Anthropic has told investors that its revenue jumped 45% to $16.8 billion in the third quarter, according to a report by the Financial Times, a figure that lands just weeks before the AI lab is expected to pursue one of the largest initial public offerings in history.
The Financial Times first reported the number, citing people familiar with the matter, and the figure was quickly confirmed by Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters. The disclosure was made at a meeting with potential institutional investors as part of the company's pre-IPO roadshow, where Anthropic also claimed it was profitable in the quarter.
From $11.5 Billion to $16.8 Billion in One Quarter
The new figure represents sharp sequential growth. In the second quarter, Anthropic reported revenue of $11.5 billion, a number that itself had surged more than fourteenfold year over year and came alongside the company's first operating profit. A 45% quarter-over-quarter jump on top of that base underscores how quickly revenue is compounding at the San Francisco-based company as enterprises adopt its Claude models for coding, writing and agentic workloads.
According to the FT, Anthropic claimed it was profitable in the third quarter. The company had already signaled in earlier investor communications that it expected to post a second profitable quarter before the listing. Precise profit figures were not disclosed in the reports.
The Road to What Could Be the Largest IPO in History
The revenue reveal is a key milestone in the run-up to an IPO that Anthropic has been preparing for months. The company confidentially filed paperwork with regulators earlier this year and has been laying the groundwork for a listing expected as soon as November. Reporting over recent weeks has pointed to a target valuation of around $2 trillion, which would top the record set by SpaceX's debut and make Anthropic's the largest IPO ever.
Investor appetite appears to be building. Fortune reported that an early Anthropic backer predicts a post-IPO valuation of up to $2.4 trillion, which would place the company above SpaceX. Bloomberg noted, however, that analysts believe the strong results may aid Anthropic's IPO without necessarily lifting the broader AI trade, as markets weigh whether the sector's spending commitments are sustainable.
Barron's also flagged that the company keeps listing new risk factors ahead of the offering, including warnings about the potential for an AI backlash — a reminder that even the most closely watched listing in years carries disclosure-heavy caveats.
Why the Numbers Matter for the AI Industry
Anthropic's quarterly revenue has become one of the clearest public signals of enterprise AI demand, since the company counts a large share of major banks, consultancies and technology firms among its customers. A 45% sequential increase suggests that demand for frontier models has not cooled, even as questions persist about the gap between AI revenues and the enormous capital being poured into data centers and chips.
The figures also sharpen the rivalry with OpenAI, which has reported faster top-line growth from a larger base but heavier losses. Which company sustains profitability first is likely to shape how investors value the entire frontier-lab cohort when Anthropic's prospectus becomes public.
What Comes Next
Anthropic is expected to formally launch its IPO roadshow in the coming weeks, with institutional investors getting a closer look at the full Q3 financials, retention metrics and compute commitments. The company declined to comment on the reported figures, and the details shared at the investor meeting remain confidential because the offering has not yet been publicly filed.
For now, the message to markets is straightforward: revenue is scaling faster than almost anyone projected a year ago, the company says it is profitable, and the largest IPO in history is on the calendar.
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