Anthropic's IPO could be 'speculative fiction' or a 'generational moment' — investors are split

Anthropic's IPO prospectus is chock-full of details for investors to celebrate — and worry about. The company's bulls are cheering its 1,300% annual sales growth, 900% net revenue retention and 85% implied gross margin. But its bears are pointing to roughly $80 billion in half-year net losses, hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of compute commitments and more than 90 pages of risk factors. From either camp, the numbers are staggering, and they put Anthropic in position to pursue what could be the largest initial stock offering in history. The IPO is also pushing investors firmly into uncharted territory as they work to value the first pure-play artificial intelligence company to go public at a time of rising interest rates and growing concerns about the size of the AI buildout. Anthropic was valued in May at $965 billion, and is reportedly looking for an IPO valuation in the range of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, which would instantly make it one of the 10 most valuable U.S. tech companies. "This is a generational moment, and we'll look back in a decade, and this was the biggest paradigm shift in technology that will shape our lives like nothing else has," Denny Fish, a portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors, told CNBC's "The Exchange" on Monday. "The devil comes down to the details, and we still don't have all the details yet." Anthropic, founded in 2021 by a group of researchers who defected from OpenAI, is best known for its Claude AI models and services sold through enterprise contracts and subscriptions. In its long-awaited prospectus on Monday, Anthropic said its enterprise customer base included more than 11,900 customers with at least $100,000 spend over the prior year, more than 1,900 clients spending $1 million or more and roughly 250 customers spending $10 million or more. In the first nine months of 2026, five customers accounted for about a quarter of its revenue. "I think it's really easy to lose sight of how early it is, and to see a business like Anthropic doing this well this early on in the journey is incredibly impressive," Erica Brescia, a managing director at Redpoint Ventures, told CNBC's "The Exchange" on Monday. "There's still an astronomical opportunity ahead for Anthropic," said Brescia, whose firm is an investor in the company. "And I think this is a really exciting opportunity for retail investors to get a piece and to get to participate in this transformation outside of buying chip stocks." For many investors focused on business fundamentals, Anthropic is a tough sell. The company lost $80.7 billion in the first six months of this year, after reporting a loss of $12.9 billion over the same stretch in 2025, though most of that was due to the change in fair value of convertible notes and derivative liabilities. Meanwhile, its compute commitments are soaring while competition is picking up from lower-cost open-weight models. David Trainer, CEO of financial research firm New Constructs, describes Anthropic's upcoming offering as "a huge Wall Street grift." Trainer has built a reputation on Wall Street as a notorious bear on IPOs. His firm published a report last month arguing that Anthropic is the "most ridiculous IPO of 2026" and that it will be an "unprecedented test of investor gullibility." Having reviewed the prospectus, Trainer told CNBC in an interview on Tuesday that his position hasn't changed. He said AI will be an "amazing tool for society," but not so much for businesses, and he's worried about Anthropic's competitive position, its "opaque" insider selling schedule, and the fact that its commitments and liabilities dwarf its cash. "All these people have stakes in Anthropic. They want to be able to cash out," Trainer said. "Having lived through the tech bubble, having lived through the great financial crisis, having been on Wall Street during those times, having seen how the sausage is made, it's like a slow-moving train wreck for me." Roger McNamee, an early investor in both Google and Facebook, told CNBC on Tuesday that the Anthropic IPO is a "very dangerous thing for investors," adding that the industry still has a lot to prove. "We should view this S-1 as speculative fiction because it's a great story, it's a really great story, but it's hundreds of pages, and those hundreds of pages are not there to clarify the story," McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners, told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." "And based on the feedback I get on [X], a lot of people who disagree with me are sitting there going, 'I love this story,' and I go, 'Look, God bless, it's your money.'" Anthropic's public filing brings it one step closer to its IPO, but there are still hurdles to clear to reach the starting line. On its roadshow, the company will have to woo prospective investors, gauge demand, set the IPO offer price and allocate shares. Once all of that is complete, it will finally list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "ANT." Investors will be watching each development and detail closely. Gil Luria, managing director at D.A. Davidson, said he wants to know a lot more before the company's debut. That includes the path to long-term profitability and, importantly, the valuation. He said in an interview on Tuesday that if the IPO is priced correctly, it will likely do "very well." "We can talk about the risks, but as we sit here right now, and based on what we know right now, Anthropic is still the main AI company, and it's a pure play," Luria said. "So the IPO should go well because investors will want exposure to the pure play." WATCH: Tenacity’s Ben Narasin: Anthropic could price IPO near $2 trillion