As Anthropic moves towards a potential market value of $2 trillion on NASDAQ, a research institution has valued this artificial intelligence company at only $150 billion, stating that Wall Street is about to face an "unprecedented test of investor naivety."
An independent financial research institution, New Constructs, stated in a report on Tuesday that the upcoming issuance by Anthropic will be “the most absurd IPO of 2026.”
To reach its target valuation, the firm estimates that Anthropic needs to achieve profits that are twice those of NVIDIA in the past year. NVIDIA is the most valuable technology company in the world, with net profits exceeding $190 billion over the past four quarters. Meanwhile, according to a leaked copy of the company's prospectus cited by Reuters, Anthropic had revenue of $4.6 billion in 2025, but a net loss of as high as $42 billion.
New Constructs believes that the continuously expanding operating losses of Anthropic, coupled with the new competition brought about by a large number of open-source models, have led them to conclude: "We do not believe that Anthropic has a viable business model."
Since the emergence of open-source models, it has been clear that it is difficult for closed-source models to achieve profitability, writes the institution.
New Constructs Founder and CEO David Trainer is known on Wall Street as a bearish analyst famous for his predictions regarding IPO. He has also been correct in his predictions before.
New Constructs once referred to it as "the most absurd IPO of 2019" before its planned listing on WeWork. At that time, the co-working space company was privately valued at $47 billion, but six weeks after the release of the New Constructs report, due to weak demand and strong criticism surrounding its financial situation, the company withdrew its IPO. WeWork filed for bankruptcy in 2023.
New Constructs wrote: 'Although Anthropic's contribution to society far exceeds that of WeWork, with a valuation of $2 trillion, the risks it faces are much greater, and it could potentially become a greater plunder of the US capital market.' The institution added that the purpose of this IPO is not to create wealth for public market investors, but to provide liquidity for the company's supporters on Wall Street.
Anthropic did not respond to the request for comment.
New Constructs also held a bearish view in the past. Allbirds in 2021. IPO. This footwear company went public on NASDAQ, with a market value of $4.1 billion on its first day. Earlier this year, the company sold its assets to American Exchange Group for a valuation of about $39 million and in the process shifted towards AI.
The company behind Trainer has also made mistakes in some judgments. Its “most absurd” choice regarding IPO in 2020 was DoorDash; at that time, the institution also compared this food delivery company to WeWork, stating that both were “in an unfavorable position.”
However, DoorDash has always performed well in the public market. On its debut day in December 2020, the stock soared, pushing the company's market value to over $60 billion. Since then, that figure has risen to $83 billion.
In 2021, during an interview with CNBC, Trainer admitted that "crazy things can happen" and that New Constructs is not always right in his judgments.
At that time, he said, "I can't let this matter bother me. I must stick to what I believe is right."
Anthropic has still not made its prospectus public, so New Constructs has not yet seen the actual filing documents. However, the institution cited data that has already been reported, including a report by The New York Times: in September, the newspaper stated that by the end of 2026, the company is expected to achieve annual revenue of 100 billion US dollars.
Anthropic stated at the end of July that its annualized revenue operating rate had increased by seven times year-on-year, reaching $65 billion.
The report from New Constructs also indicates that Anthropic believes that AI may pose a 'catastrophic or existential risk' to humanity, which is another reason why investors should avoid this IPO.
New Constructs wrote: "Although we are not fortunate enough to be among the few who have been selectively disclosed S-1 documents by Anthropic, the leaked financial data reports are sufficient for us to assess the huge risks faced by this investment in IPO."
