Anthropic's $16.8B Quarter, Cerebras' 62% Drop, Modal's $15.75B Round, and Jio's Record IPO

Good morning, crowd.

Your 5-minute private markets briefing for investors and startup founders. Today: the first real numbers behind Anthropic's $2 trillion IPO, and what happened to the last hot AI IPO after its first day.

Today in 60 seconds

• Anthropic made $16.8B last quarter and says it's profitable on an adjusted basis

• Cerebras is down 62% from its first-day high, with more locked-up shares unlocking this month

• Modal raised $750M at $15.75B, more than 3x its valuation from May

• Jio Platforms set the price for what could be India's biggest IPO, at about $108B

Quick game before we start

In May, AI cloud startup Modal was valued at $4.65 billion. What is it worth today?

A) $7 billion
B) $11 billion
C) $15.75 billion

Lock in your answer. It's in story 3.

Read time: 5 minutes

Don’t Wait for the OpenAI IPO

OpenAI and Anthropic could be two of the biggest AI IPOs Wall Street has seen in years.

But investors don’t have to wait for those names to hit the public markets to get exposure to the AI boom.

MarketBeat’s report reveals 7 publicly traded companies already positioned to benefit as the next wave of AI investment moves beyond the private model providers.

These are the stocks investors can buy today, before the IPO crowd rushes in.

THE BIG STORY

The short version

• At Wednesday's investor day, Anthropic said third-quarter revenue hit $16.8B, up about 45% from the quarter before, according to the Financial Times

• It was profitable on an adjusted basis for the second quarter in a row and cash-flow positive

• At this pace, a $2T price is about 30x annualized revenue

Yesterday we laid out the four questions that decide Anthropic's $2T price. On Wednesday, the company answered the biggest one: how fast revenue is growing right now.

The numbers

• $4.7B → $11.6B → $16.8B: revenue in Q1, Q2 and Q3 of 2026

• ~$67B: what Q3 works out to on an annual basis

• $1.70: revenue for every $1 spent on computing power

• $500B+: computing commitments over the next decade, with Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Broadcom

Two things changed this week. First, the price looks less crazy. Measured against 2025 revenue, a $2T valuation was about 435x. On this quarter's run rate, it's about 30x. That's expensive, but it's in the same range as other richly valued tech companies, not off the charts.

Second, growth is slowing. Revenue more than doubled from Q1 to Q2. From Q2 to Q3, it grew 45%. Still remarkable for a company this size, but the next few quarters will decide whether 30x holds.

One early Anthropic investor told Fortune he expects the IPO to price around $1.8T and trade up to $2.3T–$2.4T afterward. That's one person's view, and Cerebras (below) shows how fast a first-day pop can reverse.

What to do with this

• Holders of AI secondaries: the IPO price becomes the new mark for every frontier lab. Know what you'd do at $1.8T and at $2.4T before the roadshow starts.

• Everyone else: "adjusted" profit excludes items like stock pay. Wait for the S-1 and audited numbers before you treat it as real profit.

IPO REALITY CHECK

The short version

• AI chipmaker Cerebras went public on May 13 at $185 a share and hit $386 on day one

• It closed at $146.62 on Monday, 21% below its IPO price

• About 19.4M more shares became free to sell on Wednesday, and the same again on October 28

Five months ago, Cerebras was one of the hottest AI IPOs of the year. It raised more than $5.5B, closed its first day up 68%, and touched a value of about $95B. By early October, that was down to about $39B.

Spot the red flag: which was the clearest warning sign for day-one buyers?

A) One customer behind much of its order backlog
B) Locked-up shares unlocking within months
C) A day-one price more than double the IPO price
D) All of the above

Answer: D. Any one of these was manageable. Together, they turned a hot IPO into a 62% drop.

