Anthropic tells investors Q3 revenue hit $16.8B and it turned adjusted profit before IPO

The $16.8B quarter, per the Financial Times, is up about 50% from the previous quarter, which implies roughly $11B in Q2. The figures came in investor communications as Anthropic prepares a possible public listing, and the company reported an adjusted profit rather than a loss for the period. Adjusted figures exclude items the company chooses, so the accounting basis matters until formal filings appear. The numbers land in a rough tape. Chip and AI stocks lost more than $1T this week on financing worries and rate fears, and CoreWeave's bonds are trading at distressed yields. An analyst firm recently called the planned IPO an unprecedented test of investor gullibility, and Microsoft was reported to be on track to pay Anthropic more than $2B a year for Copilot models. For founders building on Claude, the profit signal lowers the risk that a key model supplier cuts subsidies or reprices abruptly. It also shows how concentrated enterprise AI spend is in a few labs, which sets the benchmark investors will use when valuing application companies built on top of them.