SAN FRANCISCO, California: Anthropic's potential IPO valuation is being shaped by an unusually long-term bet on the AI company's growth, with bankers and investors looking to projected revenue as far out as 2028 to determine what the company could be worth.

Anthropic is forecasting roughly $190 billion to $200 billion in revenue in 2028, according to two people familiar with its financials. The previously unreported projection compares with a $47 billion revenue run rate that the company publicized as recently as May.

As Anthropic prepares for what could be one of the biggest IPOs on record, bankers and investors are using enterprise value-to-revenue multiples based on forecasts, four sources said.

Revenue multiples are commonly used to value fast-growing software companies that have yet to establish mature profit profiles. Looking two years ahead, however, is less typical and reflects both Anthropic's rapid expansion and the difficulty of valuing a company spending heavily on AI infrastructure.

Investors are betting that Anthropic's revenue will eventually grow faster than the costs of computing power, model training and hiring, allowing margins to expand as the company scales.

Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cloudflare, Palantir and SpaceX are among the public companies being considered as reference points ahead of Anthropic's analyst day, according to the sources.

Palantir is valued at 53 times expected revenue for this year, while SpaceX and Cloudflare both trade at 41.6 times expected 2026 revenue, according to LSEG data.

There are precedents for looking further ahead when valuing exceptionally fast-growing companies. Backers of Cerebras Systems cited 2028 revenue expectations ahead of its IPO this year, while SpaceX projections extended to 2029 before its record-valued public offering in June.

Anthropic's financial trajectory illustrates the growth investors are being asked to price in. Its revenue run rate was about $9 billion at the end of 2025 before climbing to more than $47 billion by May.

The company projected second-quarter 2026 revenue of at least $10.9 billion, more than double the previous quarter, putting it on track for its first quarterly operating profit of $559 million. Anthropic has also said its revenue run rate grew more than tenfold annually in each of the three years through early 2026.

That expansion is a key reason investors are willing to use 2028 revenue when considering its valuation.

"Could they (Anthropic) get a $2 trillion valuation, yeah they could and I just wonder if it would stay there over time," said David Merkel, a principal at investment firm Aleph Investments.

"Does it (AI) really produce so much additional productivity... These are just questions that we have to ask if we were thinking of pricing this, buying this."