To The Moon

The viral Chinese animated film Niu Lai and Anthropic’s potential mega-IPO may appear completely unrelated, but both reveal the same market behavior: once people believe future attention, revenue and scale will keep expanding, prices can move far ahead of current quality or profits. Hype can create a valuation, but only cash flow can defend it.

The Weekend’s Biggest Surprise Was a Movie Called Niu Lai

Anyone who spent time on Chinese social media over the weekend probably saw clips or memes about Niu Lai (《牛来》).

The animated film opened on August 5 with almost no promotion and only two core creators. After nine days in theaters, it had earned just RMB 7,169, while nationwide daily screenings had fallen to only 21.

Then its rough 3D modeling, stiff animation and unusual dialogue started circulating online.

Viewers made parody videos, requested additional screenings and even booked cinema seats in patterns resembling the Chinese character “牛,” meaning ox.

Within days, nationwide daily screenings jumped from 21 to 359. The Beijing News

By August 17, real-time data from Maoyan showed the film’s cumulative box office had surpassed RMB 10 million. Maoyan real-time box office

The film itself did not suddenly improve. The reason people were paying for it changed.

At first, audiences were buying a movie ticket. After it went viral, they were paying for curiosity, participation and a story they could share online.

As long as people believed the attention would continue, cinemas were willing to add screenings and more viewers were willing to buy tickets.

Wall Street spent the same weekend debating a much larger exercise in pricing the future.

The company at the center of it was Claude developer Anthropic.

Anthropic Has Not Listed Yet, but Wall Street Is Already Pricing in 2028

Anthropic has confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO that could become one of the largest technology listings in history.

The most striking part of the story is the company’s long-term revenue forecast.

According to sources cited by Reuters, Anthropic expects to generate approximately $190 billion to $200 billion in revenue in 2028.

For comparison:

• Annualized revenue was about $9 billion at the end of 2025

• The revenue run rate exceeded $47 billion by May 2026

• Second-quarter 2026 revenue was projected to reach at least $10.9 billion

• The company expected to report its first quarterly operating profit of approximately $559 million

Investors considering the IPO are therefore being asked to judge whether Anthropic can expand its revenue to roughly four times its May run rate within about two years.

There has even been discussion about whether Anthropic could eventually justify a valuation of $2 trillion. That figure is an investor estimate based on revenue multiples, rather than an official IPO valuation announced by the company. Reuters: Anthropic’s 2028 revenue forecast

The market is being asked to pay today for the revenue, customers and strategic position Anthropic may have in 2028.

Why Are PLTR, NET and SPCX Being Used to Value Anthropic?

Anthropic is still spending heavily on GPUs, model training, inference capacity and engineering talent. A traditional price-to-earnings multiple is therefore difficult to apply.

Bankers and investors are looking at several publicly traded high-growth companies as valuation references:

• $Palantir(PLTR)$

• $Cloudflare(NET)$

• $SpaceX(SPCX)$

Each company represents a different part of the valuation argument.

PLTR: AI Software and Commercial Monetization

Palantir has demonstrated that AI demand can translate into large enterprise and government contracts. It has therefore become one of the market’s main benchmarks for high-growth AI software.

According to LSEG data cited by Reuters, PLTR traded at approximately 53 times expected 2026 revenue.

Applying anything close to that multiple to Anthropic’s 2028 forecast could produce an enormous valuation.

However, Palantir already provides public financial statements, contract data, margins and cash-flow records. Anthropic still needs to provide investors with a comparable level of transparency.

NET: Cloud Infrastructure and AI Traffic

Cloudflare gives investors a benchmark for valuing global network infrastructure, edge computing and AI inference traffic.

NET traded at approximately 41.6 times expected 2026 revenue.

Anthropic also depends on rapidly expanding cloud and inference capacity, but its cost structure may be heavier than that of a mature cloud platform. Rapid revenue growth will not automatically produce equally rapid free-cash-flow growth.

SPCX: Paying Today for Future Scale

SpaceX may be the most interesting comparison.

Investors buying SPCX are partly paying for the future scale of its satellite network, communications platform and space infrastructure. The company also requires substantial capital investment, with much of its valuation depending on revenue that has yet to be realized.

SPCX traded at approximately 41.6 times expected 2026 revenue.

The comparison does not suggest that SpaceX and Anthropic operate similar businesses. It reflects a shared valuation framework:

Investors pay for the possibility of enormous future scale, then wait for revenue and cash flow to catch up.

Which U.S. Stocks Are Most Exposed to the Anthropic IPO?

Amazon: One of the Most Direct Strategic Investors

$Amazon(AMZN)$ is both a major Anthropic investor and a core cloud-computing partner.

