While most of the business world and business press is waiting on pins and needles for Anthropic to drop its S-1, perhaps no elite group is more fired up than the early investors, who appear to have made the bet of their careers.
Fortune spoke this week to one such investor, a long-term Anthropic backer. This investor did not want his name printed, so that he could speak freely. His big prediction: He expects Anthropic to leapfrog SpaceX by notching the biggest IPO of all time. Put simply, he sees the initial pricing as below the company’s reported target of $2 trillion but expects a giant “pop” once the stock starts trading: “I think the IPO shares will be priced at around $1.8 trillion, but that we’ll see a ‘trading value’ once the shares start changing hands of $2.3 [trillion] to $2.4 trillion.” By contrast, SpaceX closed on its opening day at a market cap of $2.1 trillion, and is currently hovering at $2.03 trillion. The VC believes that the $2.3 trillion to $2.4 trillion reflects Anthropic’s underlying worth, and not just a sudden post-IPO burst that will quickly fade.
