Anthropic's looming IPO is putting its financial strength in the spotlight, with Wall Street analysts pointing to faster-than-expected profitability, surging enterprise revenue and a massive cash cushion that could help the AI startup withstand rising compute costs and intensifying competition.

The Profitability Question Gets a New Answer

Anthropic could be breaking away from the AI industry's costly spending cycle, with revenue growth far outpacing rising computing expenses.

Its roughly 1,400% first-half revenue surge, compared with a 300% increase in compute costs, coupled with a $134 billion cash cushion and early signs of profitability, suggests the Claude maker may be better equipped to turn the AI boom into sustainable profits.

D.A. Davidson Managing Director Gil Luria told CNBC on Tuesday that Anthropic's S-1 weakens the view that the company is structurally unprofitable or financially unviable.

Luria said Anthropic has raised $141 billion and still holds about $134 billion, implying it has used roughly $7 billion of cash while building a business generating about $16 billion in quarterly revenue, or roughly $70 billion-$75 billion annualized.

He told CNBC that he expects third-quarter results to show GAAP and cash-flow profitability, although rising compute costs could keep profitability uneven in the near term.

Luria said second-quarter adjusted operating margin already reached 19% and expects adjusted profitability to continue.

He also cautioned that OpenAI and open-weight models are limiting Anthropic's pricing power to the most advanced, mission-critical workloads.

Still, he pointed to nearly 12,000 customers spending more than $100,000 and about 1,900 spending more than $1 million as evidence of rapid customer expansion.

Wellington: The Enterprise Pivot Was the Turning Point

Wellington Management Head of Late-Stage Growth Matt Witheiler, an Anthropic investor, said first-half revenue grew roughly 1,400% year over year, while compute costs increased about 300%.

Witheiler told CNBC on Monday that Anthropic's shift toward enterprise customers proved critical to its growth. He highlighted roughly 12,000 customers spending more than $100,000, 1,300 spending above $1 million and 250 spending more than $10 million.

He sees Anthropic's ability to remain at the frontier of model performance as its key competitive advantage.

Bessemer: Frontier Models and Open Weight Can Coexist

Bessemer Venture Partners partner Byron Deeter said enterprises will continue using a mix of frontier, open-source, open-weight and older models depending on cost and performance needs.

He told CNBC on Monday that companies will still demand the strongest frontier capabilities for their most important workloads. Bessemer's Anthropic stake is now the largest investment in the firm's 116-year history by both cost basis and value.

Menlo: Speed Is the Moat

Menlo Ventures partner Matt Murphy said Anthropic operates in a market where model improvement must happen continuously because customers can quickly shift toward better-performing alternatives.

Murphy told CNBC on Monday that 80% of Anthropic revenue comes from models released within the prior six months, underscoring the importance of rapid product development.

He said Anthropic has become Menlo's largest investment and expects it to generate the biggest return in the firm's history.