Anthropic Lost $42 Billion, but $34 Billion of It Was Non-Cash

Anthropic lost $42 billion last year.

In the same year, its value tripled.

The two sentences do not contradict each other. The second explains most of the first.

What the Prospectus Shows

Reuters reporter Echo Wang wrote on the evening of September 28, at 7:17 p.m. ET, that she had seen Anthropic's IPO prospectus. The document was filed confidentially with the SEC and is not public.

According to the reported figures, 2025 revenue was $4.59B. A year earlier it was $386M, a twelvefold increase.

The operating loss widened from $2.98B to $8.06B. The net loss was $41.97B.

The $34B gap between the operating loss and the net loss reflects, in Reuters' words, an increase in the estimated value of financing that could turn into shares. None of that money went to a supplier, an employee or a data center.

At first glance, the loss reads as bad news.

It is really a valuation story.

Why the Loss Grows as the Company Gains Value

Part of the money Anthropic raised in its early years came not as equity but as debt that can convert into shares. The investor hands over cash. In return, it gets the right to move into the company's stock later under set conditions.

Accounting rules require that right to be measured at its current value at the end of each period. As the company's value rises, so does the value of the shares the investor would receive. The liability on the company's books grows.

The increase is booked on the income statement as an expense.

The two values in the example are not guesses. They are the valuations from Anthropic's two funding rounds in 2025.

The Series E round in March 2025 valued the company at $61.5B. The Series F round in September valued it at $183B. According to Reuters, the value reached $965B in May, and the figure discussed for the IPO is more than $2 trillion.

This path carries into the 2026 accounts. May's value was more than five times the last 2025 round. Unless the convertible debt is turned into shares, the same line will be large again this year.

The Other Side of the Same Number: Amazon

The loss on Anthropic's books shows up as a gain on the books of whoever holds the debt.

The most visible holder of this structure is Amazon. According to its 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, Amazon invested $8.0B in Anthropic convertible notes between the third quarter of 2023 and the fourth quarter of 2025.

In the same filing, Amazon booked a $4.5B gain in the first quarter of 2026 when part of the notes converted into nonvoting preferred stock. It booked another $12.3B when it marked up the preferred shares. Both sit in other income.

The sources do not say how much of Anthropic's $34B charge relates to the notes Amazon holds. But the mechanism is the same, recorded in two sets of books with opposite signs.

Anthropic's 2025 loss and Amazon's Anthropic gains grew out of the same event.

What Is Real on the Cash Side

The $34B is non-cash. The rest is not.

The company spent $7.33B on compute and infrastructure in 2025, triple the prior year. That was more than half of its $12.65B in total operating expenses.

For every $1 of revenue, there was $2.76 of operating expense. That ratio is why the operating loss came to $8.06B.

At year-end, cash and short-term investments stood at $20.28B. The prospectus lists $518B in obligations for cloud, compute and infrastructure.

Nearly a quarter of revenue came from two customers. Reuters reported that many large customers are not bound by long-term contracts and could cut or stop spending.

The report came after Monday's close, so no U.S. session has reacted yet. Amazon is the large listed stock most tied to Anthropic. Its three-month path sets the backdrop for how these numbers will be read.

The Nasdaq 100 over the same period, for comparison:

What Does Not Fit the Story

None of these figures comes from a public document yet. Reuters said it had seen the prospectus; no comment from Anthropic was reported.

The timing of the $518B in obligations differs across reports. Reuters' text refers to the coming year. Outlets relaying the same report describe it as total commitments spread over the coming years. The AWS deal alone, worth more than $100B, runs for ten years.

The $2 trillion value is not a price in the prospectus. It is an expectation discussed for the offering. Our earlier piece on the cost gap between OpenAI and Anthropic relied on annualized revenue. The prospectus gives last year's closed books.

What Is Left

The net loss line is the first line anyone reads in an IPO filing. In Anthropic's case, it tells the story of the valuation, not the business.

The business story sits in the $8.06B operating loss and the $518B in obligations. More: How to Read Earnings and What Is an IPO?

This article is based on Reuters' exclusive report of September 28, 2026, drawn from Anthropic's confidential IPO prospectus. It also uses the report's republication by Investing.com, Yahoo Finance and CNBC; 2024 comparison figures come from secondary reports. Amazon's figures come from its 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2026, filed with the SEC, and the 2025 funding rounds from Anthropic's own announcements. The worked example is simplified and ignores dilution and conversion discounts. Because the prospectus is not public, the figures may change.