What went wrong

• One big customer: a large share of its $25.4B order backlog is tied to OpenAI. Reports that some OpenAI work runs on Nvidia chips hit the stock hard

• Lock-ups ending: early investors and employees can now sell, and some insiders already have

• Price at the top: day-one buyers paid for perfection

The lesson isn't that AI IPOs are bad. Investors who bought at $185 in the IPO are down 21%. Investors who chased it at $386 on day one are down 62%. Your entry price decides your return.

What to do with this

• If you want Anthropic stock: you don't have to buy on day one. Cerebras shows how much a first-day price can come down within months.

• If you hold pre-IPO shares anywhere: plan your lock-up exit before the IPO. When everyone can sell on the same day, the price usually reflects it.

DEAL OF THE WEEK

The short version

• Modal raised $750M at a $15.75B valuation, led by Accel, with Kleiner Perkins joining

• In May it raised $355M at $4.65B. That's 3.4x in about five months

• Annualized revenue is now over $1B, up from just over $300M in May

Quiz answer: C, $15.75 billion. If you guessed lower, you're in good company. Most people have never heard of Modal, but plenty of AI startups you have heard of run on its servers.

The founders. Erik Bernhardsson built the music recommendation system at Spotify and later served as CTO of Better.com. Akshat Bubna studied at MIT and was an early engineer at Scale AI. They started Modal in New York in 2021 with a simple idea: developers shouldn't have to manage servers to run AI.

What it sells. Modal rents computing power to AI companies by the second. Developers write a few lines of code and Modal handles the rest, from training models to running AI agents. About a third of revenue comes from "sandboxes," secure spaces where AI agents run the code they write. Customers include Cognition, Suno, Ramp and Substack.

Why investors paid up. At $15.75B, Modal is valued at about 16x its revenue run rate. That's cheaper than Anthropic on a multiple basis, and Modal earns more as AI companies use more computing power, whoever wins the model race. It rents chips from more than 20 cloud providers instead of building its own data centers.

What to do with this

• Founders: Modal sold to developers first, and the developers brought their companies. In AI, the fastest route to big contracts often starts with the engineers.

• Investors: "picks and shovels" companies can grow as fast as the model labs, at lower multiples. Watch the AI infrastructure layer on our Private Company Index.

GLOBAL IPO WATCH

The short version

• Reliance's Jio Platforms is raising up to $3.2B at ₹1,065–1,119 a share

• At the top of the range, Jio is worth about $108B, up from about $65B when Meta and Google invested in 2020

• Bids open October 21 and close October 23

In 2020, Jio raised more than $20B from global investors in a few months, including $5.7B from Meta and $4.5B from Google. Six years later, those investors finally get a public price.

The numbers

• 524M+: subscribers, the most of any telecom company in India

• ~$4.1B: quarterly revenue, up 12% from a year earlier

• ~$816M: quarterly net profit, up 9%

• ~$2.9B: of the money raised goes to paying down debt

In rupee terms, the deal would beat Hyundai Motor India's 2024 record as the country's biggest IPO. But demand for Indian IPOs isn't guaranteed. Zetwerk's IPO, which opened Wednesday, was only 23% subscribed on its first day.

What to do with this

• Investors: Meta and Google's 2020 entry price is now worth about 1.7x in dollar terms. Strong, but not venture-style. Big late-stage private deals usually return less than early ones.

• Founders: strategic investors like Meta and Google can bring more than money. Jio used them to build distribution, then grew into a profitable business before listing.

QUICK HITS

• Anduril opened an employee share sale at about $90B, capped at $1.3B and running until November 9, Bloomberg reported. It was valued at $61B in May

• ICON, which 3D-prints houses with robots, raised a $200M Series D co-led by Baillie Gifford and BlackRock-managed funds

• Nous Research, an open-source AI lab, raised $90M

• Mogul, a platform for buying fractional stakes in rental homes, raised $15.5M at a $126M valuation, led by Draper Associates

• Zetwerk's IPO closes October 19 after a slow first day, valuing the company at about ₹25,583 crore at the top of its range

Quick answers

How much revenue does Anthropic make?

