Anthropic's Blockbuster IPO Could Snap Tech Out of Its AI Funk, Peck Says

Bob Peck thinks Anthropic's looming IPO could be the defibrillator tech investors have been waiting for. The New York Angels board member says Alphabet's record selloff has left the market hunting for a fresh AI valuation marker — and Anthropic is the obvious candidate, per BeInCrypto.

The catch: big money reportedly wants Anthropic priced at the bottom of a $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion range. That final number, Peck argues on CNBC's 'Squawk on the Street,' could become the yardstick for hyperscalers and cloud giants currently valued between $2 trillion and $4 trillion. He also said the mood around tech is noticeably more cautious than six months ago, blaming Alphabet's slide on weak AI monetization, Intel's on soft PC demand and Apple's on margin pressure.

The tape backs him up. Alphabet dropped more than 12% on Oct. 29 — its worst day on record — vaporizing roughly $500 billion in market value. No wonder investors are squinting at Anthropic's S-1 for answers.

Those numbers are eye-popping on the surface. Anthropic's filing shows net revenue retention of about 900%, meaning existing customers spend nine times what they did a year earlier. Enterprise software peers Palantir and Snowflake sit at 157% and 126% respectively. But PitchBook senior analyst Harrison Rolfes expects the 900% figure to fall fast, since it's growing off a small base, Morningstar reported.

Peck says his own math leans partly on analyst estimates for xAI, the AI outfit SpaceX absorbed in February. 'I think the valuation numbers make sense based on the back of the envelope, math you've seen me do,' he said.

History offers a cold splash. Jay Ritter, who directs the University of Florida's IPO Initiative, notes that just 14 of 4,110 IPOs between 1980 and 2024 priced above 40 times trailing sales, Fortune reported — and buyers of those 14 at the offer price lagged the broader market by an average 15.4% over three years. At $1.5 trillion, Anthropic would land near 43 times trailing sales. Compute costs also outraced revenue in the third quarter, climbing 77% against 47% growth, per the amended filing. What happens next matters beyond Anthropic: OpenAI, which Peck expects to list in 2027, has already cut its funding target by $10 billion, now sitting at $20 billion.