Anthropic IPO valuation expectations cool as revenue growth slows

Anthropic (Unlisted (US):ANTHRO), the artificial intelligence company behind Claude, is being valued by some investors at about $1.5 trillion ahead of its planned November initial public offering, below earlier expectations of $2 trillion, Reuters reported.

The reassessment follows a slowdown in quarterly revenue growth, raising questions about whether the company can sustain the expansion needed to justify its valuation.

Anthropic disclosed that revenue rose 45% from the previous quarter to $16.8 billion in the third quarter, while the company remained profitable on an adjusted basis.

The growth rate was slower than in the second quarter, when revenue more than doubled to $11.6 billion from $4.7 billion in the first quarter.

The figures were presented at an investor day at Anthropic's San Francisco headquarters, attended by existing investors and prospective backers ahead of the anticipated share sale.

The company has emerged as a leading artificial intelligence developer through its Claude models, attracting significant financial support from Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)'s Google and Amazon, which also provide computing infrastructure and distribution.

However, the latest disclosures have sharpened investor scrutiny of the relationship between revenue growth, the expense of developing artificial intelligence systems and the company's prospects for sustained profitability.

Anthropic has committed to spending at least $518 billion over a decade on cloud services, computing capacity and infrastructure, highlighting the scale of investment required to expand its operations.

Concerns about the financing of artificial intelligence infrastructure have also intensified amid a technology sector sell-off, with Nvidia-backed computing provider CoreWeave facing pressure across its shares and debt markets.

The broader initial public offering market has encountered setbacks, with data centre operator SB Energy delaying its listing and nuclear technology company Holtec Nuclear withdrawing its plans to go public.

Anthropic's proposed listing is being watched as a potential test of investor appetite for large artificial intelligence businesses, ahead of a possible public offering by rival OpenAI next year.

The company was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives, including chief executive Dario Amodei and president Daniela Amodei, and has grown rapidly as businesses adopt generative artificial intelligence tools.