Two Ways to Invest in Anthropic Pre-IPO

This article originally appeared in NerdWallet's investing newsletter, the Nerdy Investor. You can subscribe for free here.Pop quiz: What’s the largest AI lab in the world?No, it’s not OpenAI. It’s Anthropic, the maker of the Claude chatbot. As of its most recent fundraising announcement from May 28, Anthropic is worth $965 billion, making it slightly larger than its $852 billion rival OpenAI.It’s also on track to earn a profit sooner, and to go public sooner. If you’re looking to get in on Anthropic’s IPO — or try to get a stake before the IPO — here are your options.What’s the deal with Anthropic’s IPO?Back in late March, Bloomberg reported that Anthropic was considering an IPO as soon as October of this year, citing unnamed company sources. On June 1, Anthropic confirmed parts of the report when it announced on its website that it had confidentially filed an investment prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The contents of that prospectus aren’t publicly available. But based on what we know about Anthropic’s financials, it seems to be outgrowing its main competitor, OpenAI. A Wall Street Journal report from late May projected, based on figures provided to Anthropic investors, that the company may have turned a small profit in the second quarter of this year. On the other hand, leaked OpenAI financial documents published in late June showed widening multibillion-dollar losses in 2024 and 2025.We don’t know the date, proposed ticker symbol or proposed share price for the Anthropic IPO yet. We also don’t know whether retail investors will be allowed to participate directly in the IPO, or which brokers would sell IPO shares. In the case of the SpaceX IPO, only five brokers — Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Robinhood, SoFi and E*TRADE — offered IPO shares directly.If Anthropic IPO shares are made available to retail investors, they’ll probably be through one of the brokers reviewed by NerdWallet that offer IPO access. Below is a list of those brokers with the highest overall ratings.OpenAI was once thought to be on a faster IPO track, but a late-June New York Times report citing OpenAI insiders said that it is now leaning toward waiting until 2027. Anthropic’s exact timeline is not known, but the latest reporting still points toward an IPO in October of this year.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 AnthropicDespite 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 four funds available to retail investors that claim to have at least 2.5% of their assets in Anthropic shares.Destiny Tech100 Inc. (DXYZ): 18.1% of assets, allegedly, as of March 31, 2026*BlackRock Technology & Private Equity Term Trust (BTX): 6.16% of assets as of June 30, 2026 BlackRock Science & Technology Trust (BST): 5.14% of assets as of June 30, 2026 KraneShares Public-Private AI & Technology ETF (AGIX): 2.87% of assets as of July 31, 2026 *DXYZ is invested in a special purpose vehicle, Magnitude ANC III, which has “economic exposure to Anthropic PBC Series B Preferred Shares” according to its website. This claim could be legitimate, but the “economic exposure” phrasing feels suspicious to our team, especially in light of Anthropic’s warning about third-party investments. We have left a message at a phone number associated with Destiny Tech100 asking for clarification, and will update this article if we get a response. Use caution when deciding whether to invest in this fund.Public companies that supply and own stakes in AnthropicAnother 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.Be careful: The Big AI IPOs haven’t gone great so farYup, 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 — is down almost 20% from its IPO price.Maybe that’s a temporary dip, or maybe it’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.Article sourcesArticle sourcesNerdWallet writers are subject matter authorities who use primary, trustworthy sources to inform their work, including peer-reviewed studies, government websites, academic research and interviews with industry experts. All content is fact-checked for accuracy, timeliness and relevance. You can learn more about NerdWallet's high standards for journalism by reading our editorial guidelines.1.Anthropic. Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.2.Reuters. OpenAI aiming for speedy IPO, source says. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.3.Bloomberg. Claude AI Maker Anthropic Considers IPO as Soon as October. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.4.Anthropic. Anthropic confidentially submits draft S-1 to the SEC. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.5.Wall Street Journal. Mind-Blowing Growth Is About to Propel Anthropic Into Its First Profitable Quarter. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.6.Financial Times. OpenAI spending hit $34bn last year ahead of planned IPO. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.7.New York Times. OpenAI Leans Toward Waiting Until Next Year for I.P.O.. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.8.Anthropic. Unauthorized Anthropic stock sales and investment scams. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.9.Destiny.xyz. The Destiny Tech 100. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.10.BlackRock. BlackRock Technology and Private Equity Term Trust.11.BlackRock. Science & Technology Trust. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.12.KraneShares. KraneShares Public-Private AI & Technology ETF.13.Bloomberg. Alphabet's Anthropic Stake Jumps to Around $124 Billion. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.14.CNBC. Amazon to invest up to another $25 billion in Anthropic as part of AI infrastructure deal. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.15.Microsoft. Microsoft, NVIDIA and Anthropic announce strategic partnerships. Accessed Jul 31, 2026.16.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.