❯ As Anthropic’s revenue growth slows before its IPO, some investors cut valuation expectations to about $1.5 trillion

Expectations come downReuters, citing four people familiar, reported on October 15 that after an investor day at Anthropic’s San Francisco headquarters with CEO Dario Amodei and CFO Krishna Rao, some investors began discussing an IPO valuation of about $1.5 trillion, below earlier expectations of about $2 trillion. The listing is expected in November; the final price isn’t set.

Revenue still growing, just slowerAt the investor day, Anthropic disclosed third-quarter revenue of $16.8 billion, up about 45% from $11.6 billion in the second quarter, and an adjusted profit, which leaves out some costs and isn’t net income. The issue is the comparison: second-quarter revenue had more than doubled from the first, so the third quarter’s slower growth disappointed some investors.

Still deep in the red last yearAnthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives including Dario and Daniela Amodei and develops the Claude models. Revenue rose twelvefold in 2025 to nearly $4.6 billion, with an operating loss above $8 billion. Google and Amazon are its investors, compute suppliers and sales channels, and also AI competitors.

A big bill still to payAnthropic has committed to spend at least $518 billion over a decade on cloud, compute and infrastructure. Investors weigh not only growth but whether that spending can be covered, and the growing use of debt to build AI infrastructure has raised their concern about financing costs.

The whole market is coolingThe broader market matters too: AI infrastructure, chip and cloud stocks have fallen, Nvidia-backed CoreWeave’s shares and bonds dropped sharply the same week, SB Energy delayed its IPO in September and Holtec Nuclear pulled its plans. Anthropic’s listing is seen as a bellwether for AI IPOs, with OpenAI’s expected next year.

▮ SIGNALWhen a model company goes public, investors buy not just revenue growth but a huge compute bill signed in advance.