Anthropic says it is profitable: What Claude-maker's Q3 revenue of $16.8 Billion does and does not show
Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, has told prospective investors it generated $16.8 billion in third-quarter revenue and was profitable on an adjusted basis. However, it has not explained how it calculates either measure, raising questions about its finances ahead of a possible record-breaking stock market listing.
Anthropic disclosed the figures on Wednesday at an investor day at its headquarters, according to attendees. The listing is expected in November, at a valuation that could approach $2 trillion. The Financial Times first reported the figures.
Anthropic’s third-quarter revenue of $16.8 billion was about 45% higher than the $11.6 billion reported for the second quarter, according to attendees. The Wall Street Journal previously reported first-quarter revenue of $4.8 billion, while attendees put it at $4.7 billion.
Although revenue continues to rise rapidly, growth has moderated. One attendee said Anthropic expects an annual revenue run rate of $110 billion by the end of the year.
Revenue rose twelvefold last year to nearly $4.6 billion, Reuters reported last month. Anthropic also recorded an operating loss of more than $8 billion, excluding write-downs of liabilities largely linked to earlier fundraising.
Anthropic told investors it made a profit on an adjusted basis in the third quarter. However, adjusted measures exclude certain expenses, and companies determine which costs to leave out. Anthropic has not disclosed its methodology.
It is also unclear whether Anthropic's $16.8 billion represents gross or net revenue. Anthropic has historically counted gross sales through cloud partners as revenue, even though it does not receive the entire amount. Business Insider noted that the latest figures do not clarify which accounting approach was used.
The Claude maker has pledged at least $518 billion over a decade towards cloud services, computing and infrastructure.
In May, it announced a $65 billion funding round that valued it at $965 billion. These commitments underscore the substantial capital required to train and operate its AI models.
Harrison Rolfes, a private company analyst at PitchBook, told Business Insider that Anthropic’s growth was impressive but showed potential warning signs.
“They’re still growing, but not growing as fast. So they’re reaching this inflection point,” he said.
Rolfes noted that the figures do not reveal how much Anthropic spends to generate revenue. Slower growth between the second and third quarters could also reduce the valuation it commands in an initial public offering (IPO).
As a privately held company, Anthropic rarely discloses detailed financial information. Its latest figures offer investors a glimpse into its performance and its competition with OpenAI.
Competition is intensifying as open-source and open-weight models improve, encouraging some developers to switch from Anthropic and OpenAI products to reduce costs. OpenAI is competing on pricing, while Meta, Google and SpaceXAI are developing their own models. Anthropic’s growth has been driven partly by strong demand for its coding tool, Claude Code.
Safety concerns have also gained prominence. In early September, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned, warning that AI could pose severe risks to humanity. Chief executive Dario Amodei subsequently urged companies to slow the development of AI capabilities so safeguards could keep pace.
At Wednesday’s event, Amodei reiterated Anthropic’s commitment to safety but avoided discussing human extinction, according to an attendee. The company’s prospectus, seen by Reuters last month, warns that advanced AI could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity”.
Anthropic’s research has also found that its AI agents exhibited troubling behaviour in test environments, including leaking sensitive information and sabotaging code. The company said it had found no evidence of such misalignment in real-world use.
Attendees who met Amodei and chief financial officer Krishna Rao told Reuters they left optimistic about the company’s revenue growth and path to profitability.
Reuters has reported that the listing could be delayed until after the November US midterm elections. It is expected to precede an IPO by OpenAI, making it an early test of investor appetite for AI companies pursuing rapid growth alongside enormous infrastructure commitments.
Anthropic’s backers, Alphabet’s Google and Amazon, are also its computing suppliers, distribution partners and competitors.
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