Several of the UK’s top investment platforms have begun accepting orders from retail investors for shares in Anthropic, as the Claude maker gears up for one of one of the biggest IPOs of all time.

The AI firm is set to list on the Nasdaq on 19 November and is targeting a $1.4 trillion valuation (£1.1 trillion), according to the latest company filings. Investment bankers are now weighing plans to increase the group’s IPO price after heavy investor demand, according to reports. 

London-based fintech platform RetailBook has been appointed to co-ordinate the retail offer in the UK, with Anthropic issuing 825,000,000 shares at an estimated price of $70 to $78 per share, with 20 per cent of the offer being reserved for retail investors. It is unconfirmed how many shares will be issued to the UK.

Typically, under US listing rules, IPOs are off-limits to international retail investors, but the firm is using the Financial Conduct Authority’s public offer platform (POP) regime to grant UK investors access. SpaceX became the first company to use the regime in its blockbuster June IPO.

Platforms taking part in the share sale are AJ Bell, Hargreaves Lansdown, Robinhood, Interactive Investor, Interactive Brokers, Revolut and Etoro.

Investors will have until 18 November to purchase shares.

Minimum applications

Despite all participating in the sale, platforms have issued differing minimum investment requirements for clients.

Hargreaves Lansdown has confirmed a minimum of £250 must be allocated by clients, while AJ Bell opted for a minimum of £1,000 per investor.

Some platforms noted that their interest in taking part stemmed from the success of SpaceX’s UK share sale in June. More than 100,000 UK investors applied for almost $1bn of the space technology firm’s stocks.

 A number of investors received as much as $135,000, while others were unable to get all the shares they applied for due to the surge in interest.

Those investors benefitted from a first-day pop in the share price of 19.2 per cent. Despite its post-IPO tumble it remains one of the most popular stock holdings for UK investors.

Simon Belsham, chief client officer at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Companies sell shares to institutions globally when they go public, and with new technology and regulation, it makes little sense to leave out retail investors.

“As demonstrated by SpaceX, opening IPOs to individual investors worldwide gives companies a deeper, more diverse pool of demand, and gives… clients the chance to invest at the offer price and become owners from day one.”

Hargreaves Lansdown clients accounted for roughly half the demand for SpaceX’s UK debut, with 73 per cent still holding on to their shares after six months.

Questions of interest

The share sale comes despite last week’s mass tech sell-off, which saw $2.5 trillion be wiped off the Nasdaq Composite index on Thursday.

Some market analysts believe the slide in the broader AI sector, coupled with Anthropic’s IPO valuation coming in below earlier estimations of $2 trillion, may weigh on UK investor demand.

Speaking to , David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation, said: “The fact that [Anthropic] have said forget about $2 trillion… we know that’s not realistic anymore but we’re still going ahead,”

“Is that quite positive or is it absolutely desperate? And is this their last chance to get some money before another serious implosion?” 

But UK investors with a high appetite for risk may also get the chance to make a leveraged bet on Anthropic from its first day of trading.

Leveraged Shares plans to list a 3x Long Anthropic exchange-traded product (ETP) on the London Stock Exchange ahead of the IPO, with the vehicle holding cash until Anthropic actually floats.