Borrowing against the lab’s own customer contracts
Can an AI lab raise debt against its own contracted revenue?
Anthropic’s revolver allows a “Permitted Contracted Revenue Financing”: debt of a financing SPV secured only on that SPV, its shares and the receivables assigned to it. Contracted revenue means payments customers must make over an original term of at least a year, subject only to Anthropic performing. No more than 30% of contracted revenue may be financed, and the loan to value ratio may not exceed 85% where a material part comes from investment grade customers, or 65% otherwise. The SPV must be able to distribute excess cash. The parent may pledge the SPV’s shares, with recourse limited to them, and give customary performance guarantees. It is the GPU loan structure, used by the customer.
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What the filed contracts say
Contract
What the filed wording says
Anthropic $15bn revolver
No more than 30% of the lab’s contracted revenue may be financed.
Anthropic $15bn revolver
The loan to value ratio may not exceed 85% where a material part of the revenue is from investment grade customers, or 65% otherwise.
Anthropic $15bn revolver
The debt is secured only on the financing SPV, its shares and the related receivables.
Anthropic $15bn revolver
The SPV must be able to distribute excess cash.
Anthropic $15bn revolver
Contracted revenue is what customers must pay over an original term of at least one year, subject only to the lab performing.
Anthropic $15bn revolver
The parent’s support is limited to a share pledge, with recourse limited to the shares, and customary performance guarantees.
The filed wording
“Permitted Contracted Revenue Financing” means Indebtedness of a Financing SPV so long as the following conditions are met: a. after giving effect to the establishment of any Permitted Contracted Revenue Financing on a Pro Forma Basis, no more than 30% of the Contracted Revenue of the Borrower and its Restricted Subsidiaries on a consolidated basis is subject to Permitted Contracted Revenue Financings; b. at the time any Indebtedness in respect of such Permitted Contracted Revenue Financing is funded (or, at the Borrower’s election but subject to the last paragraph of Section 6.01, at the time such commitments are established) the LTV Ratio does not exceed (x) if a material portion of the Contracted Revenue subject to such Permitted Contracted Revenue Financing is from Investment Grade Account Debtors, 85% or (y) if subclause (x) does not apply, 65%; c. such Indebtedness is not secured by any assets other than assets of and Equity Interests in the Financing SPV and Receivables Assets related thereto; and d. the Borrower has determined in good faith that terms of the agreements governing such Permitted Contracted Revenue Financing will permit the applicable Financing SPV to distribute excess cash (i.e., cash received by the Financing SPV in excess of amounts to pay principal, interest, expense reimbursement and other required payments under the agreements governing such Permitted Contracted Revenue Financing and customary (as determined in good faith by the Borrower) reserves) subject to customary (as determined in good faith by the Borrower) conditions.
Anthropic amended and restated revolving credit agreement ($15bn), with its compute financing carve-outs, section 1.01, “Permitted Contracted Revenue Financing” · Anthropic S-1, Exhibit 10.10
Each extract is quoted from the contract as filed with the SEC, checked against the filed text when it was added; “…” marks words left out. Filers redact commercial terms, so a [***] or [*] is the filer's, not ours. The summaries describe the wording, not how a court would read it, and each contract's defined terms and other clauses can change the effect. General information drawn from public filings. It is not legal advice on any transaction, and using this page does not create a lawyer-client relationship. Views are personal.
InfraCompute Weekly
The week in compute finance, read from the filings.
Deals, terms and the clauses behind them, for the people financing data centres, GPU clouds and the power behind them. By Randeep Bubbra.