Anthropic courts investors with surging revenue ahead of IPO
Anthropic told prospective investors on Wednesday that third-quarter revenue surged 45 per cent quarter on quarter to US$16.8 billion, and that it was profitable on an adjusted basis. The AI developer is seeking a valuation above US$2 trillion ahead of a public listing expected before a rival IPO by
Anthropic told prospective investors on Wednesday that revenue in the third quarter surged 45 per cent from the prior quarter, two people who attended an investor day said, a move that could assuage market concerns about the huge costs of developing AI systems.
Revenue in the third quarter rose to US$16.8 billion (HK$131.04 billion) from US$11.6 billion in the second quarter and US$4.7 billion in the first quarter, the people said. Anthropic told the group the company was profitable on an adjusted basis in the third quarter, they added.
The meeting in San Francisco was meant to familiarise prospective Anthropic investors with the company before its highly anticipated IPO. The IPO is expected to precede a public listing by rival OpenAI, making Anthropic an early test of investor appetite for heavily unprofitable AI developers pursuing massive scale. Its public-market debut is likely to be pushed until after the November US midterm elections, Reuters has reported.
Attendees at Wednesday's event met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao and came away optimistic about the company's rapid revenue growth and path to profitability, a few of them told Reuters as they left its headquarters in the evening. Amodei reiterated the company's focus on AI safety but avoided mentioning threats of human extinction, one person in the group said. In its prospectus seen by Reuters last month, Anthropic warned that advanced AI could pose "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity."
On Wednesday, however, Anthropic executives talked about how the company was using its AI to help its own business including designing a custom chip. The company handed out hats to the attendees, some of which read "thinking." The company is expecting a US$110 billion annual revenue run rate by the end of the year, another person who attended the event said. Anthropic did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Scrutiny of AI companies' finances has intensified as they pour money into chips, data centers and computing power needed to develop and operate increasingly powerful models. Targeting a valuation of over US$2 trillion, Anthropic is seeking to convince investors that its breakneck revenue growth can eventually outrun the enormous costs of building and running AI systems.
Last year, Anthropic's revenue increased twelvefold to nearly US$4.6 billion, even as the company lost more than US$8 billion on an operating basis, excluding writedowns of various liabilities mostly tied to previous fundraising, Reuters reported exclusively last month. The company has committed at least US$518 billion over a decade for cloud services, computing and infrastructure.
Founded by former OpenAI executives, Anthropic has emerged as one of the leading generative AI developers with its Claude family of models. Its expansion has been underpinned by Alphabet's Google and Amazon, which are simultaneously investors, suppliers of computing power and important distribution partners, as well as AI competitors. Its research has found that its own AI agents have engaged in troubling behaviour in test environments, including leaking sensitive information and sabotaging code, though the company has said it has not seen evidence of such misalignment in real-world deployments. The Financial Times first reported the third-quarter revenue figure on Wednesday.