Australians can now apply for shares in Anthropic, the company behind Claude, before they start trading in the US. The Australian part of its float opened on Wednesday 11 November and is due to close at 5pm AEDT on Tuesday 17 November, according to the Australian prospectus Anthropic lodged with ASIC on 10 November.
It works differently from a normal ASX float. You apply for a dollar amount without knowing the final price, the shares will trade only on Nasdaq, and the prospectus says plainly that you may get fewer shares than you asked for, or none. Here’s how it works, what it costs, and the risks Anthropic itself lists.
What’s on offer, and the key dates
The Australian offer is for newly issued Class A shares in Anthropic, PBC, a Delaware public benefit corporation. Anthropic has applied to list them on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker “ANT”. The prospectus says: “No application will be made for shares of our Class A Common Stock to be listed on the ASX or any other stock exchange other than Nasdaq.”
The estimated price range is US$70 to US$78 a share. At the Reserve Bank’s 11 November rate of US$0.6878, that’s roughly A$101.77 to A$113.41 a share, though what you actually pay in Australian dollars will depend on your broker’s exchange rate and fees. The final price can be set below, within or above that range.
The prospectus timetable, in AEDT, is:
- 11 November: Australian offer opens
- 5pm, 17 November: Australian offer closes (your broker can set an earlier cut-off)
- 19 November: final price set
- 20 November: shares expected to start trading on Nasdaq
- 21 November: settlement, when successful applicants are issued their shares
Anthropic says all those dates are indicative and can change. Its own IPO site gives the same timing in US Eastern time: pricing on 18 November and trading from 19 November.
The global offer is 825 million shares, not counting an overallotment option of up to 123.75 million more. There is no set number of shares for Australia. Separately, Google, NVIDIA, AMD, Broadcom, Micron, Microsoft and TSMC have agreed to buy US$26 billion of a different class of shares (Class N) in a private placement at the IPO price. At the US$74 midpoint, the prospectus puts Anthropic’s market capitalisation at about US$968.4 billion, based on Class A and Class N shares on issue after the offer. Some coverage uses bigger numbers: the Australian Financial Review described a “proposed $US1.4 trillion ($2 trillion) listing”. The figure you see depends on which shares are counted. We’ve used the prospectus figure.
How to apply, and which brokers are involved
You can only apply through a participating broker. Anthropic’s help centre lists eight for Australia: Bell Potter, CommSec, LGT Wealth, Macquarie, Morgans, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, Sharesies and Stake. It says: “In these jurisdictions, Anthropic has not authorized any other firm or platform to offer, or to advertise access to, shares in the proposed retail offerings.”
There’s no brokerage on the offer itself. The prospectus says “No brokerage, commission or stamp duty is payable by Applicants on acquisition of Shares under the Australian Offer”. Currency conversion is a different matter. Each broker sets its own rules, and the two that have published detailed instructions work quite differently:
- CommSec (lead retail broker): according to its IPO Help Centre, you need a CommSec share trading account, a linked CDIA and an International Shares Account, and you must apply online through its IPO Centre. Opening the international account “may take up to 5 business days”. There is no minimum application, and you can apply in Australian dollars. If you do, CommSec converts the money to US dollars and deducts a 0.55% foreign exchange fee, which is A$5.50 on every A$1,000. The money is debited from your International Wallet within 24 hours. CommSec also says that “Once your IPO application is submitted, you will not be able to amend or cancel it.”
- Stake: its support page says you apply in US dollars from a Stake Wall St account. The minimum is US$500 (about A$727 at the RBA rate) and the maximum is US$50 million, with one active application per account. Stake says you can cancel in the app before the offer closes. Allocated shares are due in your account on Saturday 21 November.
- The other six brokers have their own processes. Check eligibility, cut-off times, currency and fees with them directly.
Two practical points. First, if you aren’t already set up for international shares with CommSec, its five-business-day account-opening estimate could run past the 17 November close. Second, the prospectus says that, “To the extent permitted by law, an Application is irrevocable”. Stake’s cancellation window is a feature of its own platform, so read your broker’s terms rather than assuming you can change your mind. The AFR also reported that CommSec had warned of delays because of higher-than-usual call volumes on opening day.
What you won’t know when you apply
This is the part that catches people out. The prospectus says “you will not know the Final Price at the time you are required to apply for Shares under the Australian Offer and will remain bound to acquire any allocation of Shares you receive regardless of whether the Final Price is above, below or within the Estimated Price Range”.
- You apply for a dollar amount, not a number of shares. A higher final price means fewer shares for the same money.
- You might be scaled back or get nothing. Anthropic and the underwriters decide how many shares go to Australia after the offer closes, and each broker then decides how to split its share among clients.
