Anthropic IPO valuation expectations ease as revenue growth slows

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Anthropic IPO valuation slows

Highlights

Anthropic is considering an IPO valuation of around $1.5 trillion after Q3 revenue rose 45% sequentially to $16.8 billion, down from previous listing expectations.
Slowing revenue growth compared to Q2 and profitability on an adjusted basis raised investor concerns during the San Francisco investor day, affecting overall IPO sentiment.
Weakness in Anthropic's IPO outlook, coupled with tech sector selloffs and delayed offerings like SB Energy and Holtec Nuclear, pressures AI financing and market confidence broadly.

Investor day disclosures reshape IPO pricing view

As first reported by Reuters, some investors who attended Anthropic's investor day on Wednesday discussed valuing the company at around $1.5 trillion, according to people familiar with the matter, marking a notable reduction from earlier expectations for the November listing.

At the meeting, Anthropic told prospective IPO investors that third-quarter revenue rose 45% from the previous quarter to $16.8 billion and that it was profitable on an adjusted basis during the quarter. While those figures eased some concerns about the heavy cost of developing AI systems, some investors were dissatisfied with the slower sequential growth rate after revenue had more than doubled from the first quarter to $11.6 billion in the second quarter.

Anthropic did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The discussions took place at the company's San Francisco headquarters, where attendees, mostly prominent existing investors, met with Chief Executive Dario Amodei and finance chief Krishna Rao.

AI financing concerns weigh on broader market

A cooler reception for Anthropic's IPO could pressure the wider AI sector, as many investors view the share sale as an important test of near-term demand for AI companies ahead of a possible OpenAI listing next year.

The caution comes as a tech selloff unsettles global financial markets and hits AI infrastructure providers, chipmakers and neocloud groups that rent computing power. Shares and bonds of Nvidia-backed CoreWeave tumbled on Thursday, underscoring rising concern that the AI buildout is increasingly being funded with borrowed money.

The IPO market is also showing strain more broadly. Data center operator SB Energy delayed its listing last month, while nuclear technology company Holtec Nuclear withdrew its plans to go public.

Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives including Dario Amodei and president Daniela Amodei, Anthropic has become one of the leading generative AI developers through its Claude models. Its expansion has been supported by Alphabet's Google and Amazon, which serve as investors, computing suppliers, distribution partners and AI rivals.

Last year, Anthropic's revenue surged twelvefold to nearly $4.6 billion, even as it posted an operating loss of more than $8 billion, excluding writedowns tied mostly to earlier fundraising. In an IPO prospectus seen by Reuters in September, the company said AI could reshape the global economy more deeply than industrialization, electricity and the internet, while also reporting a $42 billion loss in 2025 and projecting further spending on AI expansion.

The company has committed to spending at least $518 billion over a decade on cloud services, computing and infrastructure.

In our earlier coverage of the AI-linked tech selloff, we noted that hotter-than-expected inflation data revived fears of further Fed rate hikes and intensified pressure on AI-exposed stocks. We highlighted how concerns over higher borrowing costs were prompting investors to reassess the sustainability of debt-funded AI infrastructure spending, with names such as CoreWeave and Oracle at the center of the move.

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