Some Anthropic Investors Now See a $1.5 Trillion IPO, Not $2 Trillion
Anthropic's November IPO is reshaping what Amazon and Alphabet investors expect to see on their balance sheets, and the gap between what investors hoped for and what they now discuss hints at a bigger story about whether AI growth is…
On October 15, 2026, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that some current and prospective Anthropic investors are considering a $1.5 trillion valuation for the AI company’s planned November IPO. That is below the roughly $2 trillion investors had expected.
Attendees discussed the lower figure at an investor day at Anthropic’s San Francisco headquarters. Some buyers raised the number. Anthropic has published no price or target of its own, and the company did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Anthropic is private, so its read-through to public markets runs through Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL). Each one is an Anthropic investor, a computing supplier, a distribution partner, and a competitor.
Both stocks moved modestly on October 15. Amazon closed at $254.76, up 0.27%, and Alphabet Class A closed at $349.22, up 0.45%. Both companies have booked very large paper gains on Anthropic, and a cheaper IPO would make the next round of those gains smaller.
Slowing Growth Explains the Lower Number
Anthropic told prospective investors that third-quarter revenue reached $16.8 billion, up 45% from the second quarter. Some investors were disappointed because Anthropic’s second-quarter revenue of $11.6 billion had more than doubled from the first quarter.
At this size, buyers pay more for growth than for revenue. A slower quarter-over-quarter rate lowers the multiple they will accept.
Anthropic says it was profitable on an adjusted basis, meaning profitable after excluding certain costs it chooses to exclude. Anthropic still reported a $42 billion loss for 2025 in its IPO prospectus, seen in September, so it is reasonable for investors to hold the price down.
Anthropic’s Spending Commitments Still Flow to Suppliers
Anthropic’s IPO prospectus also listed at least $518 billion in Anthropic commitments over a decade for cloud services, computing and infrastructure. Amazon and Alphabet are among the suppliers receiving that money.
Amazon has reported that Anthropic committed to secure up to 5 GW of Trainium chips, and Anthropic is also a Google Cloud customer. Both companies keep their Anthropic revenue undisclosed.
A cheaper IPO leaves signed commitments in place. Slower growth could still limit how fast Anthropic’s spending grows beyond them, and the suppliers downstream of that spending (power, cooling, networking, the unglamorous backbone) are a separate trade from the model labs themselves. We covered seven of those AI infrastructure names in a free report.
Smaller Paper Gains Ahead for Both Stocks
Amazon’s second-quarter net income of $62.647 billion included $53.4 billion in pre-tax non-operating income, primarily from Anthropic. Alphabet’s $112.107 billion in net income included a $99.03 billion gain on equity securities, which is the line where any change in Anthropic’s value shows up.
Both companies keep the carrying value of their stakes undisclosed, so the dollar effect of the lower valuation is unknown. Still, future gains would be smaller than the higher figure implied. These gains raise reported earnings per share without adding any cloud revenue.
Amazon and Alphabet are also competing with Anthropic. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on July 30, 2026, “We are pursuing our own frontier model,” and Alphabet’s Gemini App has 950 million monthly active users.
A less highly valued Anthropic makes little difference to either company. The startup remains a major customer, and a lower price weakens the argument that one lab will control the market.
Google Cloud Growth Supports Alphabet’s Valuation Case
Alphabet’s cloud results stand apart from the IPO question. Google Cloud revenue grew 82% to $24.77 billion in the second quarter, and that growth is independent of Anthropic’s IPO price.
Equity gains make Alphabet’s P/E of about 16 look lower than it otherwise would, which benefits the multiple for investors who rely on it. Amazon trades at about 35 times earnings with AWS growing 37%. Amazon offers more direct exposure to Trainium, though at a much higher multiple.
The test comes with the November pricing. If the IPO prices below the lower figure investors discussed, or if Google Cloud growth falls back under the first quarter’s 63% pace in Alphabet’s next report, the case for Alphabet’s cloud-driven growth weakens.
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Omor Ibne Ehsan is a writer at 24/7 Wall St. He is a self-taught investor with a focus on growth, cyclical, and dividend equities that have strong fundamentals, value, and long-term potential. He also has an interest in high-risk, high-reward investments such as penny stocks.
