In short : Anthropic trades at 17x EV/NTM on 165% growth, a 65% discount to Palantir. Capital intensity, profitability uncertainty & growth volatility explain the gap.
Anthropic grew from $1B to $30B in 15 months. So why does it trade at a discount to public comparables?
High-growth companies trade on forward (NTM) revenue. Anthropic’s $30B run rate implies $20B in actual TTM revenue. If they exit 2026 at an $80B run rate1, we can estimate NTM revenue of around $50B. The EV/NTM multiple is 17x.
Anthropic commands a 65% discount to Palantir while growing nearly 3x faster. Four factors explain the gap.
| Company | Revenue Growth (NTM) | EV/NTM |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | 165% | 17x |
| Palantir | 62% | 49x |
| Cloudflare | 29% | 23x |
Capital intensity. Anthropic has raised $15B+ and will need more. The xAI Colossus GPU deal alone will cost $6.2B annually at current market rates2.
Profitability uncertainty. Revenue multiples assume future profitability. GPUs account for 60-65% of AI data center capex3. Anthropic could be growing into a high-margin software business or a capital-intensive utility. The market doesn’t know yet.
Growth volatility. In March & April, Anthropic’s revenue exploded. Will that growth continue? Public markets prefer predictable growth curves they can underwrite.
Exogenous political risk. AI regulation is in flux. Export controls, compute caps, safety requirements : any of these could reshape the competitive landscape overnight.
The discount isn’t irrational : it prices uncertainty in the fastest growing & quickest changing market.