Anthropic, the AI lab behind Claude, was valued at roughly $380 billion at its February 2026 Series G, with talks since reported above $900 billion. There is no IPO date on the calendar, and direct shares are walled off by accreditation rules, six-figure minimums, and Anthropic's own approval over who joins its cap table. This guide is about how to actually trade Anthropic exposure today, with no minimums and no KYC.
What does Anthropic do?
Anthropic builds Claude, one of the top-tier frontier model families, with particular strength in coding and agentic workflows. Revenue is enterprise- and API-weighted, the higher-margin side of AI, and compute is backed by both Amazon (AWS, Trainium) and Google (GCP, TPUs), each pairing equity with multi-year cloud commitments.
Anthropic is a Delaware public benefit corporation, and an independent Long-Term Benefit Trust holds a growing share of board-election power, meaning the board is legally permitted to weigh the company's safety mission alongside shareholder returns.
Fundraising history
Anthropic's valuation history tells a story of extraordinary investor demand. The Series F in September 2025 raised roughly $13 billion at about a $183 billion post-money valuation. The Series G in February 2026, led by GIC and Coatue, raised roughly $30 billion at about a $380 billion post-money. In April 2026, Google added roughly $40 billion alongside an Amazon investment. And by May 2026, talks of a further raise were reported at a level above $900 billion.
The perpetual future (the trader's instrument)
A perp is a synthetic, cash-settled contract that tracks Anthropic's implied valuation. No SPVs, no cap-table involvement, no share transfer of any kind; it is a derivative whose price moves with the market's running estimate of what Anthropic is worth. For most traders looking at this page, this is the primary instrument.
Long or short. Unlike any spot pre-IPO product, you can take either direction. Bullish on the next primary round repricing higher? Go long. Think secondary markets overshot? You can short. That freedom to express both directions is the single biggest reason traders choose the perp.
Leverage. Leverage is available but capped lower than on liquid public-market perps. Private-company implied valuation is genuinely more volatile and less continuously priced, and the caps exist to protect users from getting wiped out on a thin print or a delayed reference update. Use the leverage deliberately; "more" is rarely the right answer here.
Funding mechanism. The perp has no expiry. Instead, a periodic funding rate is paid between longs and shorts to keep the contract tethered to the reference valuation. If the contract trades above the reference, longs pay shorts; below, shorts pay longs. Funding is your cost, or yield, of holding the position over time; check it before sizing into a multi-day trade.
Reference valuation. Because there is no continuous spot market for private shares, the reference is estimated from secondary transactions on platforms such as Nasdaq Private Markets and updated regularly. The reference can jump on news, which is part of what makes the perp useful.
When is the perp the right tool? Short-term directional bets, hedging a spot position, expressing a view on a specific catalyst such as a round, IPO progress, or a news event, or trading both sides of a secondary-market dislocation.
The PreStocks token (the investor's instrument)
If you want spot-like, buy-and-hold exposure rather than a leveraged trade, PreStocks is the other route. It is backed 1:1 by a first-layer SPV that holds real Anthropic shares, with no derivative-backed wrappers, ownership verified up to the cap table, and fund managers vetted before tokenization. Redemption settles in stablecoins a few months after the IPO, when the SPV becomes redeemable. It is the instrument for a longer horizon, not for trading.
The rule of thumb: PreStocks for conviction and size, perps for active trading or hedging. Most traders coming to Anthropic for the first time start with the token, and the two coexist in the same Freeport account, so choosing one does not close off the other.
Bull and bear
Bull. A top-tier model family with leadership in the commercially valuable coding and agentic-workflow niche, enterprise-weighted revenue, dual compute backing from Amazon and Google, and a safety-first brand that helps with regulators and risk-conscious enterprise buyers.
Bear. A valuation pressing toward $1 trillion prices in years of flawless execution. Compute costs are enormous and profitability is unproven. Competition from OpenAI, Google, and others is relentless. The PBC and Long-Term Benefit Trust structure places a social mission alongside obligations to shareholders, and no IPO date is set.
Frequently asked questions
Can I buy Anthropic stock before the IPO? Not as a registered share, unless you are an accredited investor clearing six-figure minimums and approved by Anthropic. But you can take a tradable position on Anthropic's valuation through a perpetual future on Freeport, or hold a 1:1 SPV-backed PreStocks token.
What is the Anthropic perp? A bet on Anthropic's valuation. Long or short, with capped leverage, funded between longs and shorts, no expiry. Synthetic and cash-settled, no SPV.
Can I short Anthropic on Freeport? Yes, through the perpetual future. The spot PreStocks token is long-only.
How is the perp's reference valuation calculated? From a combination of recent secondary transactions, updated regularly. The reference can jump on news, which is part of why the instrument is useful around events.
When is the Anthropic IPO? No confirmed date. Anthropic has kept raising large private rounds rather than moving toward a listing.
Do I own Anthropic shares through Freeport? No. Both instruments are wrappers: economic exposure, not registered equity, and no voting rights.
What is Anthropic worth right now? Its most recent reported primary talks are around $900 billion. Secondary markets have at times implied higher.
Read more from the Freeport research team on the Freeport Logbook.
Freeport Logbook