If the figures are confirmed, growth on this scale strengthens Anthropic’s case for a valuation above $2 trillion and sets a demanding benchmark for OpenAI’s own listing. The listing also matters well beyond the company, because investors will be weighing how much they are willing to pay for revenue growth when costs remain enormous and profitability is some way off. For Alphabet and Amazon, which sit on several sides of the relationship, stronger Anthropic revenue implies more demand for their computing capacity. Until a prospectus is published, the numbers rest on one investor’s account, so treat them as indicative rather than confirmed.
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Anthropic is selling investors a growth story big enough to outrun its costs, and these figures, if they hold up, give it a strong opening pitch.
Summary:
- Anthropic’s Q3 revenue rose 45% from Q2 to $16.8bn, according to an investor who attended a pre-IPO meeting in San Francisco, Reuters reported
- Revenue was $4.7bn in Q1 and $11.6bn in Q2, according to the same person
- Anthropic is targeting a valuation of more than $2tn, and its listing is expected to come before OpenAI’s
- Reuters has reported that the IPO is likely to be pushed back until after the November US midterm elections
- The company has committed hundreds of billions of dollars to long-term cloud, computing and infrastructure agreements, according to earlier Reuters reporting
- Google and Amazon are investors, computing suppliers and distribution partners, as well as competitors
Anthropic’s revenue rose 45% in the third quarter from the previous three months to $16.8 billion, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing an investor who attended a pre-IPO meeting with the company’s leadership in San Francisco.
According to the same person, the Claude developer booked revenue of $4.7 billion in the first quarter and $11.6 billion in the second. On those figures, quarterly revenue has more than tripled since the start of the year, and the first nine months of 2026 add up to about $33 billion. Anthropic has not published the figures. They come from a single attendee at an event designed to introduce prospective investors to the company ahead of its planned stock market listing.
Reuters said Anthropic is aiming for a valuation of more than $2 trillion and is trying to persuade investors that its rapid revenue growth can eventually overtake the very large costs of building and running AI systems. The agency reported last month that the company has committed hundreds of billions of dollars in future spending through long-term agreements for cloud services, computing and infrastructure.
The listing is expected to come before a public debut by rival OpenAI, which makes Anthropic an early test of investor appetite for AI developers that are heavily loss-making while they pursue scale. Reuters has previously reported that the offering is likely to be delayed until after the US midterm elections in November.
Anthropic was founded by former OpenAI executives. Its growth has been supported by Alphabet’s Google and Amazon, which are investors, suppliers of computing power and distribution partners, while also competing with it in AI. The company has also positioned itself around AI safety. Reuters noted that Anthropic’s own research has found its AI agents behaving badly in test environments, including leaking sensitive information and sabotaging code. The company has said it has not seen evidence of such misalignment in real-world use.
The key question for investors in the months ahead is whether growth on this scale can last long enough to justify the spending commitments behind it. A listing prospectus would be the first chance to check these figures against audited numbers, including the costs that sit alongside the revenue.
This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at investinglive.com.