This article originally appeared in NerdWallet's investing newsletter, the Nerdy Investor. You can subscribe for free here.
Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot, is the largest pure-play AI lab in the world. Its most recent private fundraising round back in May valued it at $965 billion, putting it ahead of its rival OpenAI, most recently valued at $852 billion.
And that's Anthropic's valuation before its upcoming blockbuster initial public offering. In late October, Anthropic published an investment prospectus ahead of an expected November IPO that could value the company at $1.5 trillion or more.
Americans are divided in their opinions about big AI IPOs like this. In an October survey by NerdWallet and The Harris Poll, 39% of respondents said that they were likely to buy shares in a major AI IPO, while 42% said that they were not. Men were more interested than women, and younger Americans were more interested than older generations.
Below, we're breaking down what we know about Anthropic's IPO and the company's financial situation. We're also discussing how to invest in Anthropic, both directly and indirectly (click here to jump to that section). Plus, we'll talk a bit about how to avoid exposure to Anthropic stock after its IPO if you don't want anything to do with it (click here to jump to that section).
What’s the deal with Anthropic’s IPO?
On Oct. 26, Anthropic published its investment prospectus, announcing its intention to go public on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol "ANT."
The prospectus does not give an exact date or valuation for the IPO, but we can make an educated guess about the likely date range.
Companies generally want the window between the publication of their prospectus and their actual IPO to be as short as it feasibly can be, because prospectuses contain a huge amount of sensitive information that competitors can exploit. Case in point, the Anthropic prospectus weighs in at more than 400 pages. It’s literally novel-length.
But there are a few things that constrain the earliest feasible date for an IPO:
Under SEC rules, a company has to wait 15 days after publishing its prospectus before starting its roadshow (a set of presentations to big institutional investors), which puts the earliest roadshow start at Nov. 10.
Anthropic would need to amend its prospectus to list an IPO share price at that point; the latest copy of prospectus leaves that field blank. SEC filings have a 2-day waiting period before they become effective. Nov. 11 is Veterans Day, a federal holiday, so the amended prospectus with IPO price would become effective on Nov. 13 at the earliest.
Nov. 13 is a Friday, which would be a weird day to IPO because it risks a scenario where the IPO excitement wears off over the weekend.
With this in mind, we think the earliest likely date for an Anthropic IPO is Monday, Nov. 16.
We consider it unlikely that Anthropic would wait until the week of the 23rd — a short week in which many are traveling or otherwise distracted because of Thanksgiving — or that it would debut on Nov. 20, which is another Friday. So in our estimation, Thursday, Nov. 19 is the upper bound for the Anthropic IPO date.
What do Anthropic's financial results look like? Is it a good investment?
There have been a few leaks of financial information about Anthropic earlier this year, but the Oct. 26 prospectus is the first time Anthropic has directly published its complete financials for everyone to see. On Nov. 2, Anthropic published an amended prospectus that included numbers from Q3 2026. Below is the earnings table from that prospectus:
Anthropic is not yet profitable, and it lost a staggering $104 billion on paper in the first nine months of this year, after losing nearly $42 billion last year. However, its operating loss (revenues minus expenditures on its core AI business) appears to be shrinking over the last 12 months. Its revenue is also growing explosively: In the nine months of 2026, Anthropic brought in more than six times as much money as it made in all of 2025.
The prospectus notes that a large share of the net losses this year and last year — $102 billion this year and $34 billion last year — are only-on-paper accounting charges due to the increase in the market value of certain types of stakes owned by early investors in Anthropic, which have to be listed as liabilities under accounting rules even though they don't entail a real loss of money.
So is Anthropic a good investment? That's a complicated question that you probably need to ask your financial advisor, since so much of what you invest in depends on how your entirely portfolio is constructed. We can say this: Anthropic is not yet profitable, but its revenue is growing fast and it's shrinking its operating losses over time.
Which brokers will offer Anthropic shares?
According to a report by Bloomberg, Anthropic plans to set aside 15% to 20% of its IPO shares for retail investors. And the Nov. 2 prospectus listed six brokers that will sell IPO shares:
SoFi.
