As developer Anthropic targets a November public debut with a projected $2 trillion valuation, institutional investors and asset managers are applying harsh lessons learned from SpaceX’s volatile market entry, reshaping how upcoming exchange-traded funds and retail offerings approach high-profile artificial intelligence IPOs.
The upcoming public offering for Anthropic is targeting a November listing, slipping somewhat from initial timelines while maintaining expectations to rival or surpass the largest market debuts on record. Financial investment industry projections place the expected market capitalization around $2 trillion with an offering size of roughly $100 billion. If those targets hold, the developer behind the AI chatbot Claude would rank sixth in U.S. market capitalization, sitting just behind tech giants like Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Nvidia.
Yet the road to the public markets looks distinctly different today following the turbulent market performance of Space Exploration Technologies. When SpaceX went public in June, it commanded a record-breaking $1.77 trillion valuation after raising nearly $86 billion in funding. Within days, that valuation surged briefly to $2.7 trillion before heavy spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure triggered a severe market correction.
The SpaceX Market Correction and AI Infrastructure Spending
The primary driver behind the SpaceX sell-off was investor anxiety over capital expenditures directed toward artificial intelligence. SpaceX capital expenditures jumped 308% in the first six months of the year compared to 2025, reaching $28.5 billion against sales of just $12.5 billion over that same period, according to financial research. Eighty-six percent of that spending went toward AI operations, including the Grok chatbot and Colossus data centers built to sell computing capacity.
That heavy spending footprint triggered a massive market repricing. After briefly hitting $201.80 per share and trading as high as $225.64 following its Nasdaq debut at $150, SpaceX shares fell sharply, trading around $104.83 at points. The stock price decline wiped out more than $1 trillion from the company’s valuation over a single one-month span.
For Anthropic, the financial scale could amplify those exact pressures. Anthropic recently reported an annualized revenue run rate of $65 billion, nearly seven times its total sales from 2025. However, analysts point out that Anthropic has not yet disclosed its capital expenditure figures, and market observers assume the company is spending aggressively to expand its computing capacity, potentially exceeding SpaceX’s infrastructure outlays.
“Know what the heck you’re buying, number one. Know what it’s actually worth, number two.”
David Shapiro, CEO of OpenVC
Shapiro noted that sophisticated investors who held pre-IPO shares often left retail buyers in closed structures holding significant premiums, leaving many underwater as public trading settled below early peaks. Morningstar equity strategies principal Jack Shannon noted that while SpaceX maintained a diversified business model outside of artificial intelligence, Anthropic is positioned entirely within the AI sector, making investor portfolios potentially more sensitive to tech-sector concentration.
ETF Preparation Shifts and the Zero-Allocation Backlash
Asset managers across international markets are altering their strategies ahead of the Anthropic filing, directly reacting to regulatory and investor fallout from the SpaceX listing. South Korean asset managers rushed to launch related ETFs ahead of the June SpaceX debut to secure early positioning, but secured zero IPO share allocations, triggering investor complaints of misleading advertising and drawing an on-site inspection from the Financial Supervisory Service.
Regulatory bodies have taken notice. The Financial Supervisory Service launched an on-site inspection, explicitly citing the SpaceX ETF incident as an example of inadequate marketing practices.
As a result, fund managers preparing products targeting Anthropic and OpenAI are adopting conservative index inclusion rules. NH-Amundi Asset Management is structuring its upcoming HANARO US Agentic AI TOP2+ product so that inclusion occurs on D+2, two days after listing, based on the closing price on the day after listing.
“The ETF we are preparing to launch has no plans to directly participate in large-scale IPO offerings.”
Kim Seung-chul, head of NH-Amundi Asset Management’s ETF Investment Division
Several U.S. and international exchange-traded funds already carry early exposures to artificial intelligence infrastructure, though portfolio dilution remains a persistent risk. Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Athanasios Psarofagis noted that as more investors piled into funds like XOVR for SpaceX exposure, the underlying asset weight diluted significantly. Existing funds carrying tech and innovation allocations, such as the Tema Photonics and Optical ETF and the Alger Concentrated Equity ETF, already maintain positions ranging from 5% to 15% in related sector names, though retail investors must vet individual fund weightings carefully before buying in.
Retail Access Channels and Market Volatility Risks
For individual investors attempting to secure direct stock allocations rather than fund exposure, broker availability remains a critical hurdle. Traditional retail barriers historically reserved the vast majority of true IPO shares for institutional clients, forcing everyday investors to purchase shares on the open market after public trading commenced.
Whether Anthropic will carve out a similar retail allocation path remains unconfirmed.
Historical market data underlines the risks of diving into high-profile tech debuts immediately on opening day. Jefferies research spanning more than two decades of public offerings shows that companies valued at $10 billion or more at launch average a 26.5% return in their first week, but that gain narrows to an average of just 3.5% over the first 12 months following debut. With broader technology stocks facing recent calls for an AI spending slowdown, market participants are weighing historical volatility against future sector growth as Anthropic’s November listing approaches.