A 45 percent rise in one quarter would be the envy of most companies. For Anthropic it is a sharp slowdown.
Reuters reported on 14 October that Anthropic’s third-quarter revenue reached $16.8 billion, up 45 percent on the second quarter. Its source was an investor who attended a pre-IPO meeting.
The earlier quarters show the shift, and the arithmetic is simple. Revenue was $4.7 billion in the first quarter and $11.6 billion in the second, a climb of more than 140 percent. The latest step is roughly a third of that pace.
Reuters also reported that the public debut is likely to be pushed until after the November midterm elections. The company is reportedly targeting a valuation above $2 trillion.
That is the case it is making to investors: that revenue growth can eventually outrun the cost of building and running the models. A slowing rate is awkward for that argument, even from a much larger base, because the second-quarter jump set an expectation that the third has not matched.
Anthropic has not confirmed any of these numbers, and none has appeared in a filing or a public statement. The figures are an attendee’s account of a private meeting, relayed through one news agency.
What nobody outside the room has seen is the cost side. There is no profit figure, no compute bill, and no word on whether 45 percent is a trough or a trend, which is the question a listing prospectus would have to answer.
