Anthropic announced on Thursday 28 May 2026 that it had raised $65 billion in a Series H round at a $965 billion post-money valuation, according to Anthropic's own announcement. That put it above OpenAI, whose last private round valued it at $852 billion. Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer, Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital led the round.
Update, 23 October 2026: The headline numbers are confirmed. Since publication, the IPO timing has moved and the Pentagon dispute has had two court rulings. We also removed claims we could not source, including that Anthropic was "spun out" of OpenAI. Section by section, updates are marked below.
Both numbers are private valuations set by investors. A public listing is the first time markets price either company.
READ ALSO: Anthropic Pledges 5% of Its Shares to a New Public Benefit Fund
The numbers
Anthropic said its run-rate revenue passed $47 billion earlier in May. The round more than doubled the $380 billion valuation from its February raise of $30 billion, per Reuters coverage. OpenAI's $852 billion figure comes from a $122 billion round in March, per The Next Web.
Run-rate revenue is a monthly figure scaled to a year. It is not revenue already earned. TechMarketView calculated that the valuation is roughly 20 times that run rate.
Profit and costs
The Wall Street Journal reported, via Reuters on Yahoo Finance, that Anthropic was nearing its first quarterly operating profit, with June-quarter sales of at least $10.9 billion in fundraising materials. Our original said it had already reported one. It had not; that was a projection.
The same reporting says Anthropic agreed to pay SpaceX $1.25 billion a month through May 2029 for computing power, per SpaceX's IPO filing. Either side can end that deal with 90 days' notice.
Update: AFP, via Khaleej Times, reported on 15 October that Anthropic told investors revenue rose about 50 percent to $16.8 billion in the September quarter, with an 11 percent adjusted operating margin. These are reported investor figures, not audited results.
Claude and ChatGPT downloads
Sensor Tower data reported by Forbes put ChatGPT at 47 percent of downloads among six leading AI apps in Q2 2026 so far, down from 67 percent a year earlier. Claude held 14 percent, up from about 1 percent. Gemini held 22 percent. These are partial-quarter download shares, not user counts. ChatGPT remains the usage leader.
The government dispute
Anthropic refused the Pentagon unrestricted access over concerns about mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, and was labelled a supply chain risk in February. Update: a federal judge in California ruled in August that the designation was unlawful retaliation, TechCrunch reported. On 25 September a split D.C. Circuit panel ruled 2 to 1 for the Pentagon in a separate case, per the Associated Press. Our separate report covers [the June export order on Fable 5 and Mythos 5](/news/us-government-shuts-down-anthropic-s-most-powerful-ai), which Commerce lifted on 30 June.
What happens next
Anthropic filed confidentially for an IPO on 1 June. Our original said it could list as soon as October, per Forbes. Update: AFP reports it now aims for November, after the US midterms, and is expected to seek about $2 trillion. Neither figure is confirmed by the company. OpenAI also filed confidentially, but has said timing is undecided and our earlier line that it could list "within weeks" did not happen.
Why it matters, including in Nigeria
Nigerian developers and startups building on Claude or ChatGPT depend on these companies' pricing and availability. A flood of public capital could mean cheaper compute, or tighter pricing once investors demand profit. The export episode in June showed that access can change quickly. Keep a second provider in your stack.
What the valuation does not tell you
- Whether the IPO happens in November, and at what valuation.
- Audited financials, which only a public S-1 will give.
- The current private valuation of OpenAI after March.
- How the Pentagon cases end, including any appeal.
Valuations are opinions until a market trades them.
