Investors are accustomed to valuing companies without earnings, but businesses with no revenue are rare in public markets. Of 6,883 US-listed companies, only 243 are projected to make no revenue over the next year, S&P Capital IQ reports. Europe is less tolerant, with just 59 turnover-free firms, mostly in biotech or mining.

The AI boom intensifies the contrast between ambition and income. Data centre builders SB Energy and Nscale are preparing New York IPOs with $140 million in half-year revenue and hoped-for valuations of $50 billion and $35 billion respectively. This makes them outliers; the biggest US-listed company with under $500 million annual revenue, excluding biotechs, is AST Space Mobile at $27 billion.

Both have signed contracts with OpenAI, Anthropic and ByteDance to reassure investors. Safe Superintelligence, an AI model maker with no revenue, was valued at $32 billion and is raising $5 billion. However, public markets disfavor revenue-less firms; Spacs merged with futuristic targets five years ago are down nearly 90 percent median.

The listings of OpenAI, Anthropic and SB Energy are delayed. When risk tolerance recedes, businesses with least to show feel the chill most.