I've built many startups. Several failed, a few worked, and none of them ever had an IPO page. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, now has one: ipo.anthropic.com. It has a feature that caught my eye, because it's aimed at people like my mom, not hedge funds.
Regular people can ask for shares before the stock starts trading. That sounds simple. It isn't, and I think a lot of people will learn how it works the hard way next week.
The numbers, briefly
On November 10, Anthropic filed an updated prospectus with a price range of $70 to $78 per share. TechCrunch reports that this values the company at up to about $1.4 trillion, with 825 million Class A shares in the offering.
The official page says the price is expected to be set on November 18, with trading on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT expected on November 19.
The part that matters for normal people: Anthropic expects up to 20% of the offered shares to go to retail investors. They'll get them through Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood, SoFi and E*Trade. In big U.S. IPOs retail usually gets around 5-10%, so this is a real change.
"Requesting shares" is not buying shares
This is the part I'd explain to a friend over coffee.
When you request IPO shares in your broker app, you submit an indication of interest. Think of a waiting list at a busy restaurant where you also promise to pay for the whole table, before you know whether you'll get a seat or what the bill will be.
Anthropic's own page is clear about this:
- There is no guarantee you'll receive any of the shares you request.
- You should be ready to purchase all the shares you apply for.
- Your broker confirms your allocation on the first trading day.
Each broker also has its own rules. CNBC reports that Fidelity requires at least $25,000 in retail assets with them, and Robinhood says it only gets "a limited number of shares for each IPO". With demand this high, many requests will be partly filled or not filled at all.
Brokers also tend to dislike "flipping", meaning you get IPO shares and sell them right away. Some can limit your access to future IPOs if you do. Read your broker's rules before you click.
The part nobody puts in the headline
I like that the door is open. For years the biggest gains in tech went to people who could invest before the bell rang. Ordinary people only got the stock after the first-day pop. Giving retail a bigger slice is fairer, and I don't want to sound cynical about that.
The other side matters too, though.
An IPO is also how insiders and early investors start turning paper value into cash. TechCrunch reports that seven co-founders are each selling roughly 3.4 million shares, about $250 million each at the midpoint. That's normal and not a scandal. It does mean someone on the other side of your trade knows the company far better than you do.
Governance is another catch. TechCrunch notes that founders hold a share class with 50.1% of voting power, and a Long-Term Benefit Trust elects the board majority. If you buy Class A shares, you own a piece of the company but have very little say in it.
Then there are the finances. The official page shows Q3 2026 revenue of $17.0 billion, more than 12x year over year, and a net loss of $23.3 billion. That loss includes a $21.9 billion non-cash charge tied to the company's rising valuation. As someone whose startups lost money at a much, much smaller scale, I find that oddly comforting. Nobody gave me a trillion dollars for it, though.
What I'd do before clicking "request"
This isn't financial advice. I write PHP, not stock picks. But this is the checklist I'd run:
- Only request what you'd happily pay in full. Assume you get 100% of it.
- Assume you might get nothing, and don't plan your week around it.
- Read your broker's IPO rules: minimums, flipping policy, how they allocate (lottery, pro rata, fixed amounts).
- Decide your plan for day one in advance. The price can open far above or below the IPO price.
- Never put money you need next year into one company, however famous it is.
The page also says the registration statement isn't effective yet, so nothing can be sold until it is. Things can still change before November 18.
My take
This is probably the most "normal person" IPO a tech company this size has ever run, and I think that's good. But a door being open doesn't mean you have to run through it on day one. Some of the smartest people I know will just watch the first few weeks and decide later.
Would you request shares in this IPO, or wait and watch how it trades first? Why?
