One public stock is back door way to play boom in private Anthropic
Investors itching to jump on Anthropic, if and when it goes public, should in the meantime scoop up shares of Zoom Communications , Virtus Investment Partners chief market strategist Joe Terranova told CNBC’s “Halftime Report” on Monday. Zoom offers indirect exposure to Anthropic because it’s a large investor in the artificial intelligence darling, Terranova said. The video call company, which partnered with the maker of the AI assistant Claude in 2023, has a stake in the startup that is likely worth between $2 billion and $4 billion , according to some analysts. “If you want a publicly traded mechanism to get some exposure to Anthropic, it is through Zoom,” Terranova said. “People don’t understand the demand right now is insatiable for Claude.” Using Zoom as a way to play Anthropic comes as the private company is reportedly preparing to debut an initial public offering as early as this fall. ZM 1Y mountain Zoom shares over the past 12 months Earlier this month, Anthropic launched Claude Mythos to a limited group of users — an offering that could disrupt traditional software companies . The roll out should contribute to Anthropic’s growing market value, which has skyrocketed to nearly $400 billion, based on the implied valuation in the company’s latest funding round . That large valuation has increased investors’ appetite for Anthropic, but they’ll have to settle for buying shares of Zoom for now. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, according to Wolfe Research analysts. They recently noted Zoom is poised to see a ton of upside if and when Anthropic goes public. “We … want to highlight Zoom’s exposure to Anthropic, which we estimate could be worth [roughly] $1.1B to $3.4B based on current valuations, with substantial upside if Anthropic pursues an IPO at a premium to its latest private market valuation of $350B, representing ~6%-17% of current [enterprise value],” Wolfe Research analyst Alex Zukin said in a note to clients dated in early February. Of 31 analysts covering Zoom on Wall Street, 16 have a buy or strong buy on shares. The stock is down about 5% since the beginning of the year.
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