Key Points
-
Anthropic’s IPO prospectus reported some strong metrics, like a diversified customer base.
-
However, some recent metrics left much to be desired, especially given the company’s target valuation of up to $2 trillion.
-
It was a long wait, but Anthropic has finally released its initial public offering prospectus as it prepares for a massive initial public offering (IPO) that could raise $100 billion at a valuation of up to $2 trillion.
While several key numbers in the prospectus had been leaked before its release, the S-1 filing confirmed the reports and provided over 400 pages of information about Anthropic’s business model.
Missed AI’s “Act 1”? Act 2 Could Be 15x Bigger. Most investors think they missed the AI boat because they didn’t buy Nvidia in 2005. But according to our analysts, we’re only at the end of “Act 1″—the R&D phase. “Act 2” is the global rollout. Continue »
Here’s one great number from the IPO prospectus and one disappointing number.
The good Anthropic number: 79%
I thought one of the strongest numbers in the report was 79%, representing the revenue the company generated in the third quarter ending Sept. 30 from outside its top five customers.
This shows revenue diversity, and Anthropic even said that no customer in the quarter accounted for more than 10% of the company’s revenue for the nine months ended Sept. 30.
Many large hyperscalers have seen significant revenue growth driven by artificial intelligence. But in some cases, it’s driven by just two or three customers, which investors never like to see.
Anthropic has seen an increase in customers using its Claude family of large language models (LLMs). At the end of 2023, two customers made up 54% of total revenue.
Additionally, Anthropic disclosed that at the end of September, more than 11,900 customers had spent more than $100,000 with the company in the trailing 12 months.
For the first half of 2026, customers who spent at least $100,000 on a trailing basis accounted for 74% of the company’s total revenue, so enterprise adoption is key to the company’s growth.
The bad Anthropic number: 47%
While Anthropic did not provide the exact revenue it generated in the third quarter, it did provide enough information to back into the number.
In the prospectus, Anthropic states that its revenue for the three months ending Sept. 30 of this year was 86 times its revenue for the three months ending Dec. 31, 2024, which totaled $197 million. This means Anthropic generated third-quarter revenue of roughly $16.9 billion.
This means revenue grew nearly 47% from the second quarter of 2026. Now, nearly any other company that reported this kind of quarterly revenue growth would likely see their stock — and therefore valuation — soar.
But this is the world of artificial intelligence, where companies are trying to enter the stock market at potentially a multitrillion-dollar valuation. The 47% growth is much slower than in the second quarter, when Anthropic grew its revenue by 144% from the first quarter.
Multiple media outlets had accurately reported Anthropic’s third-quarter revenue before the prospectus dropped, which led some Wall Street analysts to suggest that the company’s growth may not be sufficient at its desired valuation.
“The market has moved from simply rewarding growth to asking much tougher questions about funding, cost of capital and returns on that spending,” Saxo Markets chief investment strategist Charu Chanana said in a research note earlier this month.
“For Anthropic’s IPO, these numbers strengthen the growth story, but valuation will still be the big debate … A valuation above $2 trillion would be roughly 30 times annualized Q3 revenue, while investors will also have to digest the enormous infrastructure commitments required to sustain that growth.”
On a more positive note, at least for the broader industry, D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria said in a research note that Anthropic’s decelerating revenue growth was not due to broader AI demand but rather due to growing competition from frontier models like OpenAI and open-weight models.
Ultimately, I guess Anthropic will raise $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in an IPO, as investors still don’t want to miss out on the AI trade.
However, after going public, it could be tough sledding, similar to what Space Exploration Technologies has experienced since making its public markets debut in June.
Missed AI’s “Act 1”? Act 2 Could Be 14x Bigger
Most investors think they missed the AI boat because they didn’t buy Nvidia in 2005.
But according to our analysts, we’re only at the end of “Act 1″—the R&D phase. “Act 2” is the global rollout, a massive technology build-out that Google’s CEO says could be more profound than fire or electricity.
While everyone watches the chip designers, one “backbone” company provides the critical technology that Nvidia and AMD literally cannot function without. We’ve detailed this under-the-radar player in our new AI Playbook.
Continue »
Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
