Wall Street & SaaS: Anthropic's $13B Investment! #shorts

Name: Wall Street & SaaS: Anthropic's $13B Investment! #shorts
Uploaded: 2025-09-08T16:21:42+00:00
Duration: 37 s
Channel: Jason M. Lemkin
Description: In this short, the hosts discuss the interplay between Wall Street expectations and the health of the SaaS industry, using Anthropic’s recent $13 billion…

8 Sept 2025 · 1 min

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In this short, the hosts discuss the interplay between Wall Street expectations and the health of the SaaS industry, using Anthropic’s recent $13 billion funding round as a case study. They note that Wall Street’s tolerance for SaaS companies hinges on strong growth rates, referencing a billion-dollar balance‑sheet flex. The conversation then shifts to Anthropic’s raise, highlighting the progression from $5 billion to $10 billion and now $13 billion at a $183 billion post‑money valuation, questioning whether the price is justified. Using reported growth numbers—from $100 million ARR two years ago to a projected $9 billion ARR by year‑end—they estimate GAAP revenue as the average of opening and closing ARR, arriving at roughly $4‑5 billion for the current year. The hosts frame these figures as factual groundwork for assessing Anthropic’s future performance and the broader narrative that SaaS and software are far from dead.

Chapters

Wall Street is the madman in the backseat. In the end, the thing that bails out our incompetence is your growth rate. We've had a billion sitting on our balance sheet for ages. That's a flex, people. We've had a billion lying around for ages. What have you guys been doing this week? You know, it's the Mark Twain, "Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated." Well, it turns out reports of the death of SaaS and software were greatly exaggerated, right? No one wants to say it, but if you get the direct listing totally successful, the people buying don't make any money, right? Ready to go, guys?
I am so excited for this. This, as you know, is my favorite time of the week, and we get to bring in my buddy Cliff from Canva. This is going to be great fun. Now I just want to dive straight in this week, and Rory, as always, I'm diving in with a late edition because you love late editions. But we had to. Anthropic raises $13 billion. Started with $5, moved to $10, now $13 at $183 post. Wow. It's a lot of money. It's a high price. Rory, going to you first because you prepped for this one.
Well, funny enough, Harry, I did because it was a little bit anticipated. And I think to some extent, yeah, it's— look, it's a— I mean, it's a high absolute number. Because $173 billion is a lot of money. But is it a high price? And it's interesting. And we talked about this a little last time. And relying on reported numbers, if the growth trajectory is really $100 million 2 years ago to a billion-dollar run rate started this year to somewhere around 5 now, maybe 8 or 9 by year end, right? Let's just take that as kind of roughly true. Let's say 1 to 9, which typically means the GAAP revenue is roughly the the average of the opening and closing ARR, which means GAAP revenue could be, again, subject to around $4 or $5 billion this year. What are they going to do next year? If they go from 1 to 9, this is— and these are the facts. Up until now, all I've talked about are facts, things we know today.