Anthropic revealed on Monday that its third quarter revenue had increased 12-fold from a year ago, as it updated its financial disclosures a week after releasing its filing for a public offering.
Anthropic’s revenue in the third quarter was $17 billion, up more than 12 times from the same quarter a year ago, while its net loss was $23 billion.
Anthropic had already disclosed many of its financials in a closely watched prospectus last month, but most of the figures covered only the first half of the year. The third-quarter results are particularly crucial for investors, because the pace of change in artificial intelligence is so rapid that a company’s financial position can change drastically in a short time.
Anthropic’s listing could value the company at $2 trillion, but investors would need to justify whether such a lofty figure is supported by the company’s revenue growth keeping pace with spending commitments. The public offering, which could set a record by raising $100 billion, still may not provide enough money to fund Anthropic’s intense infrastructure needs, the company has warned.
For the first nine months of the year, Anthropic’s revenue was $33 billion and its net loss was $104 billion, driven largely by a one-time accounting charge. The net loss was abnormally large because it included a one-time $94 billion charge related to convertible notes, a type of debt that will later turn into equity. Anthropic posted a smaller operating loss, which excludes certain costs, of nearly $1.3 billion during that period.
Anthropic had previously shared some of its third-quarter financials at a private presentation at its headquarters in San Francisco last month, which left some investors disappointed. Third quarter revenue was a 47 percent increase from the prior quarter, but slower than the 144 percent leap in revenue between the first and second quarters.
The company’s public offering, which is expected to take place this month, comes amid mounting concerns about the billions of dollars that technology companies are spending to build the infrastructure to power A.I. systems. These concerns have intensified as companies have increasingly turned to debt markets to finance their spending, adding to the pressure on the companies should the immediate demand for A.I. fall short of expectations.
If Anthropic’s listing is successful, it would be the second blockbuster I.P.O. this year, after SpaceX’s listing in June, which briefly turned its chief executive and largest shareholder, Elon Musk, into the world’s first trillionaire. OpenAI, ChatGPT’s parent company, is also aiming for a valuation of well over a trillion dollars in an offering that could come next year.
(The Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied those claims.)
Stock markets appeared to be on track to stabilize on Monday, but recovering only a small part of the steep sell-off of technology stocks last week.
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