- Refunds can shrink. Unused money is refunded without interest, and the prospectus warns that the refund “may be less than your Application Payment due to foreign exchange conversion and associated conversion costs charged by your Broker”.
- There is no cooling-off period. The prospectus says: “Cooling off rights do not apply to an investment in shares of Class A Common Stock pursuant to the Australian Offer”.
What the numbers in the prospectus show
Anthropic’s revenue has grown very quickly. The US prospectus reports revenue of US$4.585 billion for calendar 2025 (audited) and US$33.242 billion for the nine months to 30 September 2026 (unaudited), up from US$2.545 billion a year earlier. Its IPO site gives September-quarter revenue of US$17.0 billion.
The losses look enormous, but mostly for accounting reasons. Over those nine months Anthropic made an operating loss of US$1.26 billion and a net loss of US$104.0 billion. Most of the net loss came from a US$94.3 billion non-cash charge for the change in fair value of convertible notes, derivative liabilities and SAFEs, which the company says was driven mainly by the rise in its own valuation. Spending on compute and infrastructure was US$18.8 billion for the period. These are the company’s own figures, and the 2026 numbers have not been audited.
Anthropic doesn’t expect to pay dividends “in the foreseeable future”. It also doesn’t present the IPO as a way for ordinary shareholders to gain control. The prospectus says its structure means its Long-Term Benefit Trust (the LTBT) and the Founder LLC, an entity whose members will initially be its seven co-founders, “will collectively have the ability to elect all members of our board of directors, and the Founder LLC will have the ability to determine the outcome of all matters submitted to a vote of our stockholders generally for the foreseeable future”.
How this differs from buying into an ASX float
The Australian supplement spends several pages on this. The main points for local investors are:
- Tax: dividends, if any are ever paid, would carry no franking credits and would generally be subject to US withholding tax. Foreign currency gains or losses on US-dollar amounts may also have tax consequences. The prospectus tells investors to get their own tax advice.
- Currency: shares are priced and traded in US dollars, so movements in the Australian dollar affect your returns.
- Trading hours: Nasdaq trades overnight Australian time, and the prospectus warns that Australians “may also have limited ability to respond to market developments in real time”.
- Protections: the ASX governance principles, the Corporations Act takeover rules and Australia’s continuous disclosure regime won’t apply. Anthropic will report under US rules, including quarterly 10-Q and event-driven 8-K filings.
- Legal claims: Anthropic’s directors and officers live outside Australia, and the prospectus says enforcing Australian judgments against them may be difficult.
Watch for fake offers
High-profile floats attract scammers. Anthropic has named its eight authorised Australian brokers, and you can get the genuine prospectus from ipo.anthropic.com or through those brokers. Treat anything else offering “pre-IPO” Anthropic shares, guaranteed allocations or discounted stock with suspicion. ASIC’s Moneysmart checklist lists red flags, including an offer that “has an investment prospectus that isn’t registered with ASIC”. It also advises against relying on contact details or links supplied in an unsolicited offer.
Our read
This section is analysis, not financial advice. Direct access to a US tech float at the IPO price is still uncommon for Australian retail investors, and Anthropic’s revenue growth is remarkable on any measure. But this offer suits people who are comfortable with three things at once. You commit money before you know the price, you hold a US-dollar asset that trades while you sleep, and you own shares with very little say over how the company is run. The prospectus is unusually frank about all three, and it says investing “involves a high degree of risk” and that “you may lose all or part of your investment”.
Australia is also tightening the rules for AI companies. On 10 November the Prime Minister announced mandatory safety and security requirements for frontier AI companies that want to operate here, which the government proposes be enforced by a new AI safety regulator. CNBC noted that the offer opened as Australia tightens oversight of AI companies after an OpenAI agent’s unauthorised access to a Medicare statistics website, an incident we covered in October. Anthropic’s own risk factors cover regulation at length, and investors should read that section rather than rely on the headline growth figures. For background on how the float took shape, see our September report on Anthropic’s valuation and NVIDIA’s interest.
This article is based on Anthropic’s Australian prospectus dated 10 November 2026, Anthropic’s IPO and help-centre pages, CommSec’s and Stake’s published offer pages (all checked on Wednesday 11 November 2026, AEDT) and the reports linked above. It is general information only and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Consider the prospectus and, if needed, get licensed financial advice before applying. We’ll update the article if the price range or timetable changes.
Featured image: Anthropic co-founder and chief executive Dario Amodei speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt, September 2023 (file photo). Photo: TechCrunch via Flickr and Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 2.0; resized and converted to PNG. No endorsement by the photographer or TechCrunch is implied.
