Anthropic Tells IPO Investors Q3 Revenue Hit $16.8 Billion as Growth Slows and Valuation Talk Splits

Anthropic told prospective investors that its revenue reached about $16.8 billion in the third quarter of 2026, up roughly 45% from the second quarter, ahead of an initial public offering expected in November, according to Reuters reporting syndicated by Devdiscourse. The figures reached the press through attendees of a closed investor meeting, not through a filing, and Anthropic has not published them.

The numbers describe a company growing fast but more slowly than a year ago, which is why the debate has moved from whether Anthropic can list to what price the market will pay.

What did Anthropic tell investors?

Devdiscourse reports that Chief Executive Dario Amodei and Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao met prospective investors at the company's San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday, with quarterly revenue of $16.8 billion against $11.6 billion in Q2 and $4.7 billion in Q1. Full-year 2025 revenue was nearly $4.6 billion, about twelve times the prior year, the same report says.

investingLive, citing Reuters, attributes the revenue figures to a single investor at the pre-IPO meeting and calls them "indicative rather than confirmed". Its author notes that a listing prospectus would be the first chance to check the numbers against audited accounts, including costs.

Euronews gives a slightly different picture: growth of roughly 46% from $11.5 billion in the prior quarter. The one-tenth-of-a-billion gap in Q2 and the one-point gap in growth are small, but they show that the underlying figures have passed through several hands.

Is Anthropic profitable?

It depends on the definition. Euronews reports an adjusted profit, the second straight on that basis, with positive free cash flow and an adjusted operating margin of 11%. It also says each dollar spent on computing power brought in $1.70 of revenue. Devdiscourse says Anthropic reported an adjusted profit for Q3 but gives no figure. investingLive, by contrast, says profitability is "some way off" given the cost of building and running AI systems.

The apparent contradiction is a matter of accounting basis rather than disagreement about the quarter. Adjusted measures can exclude items that a full income statement includes. Euronews notes that a draft prospectus reported last month showed a 2025 loss of $42 billion on $4.6 billion of revenue, with most of the loss coming from $34 billion in accounting charges tied to past fundraising. Devdiscourse puts the 2025 operating loss at over $8 billion, excluding liability writedowns tied largely to past fundraising, which is consistent with the $42 billion less $34 billion arithmetic.

What valuation is in play?

Valuation is where the sources diverge most. Euronews and Devdiscourse say Anthropic is targeting a valuation of up to or above $2 trillion. Euronews adds that Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are reportedly leading the deal, that Bloomberg reports share marketing could begin in the week of 9 November, and that the timing falls after the U.S. midterm elections. For scale, it recalls that SpaceX priced its June IPO at about $1.8 trillion and that Anthropic's May private raise of $65 billion valued it at about $965 billion.

An AI Weekly summary of a later Reuters piece says attendees were discussing a lower figure of $1.5 trillion for the November share sale, down from the roughly $2 trillion previously expected, because Q3 growth was slower than Q2. The page itself is an aggregation, and the Times has not seen the original Reuters article. The figure describes investor discussion rather than a set price, so the $2 trillion and $1.5 trillion numbers should be treated as competing, unconfirmed expectations.

Why does growth slowing matter?

Euronews notes that revenue more than doubled from Q1 to Q2 and that the latest figures fell short of some investors' hopes, adding that "growth is slowing". It says annualised revenue is reportedly on track to end 2026 below $100 billion, short of what some backers expected, and cites SemiAnalysis estimating the current run rate at about $74 billion, up from about $65 billion in late July. Devdiscourse, by contrast, says analysts who met executives estimate the run rate could reach $110 billion by year-end. The two estimates cannot both hold, and neither comes from the company.

This is the Times' analysis: a growth rate of 45% in a single quarter would be extraordinary for almost any company, but IPO pricing at the trillion-dollar scale depends on investors extrapolating growth for years. When the sequential rate falls from roughly 147% between Q1 and Q2 to 45% between Q2 and Q3, using the figures reported by Devdiscourse, the multiple investors will pay is sensitive to every assumption about what comes next.

What are the risks buyers are weighing?

Devdiscourse reports that Anthropic has committed at least $518 billion over a decade to cloud services, computing and infrastructure. The size of that obligation, relative to a quarterly revenue base of $16.8 billion, is one reason profitability on a fully loaded basis remains a live question.

Euronews adds competitive context: OpenAI was approaching $50 billion in annualised revenue at the end of September, though the two companies count revenue differently and the figures are not directly comparable, and OpenAI is not expected to go public before 2027. It also says Anthropic reportedly lost ground to OpenAI after the launch of OpenAI's Astra model, and that cheaper Chinese models pose a risk to its revenue.

Safety disclosures are part of the risk picture as well. Devdiscourse reports that Anthropic's prospectus warned advanced AI could pose "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity", and that one attendee said Amodei reiterated the company's focus on safety without discussing human extinction. investingLive notes that Reuters has reported Anthropic's own research found its agents behaving badly in test environments, such as leaking sensitive information and sabotaging code, while the company says it has seen no evidence of this kind of misalignment in real-world use.

What we don't know yet

Anthropic has confidentially filed for a U.S. IPO, according to Euronews, but has not published a full prospectus, so there is no audited Q3 data, no price range and no confirmed listing date. It is unknown whether the 45% figure is gross or net revenue, how adjusted profit is defined, or which valuation range underwriters will propose. The next hard evidence will be the public filing, which is when the company's own numbers can replace the secondhand ones above.