Anthropic Could Be the Next Mega IPO: Here's How to Invest in It Before It Goes Public

Anthropic and OpenAI are preparing for their initial public offerings (IPOs). Both companies filed confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to make sure everything was in order, but are waiting to go public with the details. OpenAI is reportedly considering waiting until 2027, but Anthropic, which has made huge product advances in 2026, could come to market sooner.

Anthropic's last equity raise in May valued the company at $965 billion, surpassing OpenAI's most recent valuation of $852 billion back in March. The AI company reported a $47 billion revenue run rate, driven by the success of its Claude Code agent and its various iterations and implementations. Indeed, Anthropic has seen massive market share gains in business adoption of its models since the start of 2025, according to data from business fintech Ramp.

Investors looking to get a stake in the business before its public debut have a few options as they wait for more details on when the AI stock will be available for direct purchase.

Image source: Getty Images.

Buy a fund that holds shares

There are a few publicly traded closed-end funds with shares of Anthropic.

The Destiny Tech100 (NYSE: DXYZ) launched in 2024 with the aim of building a 100-company portfolio of the top venture-backed private technology companies. As of the end of the first quarter, the portfolio held 36 companies, and Anthropic was its largest holding, accounting for 18% of its net asset value. Given the massive increase in its value since the end of March in its last equity raise, the Anthropic stake could now account for an even greater portion of the portfolio.

Other key holdings in the Destiny Tech100 portfolio include exposures to Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX), known as SpaceX, and OpenAI. The fund may continue to hold its SpaceX investment, even though SpaceX stock now trades publicly. However, it could have the opportunity to liquidate its assets and reinvest in more pre-IPO companies over the next year.

Another option is Ark Invests' Ark Venture Fund. The closed-end fund aims to invest in 25 to 50 public and private companies that are creating "disruptive innovation." Its top holding is SpaceX, but 6.33% of its portfolio is invested in OpenAI, and 4.6% is invested in Anthropic as of the end of June.

There are some downsides to investing in a closed-end fund investing in private companies. First of all, these funds charge high fees. Destiny charges 2.5%, and Ark charges a net fee of 2.9%. Those fees can eat into returns. The second downside is that it's hard to know the value of what you're buying. While a large business like Anthropic will provide periodic updates on its progress despite no legal requirement to do so, finding those details for smaller start-ups isn't so easy. That makes these investments significantly more volatile. The Ark Venture Fund also offers limited redemption and exchange options and can only be bought on certain platforms, which adds liquidity risk.

Buy some of Anthropic's largest shareholders and partners

Another option for investors seeking slightly more transparency and lower fees is to invest in publicly traded companies with substantial stakes in Anthropic.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) made a $4 billion investment in Anthropic in 2023, bringing the AI lab's development to its cloud computing platform Amazon Web Services (AWS). It added another $4 billion in 2024 and $5 billion more earlier this year, with the potential to invest up to $20 billion later.

As of March 31, before its most recent investment, Amazon said its stake in Anthropic was worth about $74 billion. That stake could be worth much more at this point after the most recent funding round increased Anthropic's valuation by roughly 2.5 times. If Amazon's stake is worth about $200 billion, that's roughly 7.5% of the company's current market cap.

Plus, investors gain exposure to additional upside from Anthropic's relationship with Amazon's cloud computing business, which is bolstering its AI services and custom chip business. That includes a $100 billion commitment to spend on AWS over the next decade.

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is another big investor in Anthropic. It also started investing in 2023, committing about $3 billion total through 2025. It added $10 billion earlier this year with the potential to add $30 billion more. Alphabet is limited to owning no more than 15% of Anthropic, and its current investments appear to push it right up against that limit.

At a 14% stake in the business, Alphabet's Anthropic shares are worth about $135 billion, about 3% of Alphabet's total value. It's also worth noting that Alphabet has a significant stake in SpaceX. Anthropic has also made a huge $200 billion commitment to spend on Google Cloud over the next five years, and it could be a major customer for the company's custom AI accelerator, the tensor processing unit (TPU).

Both publicly traded tech giants offer compelling ways to gain exposure to Anthropic while buying stellar core businesses at good values, given today's stock prices.

Adam Levy has positions in Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.