Investors discuss $1.5 trillion Anthropic valuation as sales growth slows
Key Facts
Some investors discussed a valuation of around $1.5 trillion for Anthropic ahead of its anticipated initial public offering, according to Reuters coverage in October 2026, as the artificial intelligence company's sales growth slowed. Investors' earlier expectations had centered on a valuation of around $2 trillion, according to the agency, before the latest discussions about the company's public market debut. Anthropic told investors that revenue for the third quarter of 2026 reached $16.8 billion, according to Reuters reporting on its financial performance. That compared with revenue of $11.6 billion in the second quarter, after the company recorded $4.7 billion in the first quarter. Reuters Breakingviews analysis described quarterly sales growth as slowing to 45% in the third quarter, with revenue continuing to rise from quarter to quarter. The company also told investors it achieved profitability "on an adjusted basis" in the third quarter, according to Reuters coverage of its results.
Reuters Breakingviews analysis linked the growth slowdown to a price war over the text units used in artificial intelligence services, which drove usage higher and reduced revenue per unit. This comes as enterprise demand for Anthropic's services expands, according to the company's disclosures on its coding business and the distribution of its models through cloud computing platforms. In a February 2026 announcement, Anthropic said Claude Code's annualized revenue run rate had exceeded $2.5 billion, as part of its account of the service's performance. It added in the same announcement that enterprise usage now accounted for more than half of revenue from the coding service, which it offers among its artificial intelligence products. On the distribution of its models through Amazon, Anthropic said in an April announcement that more than 100,000 customers were running Claude on Amazon Bedrock.
Alongside its business growth, Anthropic has commitments to secure computing resources, most of which require payment even if the company does not use the contracted capacity, according to the IPO prospectus covered by Reuters in September 2026. Citing the prospectus it reviewed, the agency reported that about 80% of computing commitments were non-cancelable or required payment regardless of usage. Under its agreement with Amazon announced in April 2026, Anthropic pledged to spend more than $100 billion on Amazon Web Services technologies over the following ten years. Its relationships with major cloud providers combine the provision of computing infrastructure with other roles, as those companies also act as Anthropic's investors, distributors and competitors, according to the prospectus. The prospectus warned that these companies' interests "may not fully align" with Anthropic's, according to Reuters reporting on the disclosure.
Cloud computing companies' involvement extended to Anthropic's latest funding round, announced in May 2026, according to the company's statement detailing the round's components and participating investors. Anthropic said the round included $15 billion in investments previously pledged by major cloud computing companies, as part of the funding covered by the announcement. Those pledges included $5 billion from Amazon, which Anthropic listed among the previously committed investments included in the May round, according to the same statement. MGX was named among the significant investors in the latest round, alongside other parties listed by Anthropic in the funding announcement. The Qatar Investment Authority had been listed among investors in the previous round announced in February 2026, according to the company's statement on that round.
On the operational side, the expansion of computing capacity was accompanied by a change to the coding service's usage limits, according to Anthropic's announcement on its agreement with SpaceX and increased resources available to its services. The company said it had removed the reduction in Claude Code usage limits during peak hours for Pro and Max accounts, alongside the expansion of available computing capacity. Despite diversifying its computing agreements, Anthropic affirmed in its announcement of a partnership with Google and Broadcom that Amazon remained its primary cloud provider and main training partner. As it prepares for its IPO, Anthropic also announced the creation of a public benefit fund, according to its official statement on the initiative and the structure of the entity that will bear its name. It said in that statement that the fund was being established as a limited liability company wholly owned by Anthropic, as part of the arrangements it announced for the initiative.
As for the next step toward the offering, Reuters coverage dated October expected Anthropic to make its public market debut in mid-November. The proposed initial public offering remains subject to market conditions and other factors, according to the company's official announcement on the confidential submission of a draft registration statement for the offering. Anthropic said in that announcement that "the proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors," setting out the condition for proceeding. Regarding the public benefit fund, the company said it would announce further details of its structure and governance in the coming months, according to the statement establishing the fund. On computing expansion, Anthropic expects new tensor processing unit capacity agreed with Google and Broadcom to begin coming online from 2027.