Charles Schwab CEO Rick Wurster wants individual investors to get a bigger piece of companies' initial public offerings. "Historically, the allocations have gone to institutions," he tells Barron's Advisor. "We're on a mission to democratize that."

Wurster's comments come ahead of Anthropic's planned IPO and as some other companies have allocated a healthy percentage of their IPO shares to retail investors. In June, satellite and artificial-intelligence company SpaceX went public and allocated about 20% of its IPO shares to retail investors (double the typical amount, though the figure depends on the offering). Other companies going public in recent years, such as Reddit, have also set aside a significant number of shares for retail investors.

That hasn't always been the case. Traditionally, retail investors had scant access to IPOs in part because of concerns that individual investors wouldn't be long-term shareholders. