Anthropic's Leaked IPO Prospectus: The Numbers Behind a $2 Trillion Bet

Hey everyone,

On September 28, details from what's described as Anthropic's confidential IPO prospectus began circulating after Reuters and the Financial Times reviewed a draft of the filing. It's the first detailed look at the finances of one of the most talked-about companies in AI, and the numbers are extreme in both directions.

A quick note on what this is: everything below comes from published reporting on a leaked, unaudited draft, not an official filing. Figures can change before a final S-1 goes public, and outlets don't always agree on details. Where they differ, we say so.

What we know, at a glance

The reported plan is to go public in November, after the U.S. midterm elections, raising as much as $100 billion, which would make it potentially the largest IPO ever. The document was reportedly prepared in June, and backers are said to expect a valuation above $2 trillion, more than double the roughly $965 billion valuation reported from its most recent private round.

Revenue: from under $1B to a $65B run rate

Revenue grew from roughly $400 million in 2024 to about $4.6 billion in 2025, a jump of around 1,088%. Then 2026 got faster. Reported revenue was $4.73 billion in the first quarter and $11.5 billion in the second, meaning a single quarter brought in about two and a half times all of 2025. Some reports put the annualized run rate near $65 billion by July.

Reported revenue

One number that the reporting also flags: about a quarter of 2025 revenue came from just two customers, and many of its largest customers aren't locked into long-term contracts. Growth this fast is impressive, but it's also concentrated and, so far, not contractually sticky.

The $42 billion loss isn't what it looks like

The headline net loss for 2025 is nearly $42 billion. But most of it isn't cash going out the door. Roughly $34 billion is an accounting charge tied to earlier funding that can convert into shares: as Anthropic's valuation rose, those instruments were revalued higher, which shows up as an expense on paper.

What's in the 2025 net loss

The operating loss is the number that reflects the actual business: $8.06 billion in 2025, up from $2.98 billion in 2024. Total operating expenses were about $12.65 billion, of which $7.33 billion, or 58%, was compute and infrastructure. Reports say the company was on track for a second straight quarter of adjusted operating profit in Q2 2026, which would be a big turn in one year.

The $518 billion compute bill

The biggest number in the document isn't a loss or a revenue figure. It's a promise: roughly $518 billion in future cloud, computing, and infrastructure commitments over about a decade. Reports say around 80% of it is non-cancelable or payable whether or not Anthropic uses the capacity.

Reported compute commitments ($B)

Chip/equipment leasesCloud providersOther compute

Why it matters: revenue has to keep growing fast enough to pay for capacity that's been reserved in advance. If demand slows, the commitments don't.

The risks Anthropic put in writing

Nearly a third of the 261-page draft is reportedly risk factors, unusually candid ones. Beyond the standard warnings, coverage says the document cautions that its AI models could behave in unpredictable ways, including resisting shutdown or concealing information, and includes language about existential risks to humanity. For a company whose product is AI, that's both honest and a reminder of how new this asset class is.

What a $2 trillion valuation asks you to believe

Some simple arithmetic, ours and not from the filing: $2 trillion divided by a roughly $65 billion annualized run rate is about 31 times sales. Against 2025's $4.6 billion it's more than 400 times.

To justify that price, you have to believe that growth stays extraordinary for years, that customers stick around without long-term contracts, that the compute spend turns into durable profit, and that competitors don't squeeze margins. Any one of those could be true. All of them together is a big ask.

What to take from it

• The growth is real, on paper. Revenue went from a rounding error to a multibillion-dollar quarter in roughly two years.
• The loss is mostly an accounting story, but the $8B operating loss and $518B in commitments are the numbers to watch.
• Leaked isn't final. Wait for the public S-1 before treating any of this as settled.
• Hype isn't a valuation. If you ever consider an IPO, judge the price against the business, not the headlines.

We'll dig into the final filing when it's public. In the meantime, if you want a framework for reading a company like this, our AI Stock Analysis series breaks down moat, leadership, and growth against the price, and the free AI Explained course covers the basics of what these companies actually build.

More soon,
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Sources

• Fortune: Anthropic's $2 trillion IPO prospectus has leaked
• TechCrunch: Anthropic's prospectus details losses, growth, and a warning
• SiliconANGLE: Leaked Anthropic IPO filing reveals $8B operating loss
• PYMNTS: Anthropic's IPO filing puts a $518 billion price tag on AI ambition
• DualEntry: Inside Anthropic's IPO filing