Three Hotly Anticipated AI IPOs: Which One Is Poised to List First?

While the SpaceX IPO grabs the headlines, three other private AI and defense names on the 2026 initial public offering (IPO) calendar are also highly anticipated: Anduril, Anthropic, and Databricks. None trades publicly. There are no analyst price targets, no consensus multiples, and no shares to buy in a brokerage account. What exists are prediction-market odds on whether and when each company lists, recent private funding marks, and concrete filing activity. Stacking those data points produces a clear hierarchy of near-term IPO conviction, with one of these three far ahead of the other two.

We rank from lowest conviction to highest, closing on the name the market believes is most likely to list first.

3. Anduril: Strong Demand, Low IPO Conviction

Anduril ranks at the bottom of the IPO-conviction stack despite roaring fundamentals across the defense-tech sector. Kalshi traders have priced a 2027 listing at roughly 7% Yes, signaling that even with steady reports of investor interest, a near-term public debut looks unlikely. Management has not filed a draft registration statement, and there is no public underwriting syndicate.

The closest listed proxy is Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR | PLTR Price Prediction), which shares Anduril’s defense-AI customer base. Palantir’s Q1 2026 U.S. government revenue grew 84% year over year to $687 million. It said U.S. commercial revenue jumped 133% to $595 million. CEO Alex Karp noted that “Palantir’s Rule of 40 score has soared to 145%. We have shattered the metric, a feat matched only by other fellow AI infrastructure companies: NVIDIA, Micron and SK hynix.” Palantir trades at a steep 193x trailing earnings multiple, suggesting public markets would welcome an Anduril listing. The company simply has not signaled it is coming.

2. Databricks: Higher Odds, Same Holding Pattern

Databricks tops Anduril on prediction-market conviction, with Kalshi pricing a 2027 IPO at roughly 41% Yes. The data and AI platform has long been rumored as a candidate. Yet no confidential S-1 has surfaced, and the company has continued to raise large private rounds rather than pursue the public route. Its CEO called 2026 a “terrible year to go public,” citing massive market debuts from OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX that are monopolizing institutional capital.

Databricks lacks a clean public-market proxy. The closest analogs are large-cap hyperscalers exposed to data-platform and AI-training workloads. These include Alphabet’s Google Cloud, which posted Q1 2026 revenue of $20.03 billion at 63% growth. The catalyst path for Databricks is no longer a matter of if, but when the 2026 “mega-IPO” bottleneck clears. With the market heavily concentrated on immediate listings from SpaceX and OpenAI, Kalshi traders are pricing in a listing well beyond the immediate horizon.

1. Anthropic: The Cycle’s Highest-Conviction IPO

Anthropic is the clear front-runner. Polymarket’s December 31, 2026, contract resolves Yes at 89.5% probability, with the October 31 contract at 81% and the September 30 contract at 42.5%. The catalyst is concrete: Anthropic confidentially filed a draft S-1 with the SEC on June 1, 2026, with the offering contingent on regulatory review and market conditions. The most recent private mark came from the May 2026 Series H-1 round, which valued the company at $965 billion post-money.

Public-market exposure to that valuation lift is visible in two megacaps. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) booked $16.80 billion in pretax gains on its Anthropic stake in Q1 2026, helping drive EPS of $2.78 versus a $1.73 consensus. Anthropic has separately committed to up to 5 GW of Amazon’s Trainium chips, with AWS revenue growing 28%, the fastest pace in 15 quarters. Amazon shares trade around $245.22 at a trailing multiple near 32x.

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) recorded $36.91 billion in unrealized equity gains in Q1 2026, of which the Anthropic stake is a major component. CEO Sundar Pichai noted that “Google Cloud revenues grew 63% with backlog nearly doubling quarter on quarter to over $460 billion.” Alphabet trades around $363.31 at a forward multiple of 26x, the cheapest of the listed Anthropic proxies.

Catalysts to watch are SEC comment resolution, underwriter selection, and equity-market volatility into the back half of the year.

Head to Head: What Would Change the Ranking

The ordering tracks the data cleanly. Anthropic sits at roughly 90% implied probability for a 2026 listing, Databricks near 41% for 2027, and Anduril near 7%. A confidential S-1 from Databricks or Anduril, or a named bank syndicate, would lift either materially. A delayed SEC comment cycle or a sharp risk-off move in equities would compress Anthropic’s odds. Prediction-market pricing and private marks are imperfect proxies, but in this cycle they point in the same direction.