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Anthropic told investors its third-quarter revenue jumped 50 percent to $16.8 billion and the company was profitable, as AI Group seeks to rally support for a blockbuster IPO amid concerns over the AI business.
The startup gathered investors at its San Francisco office on Wednesday for a full day of presentations, with executives explaining how a philosophy focused on security, rapid growth and efficiencies would position Anthropic for a successful IPO in November.
The $965 billion startup told investors it was profitable on an adjusted basis in the three months to September for the second quarter in a row, according to several people with knowledge of the matter. Revenue rose $11.5 billion in the three months to June.
This rapid growth is even slower than the blistering pace set by Anthropic earlier in the year: Revenue more than doubled between the first and second quarters, from about $4.8 billion in the first three months of the year.
Investors were eagerly awaiting an update on the group’s financial performance. Anthropic’s revenue figures, along with those of rival OpenAI, are a crucial indicator of its growth and ability to keep infrastructure spending at the heart of the financial boom around AI.
Chips and data centers, essential for AI labs to train and run their models, are the company’s biggest expense.
Anthropic added that it was cash flow positive and took in $1.70 in revenue for every dollar it spent on computing power in the third quarter, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The company said its operating margins were 11 percent.
Anthropic declined to comment.
The listing of manufacturer Claude is expected to be the most valuable IPO of all time. But a series of hacking cases and other inappropriate behavior by AI models in recent months, as well as growing warnings about the technology’s risks, have made it difficult for investors to value the company.
In an early version of the S-1 filing distributed to a small group of investors last month, nearly a third of the document was devoted to “risk factors,” including the potential for AI models to exhibit unpredictable and malicious behavior.
Anthropic has warned investors that its technology could pose “existential risks to humanity.” The company devoted much of its investor presentation Wednesday to explaining its philosophy and approach to security issues.
Wall Street also faces more conventional questions about whether Anthropic can maintain its breakneck growth rate in the face of increasing competition from OpenAI, Meta and others.
Rising interest rates and a tougher macroeconomic environment could also dampen the company’s plans to spend more than $500 billion on infrastructure and computing power over the next decade.
U.S. chip stocks fell sharply on Wednesday on rising inflation and concerns about rampant borrowing to fund the AI boom.
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