Investors who don't want to wait for Anthropic to go public have some solid options for buying into the company now via an ETF.
Anthropic's stock could begin trading just before Thanksgiving in what is expected to be a record-breaking IPO. But Tom Essaye, editor of the Sevens Report, points out that "only a small percentage of investors typically get access to private or IPO deal shares." He adds that "the good news is there are everyday-investor-accessible funds that provide exposure" to the Claude developer, as well as to other private companies.
Two in particular pique our interest.
The first, the Corgi MANGOS ETF, has about 9% of its assets invested in Anthropic via derivatives and special purpose vehicles (SPVs) that provide indirect exposure to the company. Since these instruments are different from stock, investors should be aware that while they are gaining what Corgi chief investment strategist Jeff Weniger calls an "economic interest" in Anthropic, they are not buying a direct stake.
MANGOS is an acronym that refers to Meta Platforms, Anthropic, Nvidia, Google parent company Alphabet, privately held OpenAI, the creator of Claude rival OpenAI, and SpaceX. The Corgi ETF has a 4% weighting in OpenAI, and stakes in the other four publicly traded companies.
The main knock on this fund is that it is ultra-concentrated. Nearly all of its holdings are tied up in the six "MANGOS" companies. (The ETF has less than 1% of its assets in cash.) But it has a relatively small expense ratio of just 0.2%. So investors aren't paying an arm and a leg in fees. The ETF is new, though, having just launched in early October. And it's down about 10% since its inception, due to the volatility in tech stocks.
Another relatively new fund, the Tema Photonics & Optical ETF, has 10.5% of its assets allocated to Anthropic, based on an Anthropic valuation of $1.4 trillion, which is slightly less than the expected market capitalization for the company once it begins trading.
The Tema fund's expense ratio is a bit higher than the Corgi fund, but is still relatively low at 0.75%. The ETF has also been whipsawed by big moves in AI stocks, and is down about 27% since its inception on June 29. The Tema fund also isn't as concentrated. It has 25 holdings, including publicly traded Lumentum, AXT and German tech firm Aixtron.
Despite the fund's rather specific name, its holdings are meant to capture hardware components and other companies that are benefiting from the increased adoption of AI, which is why it includes Anthropic.
"AI's bottleneck isn't limited to just chips. It's moving data between chips, servers, and data centers fast enough. As copper approaches its physical limits, light-based optical connections become essential," explains Paisley Nardini, head of investment strategy with Tema ETFs. "Anthropic is one of the largest sources of that demand. Holding Anthropic alongside companies like Lumentum, AXT and Aixtron means investors own the customer and the suppliers in one ticker."
Other funds that have exposure to Anthropic carry higher fees.
The Fundrise Innovation Fund, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange and also has positions in OpenAI as well as private companies Databricks, Anduril and Canva, has an expense ratio of 1.85%.
The Destiny Tech100, a closed-end fund that began trading on the NYSE in March 2024, is even more pricey, with an expense ratio of 2.5%. In addition to Anthropic and OpenAI, the fund has interests in Databricks, Revolut, Kraken, Stripe, and Discord. It's larger than its newer rivals too, with $1.3 billion in assets. By way of comparison, the Corgi fund has just $70 million in assets while Tema's ETF has $185 million. The Fundrise fund, which began trading on the NYSE in March, has $890 million in assets.
Essaye also noted that there's Cathie Wood's ARK Venture Fund, a closed-end interval fund. (Interval funds do not trade on public exchanges like ETFs do.) ARK Venture has stakes in both Anthropic and OpenAI as well as Kalshi, Stripe, Databricks, Discord, and Revolut. It charges a 2.9% expense ratio, but it's relatively large, with $1.3 billion in assets, and also more diversified than its peers. The fund has 85 holdings.
These aren't the only funds with exposure to Anthropic, either. Morningstar noted that there are a couple more MANGOS ETFs, such as the Leverage Shares MANGOS ETF and Yorkville America MANGOS Plus Index ETF, with Anthropic as a holding. Other more diversified tech funds, inlcuding the Alger Concentrated Equity ETF and T. Rowe Price Technology ETF, have stakes too.
Just remember that none of these funds will give investors direct positions in Anthropic's common stock. You'll have to wait for the days leading up to the actual IPO. That's when the underwriters will allocate actual shares to institutional money managers and, potentially, retail brokerages. Meanwhile, these ETFs can trade at significant premiums (or discounts) to the value of the underlying stakes.
The good news for investors looking for slices of Anthropic and other hot private companies before their Wall Street debuts is that there are options. But as is the case with any IPO, it pays to be cautious. Newly listed stocks can be volatile. IPOs are inherently risky. Investors who wait for some of the inevitable hype surrounding Anthropic to die down a bit might wind up being the most thankful of all.
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