Core Viewpoint - Anthropic's financial performance is improving despite significant cash consumption, leading to investor interest in a potential funding round at a valuation exceeding $100 billion, a substantial increase from the previously announced $58 billion valuation [1] Financial Performance - Anthropic's annualized revenue exceeds $4 billion, with a fourfold increase over six months, driven primarily by the programming product Claude Code, which contributes over $200 million in annualized revenue [1][5] - The company's gross margin from direct sales of AI models and the Claude chatbot is approximately 60%, with a target of reaching 70% [1][2] - However, the gross margin from cloud partnerships with Amazon and Google is negative 30%, primarily due to significant revenue sharing with these cloud providers [2] Operational Efficiency - Anthropic's operational efficiency is lower than that of OpenAI, with the latter expected to consume $6.8 billion in funds this year while generating revenue of $13 billion [4] - Anthropic is projected to burn $3 billion this year after a $5.6 billion cash burn last year, with expectations of revenue growth to $12 billion by 2026 [4] Market Dynamics - Investor excitement is driven by the explosive revenue growth of both Anthropic and OpenAI, with Anthropic's revenue growth attributed to the rapid adoption of its products [5] - The valuation of at least $100 billion implies a forward revenue multiple of at least 25 times, compared to OpenAI's previous valuation discussions at 43 times forward revenue [6] Competitive Landscape - Anthropic's growth is partly fueled by its influence on emerging AI startups, such as Cursor, which has seen a tenfold increase in annualized revenue to $500 million, largely relying on Anthropic's models [6] - The automation of coding tasks is identified as a key commercial application of large language models, with significant implications for the future of AI in economic productivity [7]