Anthropic IPO enthralls India's uber-rich, but where are the shares?
India's ultra-rich are coveting shares in Anthropic's upcoming mega initial public offering (IPO), as the superhit IPO of SpaceX in June and a shortage of domestic artificial intelligence (AI) offerings add to the allure of American AI giant.
Wealth managers are fielding inquiries from technology founders, family offices, and business executives across the country, after the maker of Claude filed papers for its IPO last week. However, stock availability is scarce in private markets, and access for anyone outside major American and European markets is expected to be extremely limited, they said on condition of anonymity.
"Quite a few of our clients have enquired more than once over the last week about investment opportunities in Anthropic. But getting them those shares is easier said than done at this point," a Mumbai-based wealth manager for ultra-high-networth individuals said.
Anthropic represents a compelling opportunity at the intersection of AI and enterprise technology, and a certain fear-of-missing-out factor around such a marquee listing is inevitable among HNIs, said Prakash Bulusu, joint chief executive at IIFL Capital. While tech entrepreneurs, globally oriented family offices and younger-generation business leaders are natural early adopters of global AI investments, "Traditional business families are also exploring the theme, viewing AI as a long-term portfolio opportunity," he said.
SpaceX made a historic stock market debut in June, surging over 30.8% on Day One, before closing 19% above its offer price. The blockbuster IPO made its founder Elon Musk the world's first dollar trillionaire, as his net worth briefly crossed the $1 trillion milestone. After scaling 67% above IPO price, the stock has since seen a volatile pullback, closing just below its IPO price of $135 a share on Friday.
The IPO is expected to raise $100 billion and value Anthropic at up to $1.5 trillion, but intense demand is expected to limit share allocations through established channels and bulge bracket market makers. What makes it even more difficult for Indian investors is that India is not included in the international portion of the offering which includes the likes of Australia, Canada, certain member states of the European Economic Area, Japan, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
"Realistically, getting shares through the IPO is off the table for any Indian client," a second wealth manager working at an exchange-listed company said. "But interest is unusually high, so we are suggesting participation after the IPO through direct exchange offerings like the liquid stock, exchange-traded funds, or proxy plays like Amazon, Google, TSMC and Samsung."
Indirect exposure through major Anthropic's investors like Amazon.com Inc. and Google maker Alphabet Inc., as well as through companies in Anthropic's semiconductor supply chain like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. is not an isolated strategy.
Bloomberg had reported on 28 October that Asian investors interested in Anthropic's IPO were looking at the company's listed shareholders, crypto derivatives offering exposure and semiconductor stocks related to the firm in order to participate in a potential high-pop stock listing.
The closest Indian parallels to Anthropic and OpenAI are a handful of government-funded startups—Soket AI, BharatGen, a non-profit entity incubated at IIT Bombay, and others—that are still in their early stages. Only Sarvam AI, which has reached a valuation of $1 billion or more, has launched a consumer-facing product. None has unveiled enterprise offerings yet. Two other entities worth noting are publicly listed Fractal Analytics and Sharad Sanghi-backed Neysa AI, which operate in AI infrastructure and enterprise AI, respectively. However, neither is a pure-play generative AI model builder.
"For clients who are showing interest, we are advising them to avoid secondary market investments in Anthropic right now," said a wealth manager handling clients in Bengaluru and Gurugram. "Participating through listed proxy vehicles is currently the most mainstream and best approach."
However, in India, cross-border transfers operate under the Reserve Bank of India's Liberalized Remittance Scheme limit of $250,000 per person annually, and this might make any attempts to take a large exposure to US late-stage high-value startup space difficult. "The LRS limit can constrain resident individuals seeking meaningful overseas exposure, particularly across multiple opportunities. It makes careful portfolio planning essential, with investors balancing global diversification, regulatory limits and concentration risk."
Despite this underlying operational constraint, HNI capital seeking direct exposure to foundational large language models or specialized AI semiconductor supply chains is constantly looking toward overseas channels as India's own tech listings remain concentrated in legacy IT services firms and consumer internet platforms.