Anthropic’s IPO valuation has become the defining question for growth investors in 2026, with the AI lab’s annualised revenue run rate reaching $65 billion in July, according to CNBC. The snippet circulating on social media puts the figure north of $74 billion, though that number is unverified; the CNBC-reported $65 billion for July 2026 is the most recent confirmed figure.
For UK retail investors, the most direct listed route into Anthropic is Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust (LSE: SMT), which already held a 2.8% position in the company by late July.
A Revenue Trajectory That Has Outpaced Every Internal Forecast
The scale of Anthropic’s growth makes context necessary. The company, founded in January 2021, posted an annualised revenue run rate of roughly $1 billion at the end of 2024. By April 2026, that figure had surpassed $30 billion, according to Baillie Gifford‘s 2026 Annual Report. It then climbed to $65 billion by July, per CNBC, implying the run rate more than doubled in roughly three months.
Quarterly figures reinforce the picture. Anthropic disclosed a preliminary Q2 2026 revenue of $11.5 billion, a 14-fold increase on the same quarter a year earlier, CNBC reported. Full-year 2025 revenue came in at around $10 billion in total.
A key driver has been Claude Code, which Baillie Gifford described as achieving market leadership in coding AI and a principal engine of Anthropic’s move into what it calls the third era of generative AI. At the time of Anthropic’s Series G close in February 2026, Claude Code’s annualised revenue had already reached $2.5 billion, with enterprise users accounting for more than half of that figure, according to CNBC.
The Anthropic IPO Valuation: What the Numbers Actually Show
In February 2026, Anthropic closed a $30 billion Series G funding round at a post-money valuation of $380 billion, described by CNBC as one of the two largest private technology financings on record. That valuation more than doubled the company’s level from September 2025.
Since then, the Anthropic IPO valuation picture has shifted further. CNBC reported in August 2026 that the company had reached an approximate valuation of $965 billion, following its confidential filing of an IPO prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in June 2026. Preliminary investor meetings are under way, though Anthropic has not publicly committed to a timeline.
The $2 trillion figure referenced widely in markets is speculative: it represents a potential IPO-day market capitalisation rather than a valuation anchored in a completed transaction. Investors should treat the $965 billion figure, which traces to a reported milestone, as the more substantiated reference point for now.
At that level, the implied price-to-sales multiple on a $65 billion run rate is roughly 15 times. Whether that is excessive depends heavily on how long the current growth trajectory holds, and on competitive pressure from lower-cost models, particularly from Chinese providers.
Scottish Mortgage: The Listed Proxy
For ISA investors who cannot access a pre-IPO placement, Scottish Mortgage offers an established route. The trust’s 2.8% Anthropic weighting, as reported in the snippet, will likely increase as the IPO approaches if Baillie Gifford marks the position to market.
The trust’s long-run track record adds context. Over the decade to 31 March 2025, Scottish Mortgage’s net asset value per share rose 320% on a total return basis, against 182% for the FTSE All-World Index over the same period, according to Investing.com. Ongoing charges for the year ending 31 March 2025 were 0.31%, among the lowest for an actively managed trust of this type.
The discount to net asset value stood at 9.0% at 31 March 2025, having widened from 4.5% a year earlier. Baillie Gifford bought back 210 million shares at a cost of £1.9 billion during the year to address the gap, with total buybacks since March 2024 reaching £2.0 billion.
Concentration risk is real. Scottish Mortgage also holds a substantial SpaceX position, so any broad de-rating of high-growth private assets would affect the trust beyond Anthropic alone.
The SEC filing sets the clock running. If Anthropic targets a market debut later in 2026, Scottish Mortgage’s NAV will move materially on pricing day, in either direction, depending on where the book clears relative to current private marks.
