Little fish, big pond: Anthropic’s IPO is open to Canadian retail investors

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company behind the popular Claude chatbot, is preparing for one of the biggest initial public offerings in history, and Canadian retail investors have a chance to buy shares before they begin trading on the stock market.

The company plans to set aside up to 20 per cent of the shares offered in its IPO for retail investors in select markets, a larger allocation than is typical for major U.S. offerings where shares have historically gone primarily to institutional investors and wealthy clients.

At the same time, although Anthropic’s IPO could be worth as much as US$64.35-billion, that represents only a fraction of the company’s estimated US$1.4-trillion valuation. Existing shareholders are expected to retain about 91 per cent of the company’s outstanding shares after the IPO and a separate private placement, according to the prospectus Anthropic filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

For retail investors, the limited number of shares being offered could make it harder to secure an allocation at the IPO price.

Canadian investor access to Anthropic’s mega IPO likely more limited than SpaceX’s offering

The offering comes as more Canadian investment platforms open up access to IPOs. But getting access to an offering doesn’t guarantee investors will receive shares, and buying at the IPO’s launch price comes with risks, experts say.

Anthropic says it expects to offer 825 million shares at between US$70 and US$78 each, although the final price could change depending on investor demand.

In Canada, six financial institutions are expected to participate in the retail offering: BMO Capital Markets, CIBC Capital Markets, RBC Capital Markets, Scotiabank, TD Securities and Wealthsimple, according to Anthropic, which has filed a preliminary Canadian prospectus.

Some major banks have shared details about participating in the IPO directly with their clients, while Wealthsimple has publicly outlined the process for eligible investors.

To participate, eligible investors submit a request indicating how many shares they would like to purchase. Wealthsimple then sets aside enough cash to cover the request at the top of the expected price range, plus a 20-per-cent buffer in case the final offering price is higher.

Anthropic eyes up to $1.4-trillion valuation in blockbuster IPO

For example, an investor requesting 10 Anthropic shares would need approximately US$930 available in their account, based on the upper end of the preliminary price range and the additional buffer. The investor would ultimately pay only for the shares they receive, at the final offering price.

But requesting shares does not guarantee an investor will receive them. If demand exceeds supply, investors may receive only a fraction of the shares they requested, or none at all.

That was the case for Jonathan Platt, 27, who in June requested 345 shares ahead of the IPO of Apotex Health Corp. APTX-T, Canada’s largest drug manufacturer, through Wealthsimple. At an estimated price of $20 to $24 a share, his request would cost roughly $10,000. He ultimately received just 26 shares, according to screenshots reviewed by The Globe and Mail.

Wealthsimple uses a weighted random selection process to determine which eligible clients receive shares, with certain clients receiving higher priority.

The platform also has rules aimed at discouraging investors from quickly selling their IPO shares for a profit, a practice known as flipping.

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Canadians who don’t receive shares through the IPO can still purchase Anthropic stock once the company begins trading on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT. However, they will pay the market price, which could be higher or lower than the IPO price.

Investors who bought into SpaceX’s highly anticipated IPO earlier this year would currently be sitting on gains of about 3.5 per cent, slightly better than the S&P 500 index as a whole, though with significantly more volatility. But investors who bought shares when SpaceX began trading on June 12 would be nursing losses of around 19 per cent, against a 2.5 per cent gain in the broader market.

When investors do gain early access to an IPO, strong returns are far from guaranteed.

A 2025 study by researchers in the U.S. and China found that IPO access products that offer shares to retail investors at the same price as institutional investors underperformed those not offered to retail investors by roughly 20 percentage points during their first year as public companies.

The researchers attributed the gap partly to more aggressive pricing and partly to attention-driven retail trading, with investors piling into offerings that generate online buzz.

Sam Mitter, senior portfolio manager at Ninepoint Partners, said that bankers pricing IPOs want to price them at levels that generate enthusiasm, adding that an implied valuation of 12 times sales for Anthropic if it prices its IPO around US$76 is “not egregious in the tech industry.”