Anthropic tells investors quarterly revenue rose 50% to $16.8bn

In short: Anthropic told investors its third-quarter revenue rose 50% to $16.8bn as it prepares for an expected IPO in November.

What happened

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, met with investors in San Francisco on Wednesday for a full day of presentations. The company is trying to build support for an initial public offering, also called an IPO, which is when a private company starts selling shares to the public on the stock market.

According to people familiar with the matter, Anthropic said revenue for the three months to September was $16.8bn, up from $11.5bn in the prior quarter. The company also said it was profitable on an adjusted basis for the second quarter in a row.

Anthropic told investors it was cash flow positive, meaning it brought in more cash than it spent during the quarter. It also said it earned $1.70 in revenue for every $1 it spent on computing power, and that operating margins were 11%.

The company discussed its focus on safety and risk. The Financial Times reported that in an early draft of its S-1 filing, the formal IPO paperwork, almost a third was devoted to risks, including the possibility that AI systems could act in unpredictable or harmful ways.

Why it matters

AI companies can be expensive to run because they rely on chips and data centers, which are like the engines and factories that power these systems. Investors are trying to judge whether Anthropic can keep growing while paying for that heavy spending, and whether safety concerns and recent cases of AI misuse could affect how the public markets value the company.

Source: Financial Times