TradePMR (a broker used by some financial advisory firms).
There could be last-minute additions to this list as the IPO draws closer. Check out the list of brokers reviewed by NerdWallet that offer IPO access to see the full range of possibilities.
Can you buy pre-IPO shares of Anthropic as an accredited investor?
Shares of certain private companies are available to accredited investors — people who have a net worth of at least $1 million, or an annual income of at least $200,000 for individuals or $300,000 for married couples, or certain financial licenses.
Several websites, such as Forge Global and Hiive, function as online exchanges in which accredited investors can trade these private shares. However, Anthropic is notoriously strict about this kind of thing. Its website states that it does not allow share sales without board approval, and that purported third-party sales of Anthropic shares may not be legitimate.
Forge Global and Hiive both have pages about Anthropic, but don't get your hopes up: Both websites explicitly state that shares are not available on their platforms. (Shares of Anthropic’s rival, OpenAI, are available on both of these marketplaces. Check out our article on investing in OpenAI for more information.)
Funds with pre-IPO exposure to Anthropic
Despite the Anthropic board’s tight grip on pre-IPO shares, there are a few publicly traded funds that own stakes in Anthropic — or at least, say they do.
By screening SEC filings, we found several funds available to retail investors that claim to have at least 2.5% of their assets in Anthropic shares.
Fund Name | Ticker | Anthropic Exposure (%) |
|---|---|---|
Destiny Tech100 Inc. | DXYZ | 14.40% |
Tema Photonics & Optical ETF | LAZR | 9.40% |
BlackRock Technology & Private Equity Term Trust | BTX | 8.61% |
BlackRock Science & Technology Trust | BST | 7.25% |
BlackRock Science & Technology Term Trust | BSTZ | 5.82% |
Source: SEC EDGAR database and fund websites. Data is current as of November 2, 2026, and is intended for informational purposes only. | ||
*DXYZ and LAZR are invested in special purpose vehicles that claim to have exposure to Anthropic shares. These claims feel suspicious to our team, especially in light of Anthropic’s warning about third-party investments (which explicitly says that investments in Anthropic through SPVs are not permitted). When reached, an Anthropic spokesperson declined to comment on these funds and could not verify their legitimacy. Use caution when deciding whether to invest in these funds.
» Want to add these ETFs to your portfolio? Check out the best ETF platforms
Public companies that supply and own stakes in Anthropic
Another indirect way to get Anthropic exposure before its IPO is by investing in its partners. There are several large, publicly traded tech companies that both act as suppliers to Anthropic and own multibillion-dollar equity stakes in the company. We’ve listed a few of Anthropic’s biggest shareholder-vendors below:
Alphabet (GOOG): Owns a stake in Anthropic worth more than $120 billion (more than 12% of Anthropic’s value) and is a major supplier of computer hardware and cloud computing services to the company.
Amazon (AMZN): Has invested at least $33 billion in Anthropic over the last few years (that stake may now be worth significantly more due to increases in Anthropic’s valuation). Also a major hardware and cloud services supplier to Anthropic.
Nvidia (NVDA): Invested $10 billion in Anthropic late last year (stake may be worth more now). Major hardware supplier to Anthropic and its partners.
Microsoft (MSFT): Invested $5 billion in Anthropic late last year (stake may be worth more now). Major supplier of cloud services to Anthropic.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): Invested $5 billion in Anthropic in late July. Major hardware supplier to Anthropic.
» Wondering if you're using the right platform? See our list of the best online brokers for stock trading
Be careful: The big AI IPOs haven’t gone great so far
Yup, it’s time for that part of the article where we harp on the risks of investing in big, flashy IPOs. But this time, we have a concrete, recent example.
SpaceX (SPCX) — which, in terms of valuation, largely consists of its subsidiary xAI, an Anthropic competitor — has had a rocky run since its June IPO, and has spent much of that time below its IPO price.
