How to Invest in Anthropic Pre-IPO

Although non-accredited investors can't buy Anthropic stock yet, there are alternative ways to gain exposure to the company. For example, anyone can invest in the Fundrise Innovation Fund. Fundrise, a company specializing in offering retail investors access to private market investments, manages the venture capital fund.

The Innovation Fund owns shares of several privately held technology companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, and Canva. The fund has a very low investment minimum of just $10.

You could also consider the Ark Venture Fund (NASDAQMUTFUND:ARKV.X), a tiny closed-end fund managed by Cathie Wood. The fund holds shares of several pre-IPO companies, including Anthropic (4.2% of its net assets in early 2025).

Another alternative is to buy shares in companies that have invested in Anthropic, giving you some indirect exposure to the AI company. Three top AI stocks are:

Amazon

Amazon is a leader in e-commerce and cloud computing through Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company has invested $8 billion into Anthropic, including taking a minority stake and notes convertible to equity.

As part of its strategic minority investment in Anthropic, the AI company will use AWS as its primary cloud provider, and AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips to build, train, and deploy future models. Amazon's investment and strategic partnership are part of its commitment to advance generative AI technology.

Alphabet

Alphabet is a leader in search, social media, and innovation. The company's Google subsidiary is investing heavily in AI technology and has developed its own AI chatbot (Gemini AI, formerly Google Bard).

The company is also an early investor in Anthropic, initially pouring $550 million into the AI start-up. It has since invested more than $3 billion in the company, giving it a roughly 10% ownership stake. Anthropic also signed a multiyear deal with Google Cloud.

Salesforce

Salesforce is a leading software and cloud company. It has also been an early adopter of AI. It's integrating the technology into many of its products, including launching its Einstein Copilot generative AI assistant for customer relationship management. The company's venture capital arm, Salesforce Ventures, invested in Anthropic through its $250 million Generative AI fund.

People who want to buy one of these early Anthropic investors can purchase shares in any brokerage account. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to invest in stocks that own a stake in Anthropic.

Step 1: Open a brokerage account

You'll have to open and fund a brokerage account before buying shares of any company. If you still need to open one, here are some of the best-rated brokers and trading platforms. Take your time to research the brokers to find the best one for you.

Step 2: Figure out your budget

Before making your first trade, you'll need to determine a budget for how much money you want to invest. You'll then want to decide how to allocate that money. The Motley Fool's investing philosophy recommends building a diversified portfolio of 25 or more stocks you plan to hold for at least five years.

That might seem like a daunting task for those starting out. However, you don't have to get there on the first day. For example, if you have $1,000 available to start investing, you might want to begin by allocating that money equally across around 10 stocks and then grow from there.

Step 3: Research related companies

It's essential to thoroughly research a company before buying its shares. You should learn how it makes money and study its balance sheet and other factors to ensure you have a solid grasp on whether the company can grow value for its shareholders over the long term. You should also research related companies.

Some notable competitors to Anthropic (and by extension Amazon, Alphabet, and Salesforce) are Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL). Investors should take the time to research these rivals before buying shares of Anthropic or one of its major shareholders.

Anthropic is one of the hottest artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups. It has raised billions of dollars in capital from investors in the past year, a massive haul for a company that just opened its doors in 2021. Early Anthropic investors feature a who's who of tech titans and venture capitalists backing a team of former OpenAI employees who wanted to focus on AI safety.

They've developed the AI chatbot Claude, a digital rival to OpenAI's uber-popular ChatGPT. The company's latest model (Claude 3.7 Sonnet) has outperformed OpenAI's GPT-4 model in areas like reasoning, math, and coding.

Anthropic's early technology edge and big-time backers have many people interested in learning how to invest in the AI company. Here's everything you need to know about Anthropic, including ways to invest in the pre-IPO (initial public offering) company.

Step 4: Place an order

Once you've opened and funded a brokerage account, set your investing budget, and researched the stock and its competitors, it's time to buy shares. The process is relatively straightforward. Go to your brokerage account's order page and fill in all the relevant information, including:

• The number of shares you want to buy or the amount you want to invest to purchase fractional shares.
• The stock ticker (AMZN for Amazon, GOOGL or GOOG for Alphabet, and CRM for Salesforce).
• Whether you want to place a limit order or a market order. The Motley Fool recommends using a market order because it guarantees you buy shares immediately at the current market price.

Once you complete the order page, click to submit your trade and become a shareholder in one of Anthropic's leading investors. Investors would follow a similar process to buy an IPO stock like Anthropic when it goes public. Once shares become available, fill in your brokerage account's order page with the AI company's selected stock ticker and submit your trade.

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