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Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude family of models, confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement with the SEC on June 1, 2026, targeting a potential public listing as early as October 2026. Anthropic’s core product is Claude, a large language model (LLM) that competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and xAI’s Grok, among others. Until a public listing is complete, however, Anthropic is a privately held company. Its stock is not traded on any public market, and it remains subject to limited SEC oversight and disclosure rules. As a result, only accredited investors and institutions can freely trade shares.
If you’d like to invest in this AI company, the most accessible way to get exposure at this time may be to invest in public companies and assets with ties to the private company in some way. While not a direct investment, this strategy still exposes to the success (or risks) of Anthropic.
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What Is Anthropic?
Anthropic is an AI safety company. Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, along with several colleagues who previously worked at OpenAI, founded it in 2021. The company’s flagship product is Claude, a family of AI models used by consumers, developers and enterprise customers across industries including software, legal, finance and healthcare.
What distinguishes Anthropic from most of its competitors is its stated focus on AI safety research alongside commercial development. The company has published research on constitutional AI and interpretability, areas that explore how to make AI systems more predictable and aligned with human values. That positioning has attracted both significant investment and scrutiny, including a February 2026 decision by the U.S. Department of War to place Anthropic on its supply chain risk list. This occurred after the company declined to allow the use of Claude for mass surveillance and fully autonomous weaponry.
Anthropic’s growth has been extraordinary by any measure. Its annualized revenue run rate crossed $47 billion in May 2026, up from roughly $9 billion in January 2026, representing approximately fivefold growth in five months. The company counts eight of the Fortune 10 among its enterprise customers and has more than 500 enterprise customers spending over $1 million annually. Its first operating profit is projected for the second quarter of 2026.
What Is a Private Company?
A private, or privately held, company is one whose shares are not traded on publicly regulated markets like the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ. These companies are not subject to the same SEC reporting and oversight requirements of a publicly traded company. However, in exchange, they can’t access the funds of general investors. Only accredited or institutional investors can freely trade private stock.
Private stock is directly traded between individuals, which means it tends to be relatively low-volume. Investors don’t have the same kind of liquidity with a private stock that they do with public shares. They also don’t get the same kind of pricing and risk information that a high-volume market generates. Perhaps most importantly, they don’t receive the same kind of legally verified information that a public company must disclose.
All this, said Robert Hodgins, founder of Sand Hill Road Technologies Fund, creates a very different risk profile for private companies than public ones. Investing in a private company “can be a smart and potentially rewarding choice,” he said, “but it’s important to approach it thoughtfully.”
“With less regulatory oversight, there’s a higher level of risk, making it crucial to do thorough research and be prepared for a long-term commitment,” said Hodgins. “While these investments can add diversity to your portfolio and offer significant returns, they’re best for those who are well-informed and comfortable navigating the complexities and risks involved.”
Only accredited investors can directly expose themselves to these higher risks by purchasing shares in Anthropic. Still, it’s an important factor in any investments meant to get exposure to a private company.
How to Get Portfolio Exposure to Anthropic
There are many ways to invest around Anthropic and its flagship AI product Claude. Three good overall approaches are:
- Invest in companies that have invested in Anthropic
- Invest in companies that use Claude
- Invest in the AI space generally
“Investing in and around private companies is not something that the everyday-investing public is familiar with,” said Matt Willer, Partner at Phoenix Capital Group. “And frankly, it’s not for everyone as there are different risk profiles, liquidity profiles and other factors that may make these types of investments less suitable for the average investor.” (Disclosure: Willer is an investor and advisor to the AI startup StickyStore.ai.)
“However,” he said, “for the risk-oriented portion of a portfolio, these can be interesting opportunities… [And] while direct opportunities into that entity may be challenging to access for the average investor, tangential opportunities are not.”
Invest in Investors
Perhaps the most direct way to invest in Anthropic is by investing in public companies that have, themselves, invested in Anthropic. This way, you will see their returns reflected to some degree in your own holdings.
