Swiss company 21shares, which specialises in crypto investment products, has launched an exchange-traded product (ETP) linked to the implied valuation of Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company. Named the 21shares Anthropic Synthetic ETP, it trades under the ticker CLAU. According to Fintechnews Switzerland, it allows investors to track this valuation ahead of the company's expected IPO.

The issuer presents CLAU as the first ETP in Europe to offer this exposure on a continuous basis and without leverage. Another selling point: the product can be bought from a standard brokerage account, like any listed security.

No Anthropic shares in the product

This is the key point to grasp before anything else: investors are not buying Anthropic shares. The ETP obtains its exposure through total return swaps. In this type of contract, one party pays the other the entire return of an agreed asset.

Here, the swaps are linked to the Kaiko Anthropic USD Reference Rate (USDT) (London) index. The price of this index is itself based on Anthropic perpetual futures traded on Binance, futures that have no expiry date. The mechanism is therefore stacked in several layers: the price of CLAU follows swaps, which follow an index, which follows derivatives listed on a crypto exchange.

21shares states it in black and white: the product is neither affiliated with nor endorsed by Anthropic, and it provides no direct exposure to its shares.

Listed in Vienna, fees worth a close read

CLAU trades in euros on the Vienna MTF, a multilateral trading facility operated by the Vienna Stock Exchange. According to figures reported by Fintechnews Switzerland, the annual total expense ratio is 1.00%, plus an exit fee of 2.00%. For an investor who gets in and out quickly, this exit fee weighs considerably more than the ongoing charges.

On the legal side, the launch comes with a separate novelty: CLAU is the first product issued by a new special purpose vehicle (SPV) set up with FalconX. This is a structural partnership for issuance, not a fundraising round or an agreement with Anthropic.

What a synthetic pre-IPO exposure covers

The word “synthetic” in the product's name is not decorative. The value tracked is neither the one set in a funding round nor that of a future listing: it is a price formed on a crypto derivatives market, which Kaiko's index translates into a reference. This price may diverge from the valuation Anthropic would achieve when it goes public, in either direction.

The swap structure also introduces a dependence on the counterparties to these contracts, a characteristic of synthetic products in general. Finally, the IPO remains “expected”: the source gives neither a date nor terms. The product replicates an implied valuation; it guarantees nothing as to the company's value, nor as to the return for the investor.

Swiss ETPs versus the private market

Duncan Moir, President and Chief Investment Officer of 21shares, believes that the main value drivers of the most advanced AI are still found in private companies. In his view, packaging pre-IPO exposure in an ETP fills this access gap, according to remarks reported by Fintechnews Switzerland.

The argument touches on a real point of friction: unlisted companies remain largely out of reach for retail investors. With CLAU, a Swiss issuer born in crypto applies its tools, derivatives indices and ETP wrapping, to an underlying asset that is nothing like a digital token. It remains for each investor to gauge what they are really buying: not a stake in Anthropic, but a contract that replicates the price of a derivative on its valuation.

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