Anthropic IPO filing shows $17B revenue, operating loss

Anthropic's revenue rose to about $17 billion in the third quarter, but the company slipped back into an operating loss. Its amended IPO prospectus, published Monday, shows the loss came as the cost of computing power climbed. The filing also puts a total on Anthropic's long-term spending for the first time. It lists about $895 billion in commitments, mostly for computing and data centers, as the Claude developer gets closer to what could be the largest IPO on record.

Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ↗ 3.71% reported that quarterly revenue reached $16.96 billion, up from $11.56 billion in the second quarter. Revenue a year earlier was $1.4 billion.investing.com+1

Growth slows, costs rise

Sales grew more than 1,000% from a year earlier, but quarter-over-quarter growth slowed to about 47% from 144% in the second quarter. Anthropic posted a $567 million operating loss, compared with $974 million in operating income in the prior quarter. The company largely blamed $5 billion of computing capacity it bought on short-term terms, which the filing says "currently costs significantly more" than its multiyear deals. It also cited a $2 billion non-cash charge tied to a donation-matching program. Price cuts and discounts reduced revenue by about $600 million. Adjusted operating profit rose to $2.5 billion, though the adjusted margin fell to 15% from 19%.finance.yahoo.com+3

The net loss narrowed to $23.29 billion from $66.3 billion in the second quarter. Most of it came from a $21.9 billion accounting charge for revaluing convertible notes as the company's valuation rose. Revenue for the first nine months of the year totaled $33.24 billion, according to CNBC Comcast Corporation ↗ 2.28%.coindesk.com+2

A computing bill near $900 billion

Broadcom ↗ 1.05% heads the list of commitments with about $161 billion in equipment leases. Google is next at about $121 billion, followed by Amazon Amazon.com, Inc. ↗ 3.95% at $110 billion. About $70 billion comes due within a year. That compares with roughly $132 billion in cash and short-term investments at the end of September. After the filing, Amazon shares rose 4% and shares of Google's parent Alphabet ↗ 1.77% gained 2.1%.finance.yahoo.com+1

IPO test for the AI trade

Anthropic plans to list on the Nasdaq ↗ 1.85% under the ticker ANT. The amended filing still leaves the price range and share count blank. AFP reported that the listing could come as early as next week, at a time when investors are increasingly nervous about AI spending. Some investors now value the company at about $1.5 trillion, down from about $2 trillion, according to Reuters.stockanalysis.com+2

"Certainly it's a pretty challenging setup for their IPO," said Seaport Research Partners analyst Jay Goldberg.finance.yahoo.com