $782 bn to $807 bn with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, SpaceXAI, Broadcom, Nscale, Lambda and AMD. Straight-lined, the fixed contracts imply an annual compute bill near $120 bn at full delivery, more than five times the second-quarter run-rate by our arithmetic. The S-1 warns that margins may compress as that compute lands ahead of the revenue it supports. Built from the contract terms, our base case runs an operating loss of 26.4% of revenue in 2027.
Share supply adds pressure. Lockup releases begin on the first trading day, and partner financing facilities settle in new shares. A Department of War supply-chain designation stands after a 2-1 appeals ruling on 25 September, and every chip family Anthropic uses depends on TSMC in Taiwan. At a $2.0 tn reference IPO value, the Firm's own assumption and about twice the value the Series H price implies, our base case returns (18.7%) over 24 months against an expected 16.6% for the S&P 500.
Why the Firm is bullish from 2029
The same filing makes the long-term case. Gross margin reached 85.4% in the first half of 2026. Revenue grew 1,368% in the second quarter while compute expense grew 300%. More than 1,900 customers spent over $1 mn in the twelve months to September, and even the most advanced Fortune 500 customers spend less than 1% of their total expenses with Anthropic. Our base case reaches $436.5 bn of revenue in 2031 at a 31.6% operating margin, worth $3.34 tn at the end of 2030. That is a 9.8% annual return against 8.0% for the S&P 500, and the bull case returns 17.4% a year. Weighted 25/50/25 across our bear, base and bull cases, the return is 5.6% a year, so the long-term rating depends on the base case holding.
What would change our mind
The price range decides the near-term call. Below a $1.34 tn IPO value our base case beats the market over two years, and the near-term rating turns Outperform. Two quarters of positive operating margin after the SpaceXAI capacity arrives in December would also move us. However, the long-term rating rests on the business and the near-term rating rests on the price, so a lower price changes the timing of our view and not its direction. The full report covers the governance structure, scenario models, sensitivities and the catalysts we will watch.
Download our full report here.
This article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not investment advice. Conscious Investments is not a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer. The S-1 is preliminary, and readers should rely only on the final prospectus. See the full report for important disclosures.