Anthropic told investors its third-quarter 2026 revenue was $16.8 billion, up about 45% from $11.6 billion in the second quarter, according to the Financial Times. That works out to roughly $67 billion a year, and the company said it was profitable on an adjusted basis for the second quarter in a row.

Is Anthropic's $2 trillion IPO valuation justified?

At $2 trillion, Anthropic would be valued at about 30 times its annualized third-quarter revenue of roughly $67 billion. Supporters point to its growth and adjusted profitability. Skeptics point to slowing quarterly growth and more than $500 billion in computing commitments.

Why did Cerebras stock fall after its IPO?

Cerebras went public on May 13, 2026 at $185 a share and hit $386 on its first day. By October 12 it had fallen to $146.62, hurt by lock-up expirations, insider selling and concerns about its reliance on OpenAI, which accounts for a large share of its order backlog.

How much is Modal Labs worth?

Modal Labs raised $750 million at a $15.75 billion valuation in October 2026, in a round led by Accel. That's up from $4.65 billion in May 2026, and the company says its annualized revenue is now above $1 billion.

When is the Jio Platforms IPO?

Jio Platforms' IPO opens for bids on October 21 and closes on October 23, 2026, with anchor bidding on October 19. The price range is ₹1,065 to ₹1,119 a share, valuing Jio at about $108 billion at the top, and it could raise up to $3.2 billion.

The Takeaway

This week, the price of private companies got real.

• Anthropic's numbers made a $2T price look possible, but not cheap

• Cerebras showed what happens when a first-day price runs ahead of the business

• Modal's investors paid 3.4x May's price for a company already making $1B a year

• Jio's 2020 investors are about to see what their stake is really worth

In private markets, the company matters. The price you pay matters more.

Final round: your call

Would you buy Anthropic on its first trading day?

A) Yes, at any price
B) Only if it prices below $1.8T
C) No, I'll wait for the first earnings report

Hit reply with A, B or C. We'll share the results on Sunday.

Catch up on the week: OpenAI's $20B revenue gap and Anthropic's investor day, Ramp and Getty. Or listen to the Founderscrowd podcast.

Track Anthropic, Modal, Anduril and the rest of the 100 biggest private companies on our Private Company Index.

Hunt accordingly.

Jose, Alberto & the Founderscrowd Team

Sources

• CNBC: Anthropic's third-quarter revenue is said to hit $16.8 billion ahead of IPO

• Yahoo Finance: Anthropic reports 45% revenue growth to $16.8 billion in Q3

• Tech Startups: Anthropic's Q3 revenue hits $16.8 billion, but $2 trillion IPO raises big questions

• Fortune: An early Anthropic backer predicts a $2.4 trillion IPO pop

• FinanceFeeds: Cerebras falls below its $185 IPO price as a lock-up release nears

• Crypto Briefing: Cerebras stock hits record low, down 62% from its first-day high

• SiliconANGLE: AI cloud startup Modal raises $750M at $15.75B valuation

• TechCrunch: Modal Labs closing in on $750M round at $15.75B valuation

• TechCrunch: Ambani's Jio seeks to raise $3.2B in what could be India's biggest IPO

• Lapaas Voice: Zetwerk IPO subscribed 23% on day 1

• Tech Insider: Anduril tender offer hits $90B value, $1.3B cap

• Tech Startups: Startup funding news, October 14, 2026

• Parsers VC: Weekly top startup and VC news, October 15, 2026

Disclaimer: Founderscrowd is a media company. We are not a broker-dealer, funding portal, investment adviser or financial planner, and we do not collect or hold investor funds. Nothing in this email is investment, legal or tax advice, or an offer to buy or sell any security. Views on any company or deal are the writers' opinions and are not tailored to you. Some content may be sponsored or affiliate-linked, and writers may hold positions in companies we cover. Data comes from third-party sources and is not guaranteed. Private market investments are speculative, illiquid and can lose their entire value, and many offerings are limited to accredited investors.