Anthropic co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei watches as President Donald Trump speaks to the press after a meeting with technology executives on artificial intelligence at the White House in Washington, September 29, 2026.
Kent Nishimura | AFP | Getty Images
Anthropic chose a difficult week to unveil its IPO prospectus.
Within days of its release, several key partners of the company, including Microsoft, Google And Amazonpublished quarterly results that fueled market nervousness around the development of artificial intelligence.
“Everyone is always full steam ahead on AI, but everything around it took an interesting turn this week,” said Daniel Newman, CEO of Futurum Group, told CNBC in an interview on Friday. The hyperscalers’ results have “raised eyebrows” and created a new headwind in the market, which is “more doubts about capital structure”, he said.
Regardless of the current state of the market, Anthropic was going to have to speak to a skeptical investor base as it eyes a potentially record-breaking IPO in the coming weeks. In its prospectus released Monday, the AI company disclosed a first-half net loss of $80 billion, along with hundreds of billions of dollars in IT commitments and more than 90 pages of risk factors. Investors are still waiting to see Anthropic’s third-quarter financial results.
As this week approached, fears were growing about the financial health of neoclouds like CoreWeave And Nebiuswhich face rising borrowing costs and a shortage of lenders as they pursue aggressive AI development. Anthropic gets much of its capacity from Amazon, Google and EspaceXbut it also relies on neoclouds for some calculations as it strives to scale as quickly as possible.
Today, investors are increasingly concerned about the whole AI business.
“It’s a great technology, which seems to enable things we never imagined, but how does that then translate into a viable business?” David Hsu, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said in an interview.
The Nasdaq Composite posted its first three-week losing streak since March after plunging 2.9% on Friday.. Nvidiawhose graphics processing units fueled the AI boom, traded lower, as did the entire semiconductor sector, after Intel issued weak forecasts, sending its stock to its biggest decline since the 1970s.
Microsoft, Google and Amazon all raised concerns in their reports this week. The companies have spent a lot of money in recent years to meet growing demand for AI infrastructure, but all three have released investment figures or forecasts that were lower than analysts’ estimates. Microsoft lowered its investment forecast for the year from $175 billion to $170 billion, while Alphabet kept its forecast up to $205 billion and Amazon reiterated its forecast of around $220 billion.
“It’s been a lousy tech reporting season so far,” wrote Jonathan Krinsky, managing director of BTIG, in a note published Thursday. He described the fallout as “the Techsas chainsaw massacre”, adding that there are too many weaknesses in the sector for the market to ignore.
Cash becomes a problem. Amazon reported negative free cash flow for the second consecutive quarter, recording an outflow of $42.4 billion for the trailing 12-month period. Google reported negative free cash flow of $9.1 billion, one reason the stock fell nearly 13% on Thursday, its worst day ever.
Microsoft maintained positive free cash flow of $18.6 billion, but it is down significantly for a second consecutive quarter. The company announced plans Thursday to raise $25 billion in bonds, as it seeks additional funding sources to help finance its infrastructure expansion.
“Suddenly they’re saying, ‘We can’t continue to fund this with free cash flow,'” Newman said. “The problem is that right now no company is able to do this using its own business capabilities to create cash flow. It’s becoming more and more alarming.”
Cloud growth remains strong
Anthropic’s hyperscaler partners are also among its largest investors. The companies all need each other to turn the wheel, a topic that’s sure to be a major talking point at Anthropic’s upcoming roadshow.
Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A big tailwind for Anthropic remains the demand for AI.
Microsoft, Google and Amazon all reported cloud growth above analyst estimates, with Google’s revenue more than doubling from the previous year. And Oracleone of the biggest spenders on AI data centers, said at its investor day Wednesday that it would limit additional fundraising in coming years to $20 billion and turn its cash flow positive in the second half of the next fiscal year.
Citizens analysts wrote in a report released Thursday that the announcement “allayed investors’ biggest fear: that financing its massive AI infrastructure development would require an unlimited increase in debt and equity issuance.”
The focus will now shift from hyperscalers’ profits to Anthropic, as investors evaluate how much risk they are willing to take on and at what price.
The IPO market has been largely frozen since SpaceX record offer in June. Biometric ring maker Oura, Australian AI data center operator Firmus and SK Hynix’s US subsidiary Solidigm have all recently postponed or abandoned their IPO plans.. Nscale, a neocloud IPO in September, hasn’t updated its prospectus in weeks, as has SoftBank’s SB Energy.
With Anthropic, Newman said the FOMO – fear of missing out – of a potentially “generational” company is real, and the prospectus was “very impressive,” showing annual sales growth of 1,300%, net revenue retention of 900% and an implied gross margin of 85%.
“Anthropic is the IPO market at this point,” Newman said. “I think companies would have to be extremely cautious, if not stupid, to actually want to come out during this time.”
—Jordan Novet, Annie Palmer and Samantha Subin of CNBC contributed to this report.
WATCH: Anthropic’s heavy spending on AI could be key to its profitability (Ark Invest)
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