Where we heard itCNBC, Squawk on the Street, Oct. 26, 2026, “Watch CNBC’s full interview with Menlo Ventures’ Matt Murphy.” Speaker: Matt Murphy, partner at Menlo Ventures.
Anthropic’s IPO filing went public on Oct. 26, and one of its earliest big backers went on CNBC the same morning. Matt Murphy, a partner at Menlo Ventures, first met Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in 2023. Asked on Squawk on the Street whether it would be Menlo’s best investment, he didn’t hedge.
The prospectus shows why he is confident. Anthropic’s revenue was $16.3 billion in the first half of 2026, up from $1.2 billion a year earlier, a growth rate the company puts at 1,300%, according to its S-1. Murphy said public software companies grow 10% to 15% a year, and “here’s a company at scale, larger than most of them, that year over year grew over 10x.” Anthropic plans to list on Nasdaq under the symbol ANT. It hasn’t set a price range.
What Menlo’s stake becomes depends on what public investors pay. Murphy wouldn’t guess, citing Anthropic’s quiet period, and said he expects the market to price the shares efficiently. So we looked at two things: what bettors expect on day one, and what happened in the first year to the most valuable companies that went public before it.
What Bettors Expect on Day One
Polymarket runs a market on Anthropic’s market value at the close of its first trading day. As of the evening of Oct. 27, the most popular range was $1.75 trillion to $2 trillion, priced at 29.5 cents on the dollar. Bettors put a 43% combined chance on a close above $2 trillion and 26% on one below $1.75 trillion. The prices add up to 102.3%, a little over 100%, as betting-market prices often do.
Bettors also expect it soon. Polymarket priced an IPO by Nov. 30 at 87.5%, and Nov. 19 was the single most likely debut date at 25.5%. Only 3.7% rode on no IPO at all by the end of 2027. A close near $2 trillion would make Anthropic the most valuable U.S. debut ever, ahead of SpaceXSPCX, which was worth $1.77 trillion at its $135 IPO price in June. It would also sit above the $1.25 trillion valuation Jason Calacanis weighed for OpenAI.
The Record of the Biggest Debuts
To see what follows a giant listing, we ranked every U.S. IPO of the past 20 years by its value at the offer price: the IPO price times all shares outstanding after the deal, as stated in each final prospectus. SpaceX tops the list but has traded for only four months. The next 10, from AlibabaBABA at $168 billion in 2014 to KenvueKVUE at $42 billion in 2023, each have a full year of trading.
The 10 biggest U.S. IPOs of the past 20 years
The first day usually went fine. The median stock closed 13% above its IPO price, led by CoupangCPNG at 41% and Alibaba at 38%. The rest of the year mostly didn’t. After 250 trading days, nine of the 10 were below their IPO price, and the median was down 32%. The S&P 500 gained a median 6.8% over the same stretches.
Nine of the 10 most valuable U.S. IPOs of the past 20 years were below their offer price a year later
Each stock’s close against its IPO price for its first 250 trading days, for the 10 largest U.S. listings by value at the offer since 2006. Dark lines listed since 2021; the one that soars is Arm. SpaceX, bigger than all of them, is coral.
FacebookMETA, now Meta, was down 32.2% a year after its 2012 debut, while the index rose 27.7%. RivianRIVN more than doubled in its first weeks and finished the year 59% below its $78 IPO price. DiDi lost 78% as China cracked down on it, and Venture GlobalVG, the most recent of the 10, lost 60%. The exception was ArmARM, the chip designer that listed in September 2023 as AI stocks took off. It was up 173% after a year.
SpaceX, So Far
SpaceX is the closest match in size. It priced at $135, closed its first day at $160.95, 19% higher, and has swung from 57% above its IPO price to 20% below it. After 95 trading days it closed Oct. 27 at $148.58, 10.1% above the IPO price and 7.7% below its first close. The S&P 500 rose 4.4% over the same period. One fund manager who bought SpaceX at $121 and kept buying above $167 says he is thinking 30 years out.
What to Watch
Menlo’s return was set when it bought in, years before anyone talked about trillions. Public buyers start at the IPO price, and on the record above, that price matters most. Next come the price range in an amended S-1, then the first-day close against Polymarket’s ladder. Murphy said Menlo hasn’t made “any distribution decisions yet,” so watch the lockup terms for when early backers can sell. Another venture investor has argued Anthropic could be overtaken, which is the risk a long first year would test.
Murphy is almost certainly right that Anthropic will be Menlo’s biggest return, because Menlo got in early and cheap. Public buyers face a different record: nine of the 10 most valuable U.S. IPOs of the past 20 years were below their offer price a year later, with a median loss of 32%. Bettors expect a debut near $2 trillion, which would leave little room for error.