How to Invest in Anthropic Via ETFs and Term Trusts

So, you want to invest in Anthropic, one of the most closely watched AI startups of this cycle, but you do not want to wait for an eventual IPO. That is a reasonable concern. Pre-IPO hype, thin floats, and post-listing volatility tend to reward insiders more than retail investors.

There are ways to gain exposure today, and they do not involve sketchy tokenized stocks or platforms claiming to “democratize” private assets while charging hedge-fund-level fees. Instead, some publicly traded vehicles already hold stakes in Anthropic or similar late-stage private companies.

These options are not all ETFs. In fact, some of the more meaningful exposure shows up in less familiar structures, notably term trusts. Each comes with real trade-offs around liquidity, transparency, fees, and how much Anthropic exposure you are actually getting.

Below is a look at two brokerage-traded fund options that retail investors can buy today to gain indirect exposure to Anthropic, along with what you need to understand before choosing any of them.

The ETF option

Obviously, I am a bit biased here, but my preference is still an ETF. What many investors may not realize is that under SEC Rule 22e-4, ETFs are allowed to hold up to 15% of their assets in illiquid investments. That carve-out has opened the door for private credit and private equity, to be included inside an ETF.

You still get most of the structural benefits ETFs are known for. Portfolios are transparent, shares trade intraday like a stock, and access is simple a brokerage account. The trade-off is that when you start mixing public and private assets, bid-ask spreads can widen, especially during periods of market stress.

For Anthropic exposure, the ETF I like most is the KraneShares Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF (AGIX). The majority of the portfolio is invested in public companies that track the Solactive Etna Artificial General Intelligence Index. That includes familiar AI and semiconductor names such as Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Alphabet, Apple, Broadcom, Taiwan Semiconductor, and Amazon.

What makes AGIX different is its private allocation sleeve. The fund currently holds a 3.52% stake in SpaceX, which now also captures exposure to xAI following their recent merger. More importantly for this discussion, AGIX holds a 2.73% allocation to Anthropic.

That detail matters because of how the exposure is structured. Many funds access private companies through special purpose vehicles, or SPVs. An SPV is essentially a pooled entity created to hold a private investment on behalf of multiple investors. While convenient, SPVs often introduce additional layers of fees, governance opacity, and liquidity constraints.

AGIX does not use SPVs for these holdings. The ETF sits directly on the capitalization table for its private equity positions and can participate in secondary market transactions. For late-stage companies like Anthropic, this improves flexibility and price discovery relative to many other retail-accessible vehicles.

The main drawback is cost. The expense ratio is 0.99%, which is high by ETF standards. That said, as you will see when we get into the closed-end funds and term trusts, AGIX is actually the cheapest option among the vehicles that offer meaningful Anthropic exposure.

The term trust option

The second option is one you may have seen in your brokerage search bar and dismissed: the BlackRock Science and Technology Term Trust (BSTZ). This is not an ETF. It is a closed-ended fund with a stated 12-year life that began on June 25, 2019.

A term trust is designed to liquidate or return capital to shareholders at or near the end of its term, typically at net asset value. BSTZ does include a contingent feature that allows it to convert into a perpetual fund, meaning the trust could continue indefinitely rather than winding down.

BSTZ is actively managed and follows a hybrid public and private investment approach. The bulk of the portfolio is invested in large-cap public technology and AI-related companies, with Nvidia featuring prominently. Where BSTZ becomes more interesting, and more complex, is its private allocation sleeve.

As of January 30, 2026, BSTZ holds a 2.19% allocation to Anthropic. However, that is not its largest private position. The biggest is Databricks at 17.28% of the portfolio. It also holds a 2.38% position in ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. That private lineup is undeniably compelling.

Structurally, though, this is where the trade-offs begin. Unlike open-ended ETFs, close-ended term trusts do not have a creation and redemption mechanism to keep market prices aligned with NAV. ETFs rely on authorized participants to arbitrage differences between the trading price and the underlying value of the portfolio. That mechanism does not exist here.

As a result, BSTZ can and does trade at premiums or discounts to its NAV depending on investor demand (or a lack of it). As of February 6, 2026, the trust was trading at a -10.9% discount to NAV, which is not unusual for closed-ended vehicles.

Another consideration is income. Many term trusts are explicitly yield-focused, and BSTZ is no exception. It currently offer a distribution rate of about 8.6% with monthly payouts. In a taxable account, those distributions can also create meaningful tax drag, depending on their composition.

Cost is the final sticking point. BSTZ charges a 1.25% base management fee, plus roughly 0.23% in additional operating expenses, for a gross expense ratio of about 1.48%. That is substantially higher than AGIX, and represents a real hurdle for long-term compounding.