Anthropic, the artificial intelligence start-up behind the Claude language model, secured a credit rating just below investment grade from the Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) earlier this year. The company received a double B plus issuer rating in June, which is the highest speculative-grade score, as it prepared to close a $35 billion chip financing deal led by Apollo.
This rating marks a positive step for Anthropic, indicating it is nearing investment-grade status. Achieving such a rating could enable the firm to reduce borrowing costs and access a broader range of institutional investors, including life insurance companies and pension funds. Bankers representing Anthropic, along with those from rival AI company OpenAI, have reportedly urged the larger rating agencies—Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch—to assign investment-grade ratings to AI firms when they go public. These future ratings will play a key role in shaping the companies’ financing capabilities post-IPO.
Investors anticipate Anthropic’s upcoming initial public offering (IPO) could value the company at over $2 trillion. The start-up has outlined plans to invest more than $500 billion in computing resources and infrastructure over the next decade, a strategy seen as critical to sustaining the ongoing investment surge in US equity markets driven by AI development.
Despite the favorable rating from KBRA, the assessment was based on limited financial data provided by Anthropic, including revenue figures, adjusted operating income, and an annualized run-rate revenue estimate for the first quarter of 2026, as well as an internal forecast for the second quarter. Key financial metrics such as free cash flow and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) were omitted from disclosures.
Due to these gaps, KBRA analysts derived their own estimates and applied a “risk score” approach rather than traditional financial modeling to evaluate Anthropic’s creditworthiness. Neither KBRA nor Anthropic offered comments on the rating or reporting.
Within the $35 billion financing package, about $4.4 billion of junior debt exposes lenders directly to Anthropic’s credit risk. The remainder of the financing is backed by a guarantee from semiconductor company Broadcom.
At a pre-IPO presentation held this week, Anthropic revealed that its revenue grew by nearly 50 percent to $16.8 billion in the third quarter and that it had reported adjusted profitability for two consecutive quarters. The company’s financial performance and credit standing will be closely watched as it moves toward a public listing and seeks to secure broader investor support.