THE CRUNCH
Anthropic is expected to receive a high "junk" credit rating from rating agencies following its initial public offering, according to a Financial Times report. Blackstone, the anchor investor in a recent $63 billion deal to finance the AI lab's chips, told investors in that deal it now expects a double B rating, the top tier of speculative grade. That is a reversal: Blackstone had previously said it expected Anthropic to secure an investment-grade rating, which signals low risk for lenders, before 2027. Anthropic and Blackstone both declined to comment when contacted by TechCrunch.
A junk rating would make it more difficult and costlier for Anthropic to raise money to fund its heavy spending. The company has racked up large compute power deals over the past 12 months, a pace of spending that has worried investors. Blackstone's forecast is only a prediction, and the rating agencies themselves have yet to issue a verdict.
The filing context is stark: Anthropic publicly filed its S-1 prospectus earlier this week, and that document showed an $80.7 billion net loss on $16.3 billion in revenue in the first half of this year. The company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT.