Should You Buy Pre-IPO Anthropic Shares Before November?

The leading AI lab, Anthropic, is now expected to begin marketing its initial public offering (IPO) in November 2026, after pushing back its plans to debut in October. If the listing reaches the $2 trillion valuation some investors have floated, it could be one of the largest IPOs ever. Given the extreme hype surrounding the company's AI models and the high degree of hype about AI generally right now, it's a surprise to nobody that investors everywhere are clamoring to get exposure to Anthropic in any way that they can.

One of the more exotic ways to get that exposure is via a pre-IPO synthetic perpetual futures instrument, such as those listed on the Hyperliquid (CRYPTO: HYPE) platform. Space Exploration Technologies also had pre-IPO perps on Hyperliquid before its debut on the market. Should investors be lining up to buy those perpetual contracts before the big IPO day itself?

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These derivatives value the company at double its last round of fundraising

An Anthropic perpetual futures contract has been traded live on Hyperliquid since Aug. 19, and the market was launched by a third-party developer rather than by Hyperliquid itself. Perpetual futures are derivatives contracts that are configured to track the price of an underlying asset and never expire, enabling investors to use leverage to continuously make bets on whether the asset will rise or decline in price.

On the basis of their price, Anthropic perps across Hyperliquid and other exchanges implied an average $2 trillion valuation for the company as of Sept. 30, which is over double its $965 billion valuation from a May 2026 funding round.

But several factors make perpetual contracts a poor substitute for the real ownership of Anthropic shares for most investors. For one, the perpetuals are synthetic, which is to say they are not backed by actual shares of the company, but rather only provide exposure to the change in the price of those shares. Upon the IPO, no perpetual holder will be able to convert their derivative into equity.

Another factor is that holding the contracts costs money. Perpetuals charge funding payments, which are periodic transfers between buyers and sellers that tether the contract to a reference price. Owners of newly public IPO stocks pay no such fee to keep holding, nor do the owners of actual shares before the IPO.

Should you buy pre-IPO Anthropic shares at all?

Given the above, it's not a good idea to buy synthetic pre-IPO instruments to try to get some upside from Anthropic's IPO. Nor is it wise to pay up for Anthropic in any form before its audited numbers are public.

Anthropic filed its S-1 registration statement confidentially, so there are presently no public audited financials. But, Reuters obtained a draft copy of the document and published a few details from it on Sept. 28, describing its $42 billion net loss in 2025. When the full S-1 is finally disclosed, it'll show the company's numbers for 2026 for the first time.

And without that more recent data in hand, it's impossible for investors to seriously evaluate whether they'd want to own the company at its target IPO valuation.

Stay patient, don't buy any exotic derivatives that claim to offer exposure to Anthropic, and remember to reserve your judgment until you have what you need to make an informed decision.

Alex Carchidi has positions in Hyperliquid. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Hyperliquid. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.