Forget SpaceX: Here's The Blockbuster IPO I'm Waiting For

Anthropic confidentially filed its S-1 on June 1 and could go public in the next two to three months, with a recent Series H valuation of $965 billion. The company’s annual revenue run rate has accelerated from $9 billion at the end of 2025 to above $30 billion in April, and may now be near $40 billion. The article argues Anthropic would trade at a lower price-to-sales multiple than SpaceX if it IPOs around $1 trillion, making it the more attractive IPO on a relative valuation basis.

Analysis

This is less a “single IPO” story than a read-through on the private AI valuation stack: if a frontier model company can print a trillion-dollar headline with revenue still in the tens of billions, the market is re-rating scarcity, not just earnings. That matters most for NVDA and GOOGL/GOOG because the real monetization path is not the model equity itself, but the compute and distribution layers that become mandatory toll booths as model vendors scale. The second-order risk is that public-market comparables will make large private rounds look cheaper, compressing the cost of capital for the entire AI ecosystem and prolonging capex intensity across hyperscalers.

The clearest near-term winner is NVDA, but not for the obvious reason. A hot Anthropic IPO would likely increase the perceived durability of frontier-model training demand, supporting the market’s willingness to finance another 6-12 months of aggressive GPU procurement even if near-term utilization is uneven. That said, the trade is asymmetric: if post-IPO lockup and disclosure show slower net revenue retention, higher inference mix, or customer concentration, the sector could quickly de-rate because these names are priced on “growth certainty,” not absolute growth.

GOOGL/GOOG is more nuanced. A deepening relationship with a top-tier model vendor is strategically valuable because it validates Google Cloud as a credible AI infrastructure stack, but it also creates a potential self-inflicted margin squeeze if compute subsidies remain necessary to defend share. The market may underappreciate that the best public proxy for Anthropic exposure is not the IPO itself but the infrastructure beneficiaries and the exchange venue that will capture the listing narrative and options flow.

Consensus is likely overestimating how clean the IPO comparison will be. Pure-play AI is still an experimental asset class, and once public, the stock may trade like a bundled “long-duration growth + capex + regulation” vehicle rather than a simple software compounder. That creates a tactical setup: chase the ecosystem winners into the filing/roadshow window, but be ready to fade the first post-IPO multiple expansion if the market starts applying normal public-company scrutiny to burn, concentration, and model economics.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long NVDA into the next 4-8 weeks on any broad AI weakness; thesis is that an Anthropic IPO window reinforces training-demand visibility. Risk/reward: favor call spreads over outright shares to cap premium decay if the IPO slips.
• Add tactical long GOOGL/GOOG for 1-3 months on the view that the market will price Google Cloud as a key AI distribution/compute beneficiary; trim if the stock re-rates purely on IPO hype rather than earnings revision.
• Buy NDAQ on a 1-2 month horizon into the expected IPO pipeline, as a high-profile listing should increase both issuance activity and options turnover. Best entry is on pullbacks after the filing headlines fade.
• Avoid chasing the private-market headline itself; instead, consider a paired trade: long NVDA / short a basket of crowded high-multiple AI software names, betting the market pays for infrastructure scarcity rather than application-layer promises.
• If Anthropic prices at a premium valuation and gaps materially on debut, fade via short-dated put spreads 2-6 weeks post-listing, when lockup overhang and fundamental scrutiny typically start to matter.