The largest example of this is Amazon (AMZN), which has invested up to $8 billion in Anthropic, and in April 2026, committed an additional $25 billion. Meanwhile, Anthropic has agreed to spend approximately $100 billion on AWS services over the next decade. As such, by purchasing shares of Amazon, you can get exposure to Anthropic’s returns, filtered through Amazon’s share of any profits.
Similarly, Google has committed up to $10 billion in a deal that includes access to Google’s TPU infrastructure. Salesforce (CRM) is another major company that has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the AI company, creating the same trickle-up opportunity.
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Invest in Customers
Anthropic’s main product is Claude, a chatbot that the company hopes will find additional applications as an agent and digital assistant. Like most AI tools, if it’s successful, it will have potential applications for countless digital and online companies alike.
For an investor, then, a potentially valuable option is to invest in Anthropic’s customers. Many of these customers are not publicly-traded companies and are, themselves, technology-area startups. However, established firms like Intuit (INTU) also use Claude in their operations.
In addition, Anthropic has launched a venture capital fund to invest in companies and provide them with access to Claude. By paying attention to the firms that use or partner with Anthropic, you can look to invest in the technology’s long-term success.
Invest in the AI Space
Finally, you can invest in the artificial intelligence space in general. Almost every major technology company is investing in artificial intelligence, either by developing their own models or buying a share of major AI firms.
This creates an opportunity. Whether you choose to invest in Apple for its announced AI-powered iOS features or Google for its experimental artificial intelligence search, there are many ways to invest in AI. Meta, Tesla and Nvidia also have varying degrees of AI exposure.
This is particularly valuable with artificial intelligence, given the technology’s broadly shared systematic risks and opportunities. From new applications and products to lawsuits that challenge the underlying nature of AI itself, every company in this field has a direct stake in the fortunes of all others. One company may share its success across the field to one degree or another. The same goes for risk.
What to Watch as Anthropic Approaches Its IPO
Anthropic confidentially filed a draft S-1 registration statement with the SEC on June 1, 2026, four days after closing a $65 billion Series H funding round at a $965 billion post-money valuation. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are leading the offering, which is targeting a Nasdaq listing as early as October 2026. There is not yet any official confirmation of share price, ticker or listing date.
The filing makes Anthropic the first AI lab to formally begin the IPO process. It edged just ahead of OpenAI, which filed its own confidential S-1 a week later on June 8. Together with SpaceX, which completed the largest IPO in history on June 12, 2026, these three companies are expected to raise a combined total well north of $200 billion from public markets. This marks a scale with no historical precedent.
For investors currently holding indirect exposure through Amazon or Google, the IPO changes the equation. A successful public listing at or above the $965 billion valuation would validate those stakes and likely push both stocks higher. However, there is no guarantee of the IPO. Anthropic has stated that timing and completion depend on market conditions. The next meaningful milestone is the public S-1 filing. This would disclose audited financials, risks, governance terms and the proposed share structure for the first time.
The financial picture that has emerged from pre-IPO disclosures is compelling but carries real risks. Revenue growth has been extraordinary. The annualized run rate rose fivefold in five months to approximately $47 billion as of May 2026. The company is projecting its first operating profit of approximately $559 million in the second quarter of 2026.
At the same time, Anthropic is spending roughly $19 billion annually on compute. Further, gross margins remain around 40% against a target of 77% by 2028. The company does not project full profitability until around 2028. A valuation of $965 billion against $47 billion in annualized revenue is approximately 20 times revenue, which prices in substantial future growth.[1]
Investors should also be aware of the regulatory overhang. The U.S. Department of War placed Anthropic on its supply chain risk list in February 2026. This occurred after the company declined to authorize Claude for mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Oral arguments in the related lawsuit were heard in May 2026. That dispute remains unresolved. There’s a possibility could affect institutional investor sentiment ahead of the listing.
Bottom Line
Anthropic is among the most valuable private companies in the world, with an annualized revenue run rate of approximately $47 billion. On June 1, 2026, it filed a a confidential S-1 with the SEC targeting an October 2026 Nasdaq listing. The company has not yet completed a public listing though. As a result, only accredited and institutional investors can freely trade its stock at this time. However, there are still many ways you can invest around the success or failure of this company.
Tips on Tech Investing
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Photo credit: Grok