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| By Chris Graebe |
I've watched a lot of IPOs. And for many of them, the story is the same.
SpaceX’s (SPCX) IPO is the most recent reminder of how that story tends to end.
First there’s the buildup with the breathless media coverage and investors scrambling to get their shares, if possible.
Finally comes the opening bell and the pop …
And then, more often than not, we see the painful slide back to reality while retail investors wonder what happened to all that excitement.
After years of tracking these deals, finding the early ones and helping my Deal Hunters Alliance readers get positioned before the crowd shows up, I know this script by heart.
And Anthropic's upcoming IPO is following it almost word for word.
The Setup
Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, is preparing to go public as soon as late September or early October.
It filed confidentially on June 1 at a private valuation of $965 billion.
But its target IPO valuation? A staggering $2 trillion.
And the target raise? Up to $100 billion. This would top SpaceX's record-breaking $86 billion debut.
To justify that hefty price tag, Anthropic is preparing to tell investors that its total addressable market (TAM) exceeds $30 trillion.
This beats even SpaceX's audacious $28.5 trillion estimate.
To be clear, Anthropic is undeniably an AI powerhouse.
The technology is real. And Claude is genuinely impressive.
The company doubled its revenue to $11.6 billion in Q2 alone, and its annualized run rate reached $65 billion at the end of July …
That said, from years of watching IPO after IPO play out, I’ve learned that a great company and a great investment on day one are two very different things.
I've Seen This Before — Here's the Playbook
I know IPOs. And this one follows a very predictable path.
Step one is already complete.
The confidential S-1 is filed with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Citigroup as underwriters.
The roadshow is being planned for mid-September. Institutional investors are already being briefed.
Step two is the valuation squeeze.
As I said earlier, Anthropic's last private round valued it at $965 billion, and the IPO target is $2 trillion. This is where things get hairy …
That's a massive jump the underwriters have to sell to public markets.
And this is for a company carrying $71 billion in chip-lease debt, as well as margins that must climb from an estimated 44% to 70% to justify the price.
Step three is the opening pop, and there will almost certainly be one.
Why?
Retail investors who've been waiting with bated breath will pile into one of the most recognized names in AI on day one. The stock will spike.
Everyone will be smiling big and feeling like a genius for approximately 48 to 72 hours.
But Step Four is when most retail investors get hurt.
Look at what’s already happened in 2026 …
The companies that rushed to beat Anthropic to market this fall have already posted a weighted average loss of 9.5%.
The largest IPOs (those that raised above $1 billion) have returned just 4.2% on a weighted average basis.
This severely lags the S&P 500's and the Nasdaq-100’s 13% and 17% gains, respectively.
Six of the 10 biggest deals this year are already below their offer price.
Step Five is the lock-up expiration reckoning.
A lock-up period prevents the investors who got in early — founders, employees, venture capital firms — from immediately cashing out.
They're locked up for a set period of time, typically 180 days.
Anthropic is reportedly exploring extended lock-up periods beyond the standard 180 days and requiring employees to sell through pre-planned trading windows.
Smart move, for now … but it doesn't eliminate the supply overhang. It just delays it.
And the fundamentals do matter. Anthropic has to prove its valuation.
Can it convert surging consumption into durable recognized revenue?
Can it expand margins dramatically?
Can it retain users against a fierce OpenAI rivalry?
And can it generate enough free cash flow to pay for spending on the next-gen of compute?
That's a lot of unknowns baked into a $2 trillion price tag.
Forget About Anthropic
That easy money that Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOGL) and a handful of institutional investors made by getting into Anthropic years ago at a fraction of today’s price?
It’s gone.
What's left for the rest of us on IPO day is a $2 trillion bet on a company that doesn't make money (yet).
So, while the rest of the world is watching Anthropic's roadshow, I've been looking at a completely different corner of the technology landscape.
It’s early in the game, less crowded and sitting on a tailwind that most investors haven't connected to yet.
Quantum computing is where AI was three years ago before valuations went to the moon.
And the chance to get in way early on a company I’ve found in the quantum cybersecurity space is right now.
It’s on no one’s radar. And best of all, it doesn’t come with a $2 trillion valuation.
This is exactly what Deal Hunters Alliance was built for.
We find the companies nobody's fighting over yet, with the most room to run.
But this opportunity won’t last long.
If you want the full picture while everyone else is waiting for Anthropic's opening bell …
I'd love to have you join us.
Happy hunting!
Chris Graebe