Maybe that’s peculiar to SpaceX. Or maybe it’ll just be the first of many trillion-dollar AI IPOs that fail to live up to their own hype. Would-be Anthropic shareholders should prepare themselves for that possibility, too.
Not an AI fan? Here's how to avoid Anthropic exposure after the IPO
Not everyone is excited about the rapid growth of the AI industry in recent years. NerdWallet's news team has written about how polls show that AI data center construction is deeply unpopular. The recent midterm elections delivered a slew of upset wins for candidates who took stances against AI data centers, including Texas governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, Ohio senator-elect Sherrod Brown and Ohio governor-elect Amy Acton.
If you're not a fan of the AI industry — or you want to avoid investing in Anthropic after the IPO for some other reason, like fear of an AI bubble — then you might think that all you have to do is... y'know, not buy Anthropic shares. But it's actually not that simple.
Earlier this year, several stock market indexes changed their rules ahead of the SpaceX IPO to "fast-track" the inclusion of mega-cap IPOs like SpaceX and Anthropic, by drastically shortening their customary waiting periods for companies with high market caps and daily trading volumes. Indexes that have made this change include the Nasdaq 100 and Nasdaq composite, as well as the Russell 500, Russell 1000 and Russell 3000.
All of these indexes added SpaceX within a few weeks of its IPO, and are likely to add Anthropic stock within a few weeks of its IPO as well. That means you might get some Anthropic exposure in Russell or Nasdaq index funds you own by the end of 2026, whether you like it or not.
There are a couple ways in which index fund investors can avoid exposure to Anthropic:
Stick to the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (for now). S&P Dow Jones Indicies, which maintains both the S&P 500 and DJIA, has not changed its rules to expedite the inclusion of mega-cap tech IPOs. That means that Anthropic will have to go through a one-year waiting period before it joins the S&P 500, and would have to be manually added to the Dow by the committee that curates that index. The company likely will join both indexes eventually, but it won't happen as fast as its addition to the Nasdaq and Russell indexes. We have articles on Dow Jones ETFs and S&P 500 ETFs.
Look into direct indexing. This is a tax optimization strategy that involves buying fractional shares of all the stocks in an index fund (rather than the index fund itself). Direct indexing is usually a technique to make tax-loss harvesting easier, but you could also use it to exclude certain companies from an index (like Anthropic from the Nasdaq 100 or Russell 3000). Our best brokers for tax-loss harvesting roundup includes a list of brokers that offer direct indexing services with reasonable minimum balances.
Article sources
- 1.Anthropic. Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.
- 2.OpenAI. OpenAI raises $122 billion to accelerate the next phase of AI. Accessed Oct 26, 2026.
- 3.NerdWallet. Buying Into AI: 39% of Americans Would Likely Invest at IPO, Survey Says. Accessed Nov 4, 2026.
- 4.U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Anthropic, PBC . Accessed Oct 26, 2026.
- 5.Securities and Exchange Commission. Enhanced Accommodations for Issuers Submitting Draft Registration Statements.
- 6.Securities and Exchange Commission. Anthropic, PBC (Amended). Accessed Nov 4, 2026.
- 7.Bloomberg. Anthropic Said to Pick JPMorgan to Lead IPO’s US Retail Offering.
- 8.Anthropic. Unauthorized Anthropic stock sales and investment scams. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.
- 9.Bloomberg. Alphabet's Anthropic Stake Jumps to Around $124 Billion. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.
- 10.CNBC. Amazon to invest up to another $25 billion in Anthropic as part of AI infrastructure deal. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.
- 11.Microsoft. Microsoft, NVIDIA and Anthropic announce strategic partnerships. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.
- 12.Advanced Micro Devices. AMD and Anthropic Announce Strategic Partnership to Deploy Up to 2 Gigawatts of AMD Instinct MI450 Series GPUs. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.
- 13.Nasdsaq. Nasdaq-100 Index® Methodology Changes. Accessed Nov 4, 2026.
- 14.LSEG. FTSE Russell introduces IPO Fast Entry enhancements for Russell US Indexes. Accessed Nov 4, 2026.
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