Amazon has announced plans to invest up to an additional $25 billion in Anthropic. In return, Anthropic has committed to spending more than $100 billion on Amazon cloud technologies over the next decade.

Anthropic’s growth could therefore affect two parts of Amazon’s AI story:

1. The potential value of Amazon’s equity investment

2. Long-term AWS cloud and computing revenue

However, a higher Anthropic valuation would not translate directly or proportionally into Amazon’s market capitalization. The eventual impact will depend on ownership, dilution and accounting treatment.

Alphabet: Equity, Google Cloud and TPUs

$Alphabet(GOOGL)$ has also committed to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic.

The structure includes $10 billion in immediate funding and another $30 billion tied to performance targets.

Anthropic also uses Google Cloud and Google’s TPU chips. Its expansion could support the value of Alphabet’s equity stake while validating demand for Google’s cloud infrastructure and internally designed AI chips. Reuters: Google and Amazon’s Anthropic investments

At the same time, Anthropic competes directly with Google’s Gemini models for customers, developers and enterprise workloads.

Alphabet is simultaneously an investor, infrastructure provider and competitor.

PLTR, NET and SPCX: Valuation Benchmarks Rather Than Direct Beneficiaries

These companies do not share Anthropic’s exact business model, but they could become important valuation indicators before and after the IPO.

If Anthropic lists successfully at an extremely high revenue multiple, investors may remain willing to support elevated valuations across PLTR, NET and SPCX.

If the IPO is priced below expectations or sells off sharply after listing, the market may reassess other companies whose valuations depend heavily on several years of future growth.

The Biggest Risk Is Pulling Too Much of the Future Into Today’s Price

Anthropic’s growth rate is extraordinary. Claude has also demonstrated clearer enterprise and coding monetization than many consumer-facing AI products.

But 2028 remains a long way away.

Investors still need answers to several questions:

1. Which products and customers will generate $190 billion to $200 billion in annual revenue?

2. How much additional spending on GPUs, data centers and cloud capacity will that growth require?

3. Can margins improve while model and inference prices continue falling?

4. Will competition from OpenAI, Google and Chinese open-source models create pricing pressure?

5. How much will Amazon and Google earn from their equity stakes versus cloud contracts?

6. If the IPO already prices in 2028 revenue, what will create the next positive surprise?

Markets can price the future early, but longer forecasts also create larger margins for error.

When a company needs revenue from two years ahead to justify today’s price, every quarterly report must prove that it remains on the expected growth path.

Tiger Radar’s View

Niu Lai rising from a few thousand yuan in ticket sales to more than RMB 10 million shows how quickly social media can change the way a product is valued.

Anthropic is obviously a very different asset, but the two stories carry a similar reminder:

The fastest re-rating often begins when the market changes the metric it uses.

Niu Lai shifted from being judged on film quality to being valued as a viral social event. Anthropic is shifting from current profits to potential 2028 revenue.

I believe Anthropic is demonstrating real enterprise demand for AI. Amazon and Alphabet could also benefit through both their equity investments and expanding cloud relationships.

However, an IPO valuation approaching $2 trillion would include far more than Claude’s current growth.

It would also assume sustained revenue expansion, improving margins, a relatively stable competitive position and increasingly efficient capital expenditure.

The more assumptions built into the valuation, the less room remains for disappointment.

Here are the five signals I will be watching:

1. Revenue, cash flow and customer concentration in Anthropic’s public IPO filing

2. Whether the final valuation is based primarily on 2026 or 2028 revenue

3. Amazon and Alphabet’s disclosed ownership and potential investment gains

4. How PLTR, NET and SPCX trade around the IPO pricing

5. Whether Anthropic’s listing pulls capital away from existing AI stocks

Niu Lai may be able to sustain attention through memes for several days. Anthropic will need quarter after quarter of revenue and cash flow to defend a potential trillion-dollar valuation.

That will be the real test.

Today’s Poll

If Anthropic lists at a valuation close to $2 trillion, what would you do?

A. Participate in the Anthropic IPO — bullish on Claude and enterprise AI demand
B. Buy AMZN or GOOGL — gain indirect exposure through strategic investments and cloud revenue
C. Stay with PLTR, NET or SPCX — prefer existing publicly traded AI growth companies
D. Wait — the valuation already prices in too much future growth

Let us know in the comments: Could Anthropic become the next mega-IPO after SpaceX, or is its valuation running ahead of its fundamentals?

Disclaimer: This content is for market discussion only and does not constitute investment advice. IPOs and high-valuation technology stocks are exposed to valuation volatility, forecasting errors, competition, capital expenditure, customer concentration, dilution and market-liquidity risks. Please refer to official filings, company announcements and real-time market data.