Anthropic Could Be the Next Mega IPO: 2 Magnificent Stocks That Already Own a Piece of the AI Unicorn

The hottest IPO of the year hasn't even been formally announced yet (sorry, Space Exploration Technologies).

It's the impending IPO of artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic, which makes the Claude large language model (LLM), along with its coding counterpart, Claude Code, and numerous other AI agents and models.

Anthropic submitted a confidential draft S-1 prospectus registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in June, but rumors are swirling that the IPO could come as early as next month.

That means individual investors can't buy shares of Anthropic just yet. However, there's another way for investors to own a piece of Anthropic before its IPO. They just need to buy stock in a public company that owns a stake in Anthropic.

Here are two magnificent stocks that already own a large chunk of Anthropic, which should benefit their shareholders.

Image source: Getty Images.

Amazon's big bet

Many tech companies, including Microsoft and Nvidia, have taken stakes in Anthropic. Perhaps the biggest potential winner from its Anthropic investment is tech giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).

Amazon is much more than an e-commerce company. In fact, its fastest-growing business segment is its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing arm, which saw 37% revenue growth in the most recent quarter, thanks to customers spending money on AI applications.

The tech giant made an early $8 billion investment in Anthropic, which was valued at over $74 billion as of the first quarter. Then, in April, it poured another $5 billion into Anthropic along with the promise of another $20 billion to come, provided Anthropic reaches "certain commercial milestones."

Given Anthropic's April valuation of $380 billion, Amazon's total stake in Anthropic was likely worth about one-quarter of the value of the company at the time. However, that value skyrocketed to $965 billion in a Series H round of funding shortly thereafter. Anthropic's value will probably increase further after it goes public, with a likely post-IPO market cap of over $1 trillion.

The dollar value of its investment isn't the only thing Amazon is getting from Anthropic. The AI company announced it would spend more than $100 billion on AWS over the next decade. That includes a commitment to run its LLMs on Amazon's custom Trainium AI chips.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Alphabet's major stake

Another major Anthropic investor is Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL), which committed "up to $40 billion" in Anthropic investments in April. Similar to Amazon, that $40 billion consisted of a $10 billion upfront investment, followed by an additional $30 billion that's contingent on Anthropic reaching certain performance milestones.

Like Amazon, Alphabet also made more than $3 billion in early investments in Anthropic, and it's now looking to reap the rewards of that early investment.

Google's revenue has also been juiced in recent quarters by AI services on its Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Google Cloud revenue increased 82% to $24.8 billion in its most recent quarter, which management attributed largely to "an increase in GCP across enterprise AI Solutions and enterprise AI Infrastructure."

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that Alphabet apparently received $200 billion in commitments from Anthropic in support of GCP.

Stakeholders are already benefiting

While the general public can't do anything but wait breathlessly for Anthropic shares to start trading post-IPO, Alphabet and Amazon shareholders are already benefiting from Anthropic's success.

Alphabet's second-quarter net income of $112.1 billion was the largest quarterly profit in company history, up 298% year over year. But that was mostly due to $98 billion in "other income," which the company explained was "primarily the result of net unrealized gains on our equity securities." In other words, it was thanks to the company's investments, including its stake in Anthropic.

Amazon was even more specific about the source of its $53.4 billion in Q2 "non-operating pre-tax other income," stating it was "primarily from our investments in Anthropic."

So if investors don't want to wait for Anthropic's IPO, buying shares of Alphabet or Amazon will get them exposure to Anthropic stakes that are already paying off for their owners.

John Bromels has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.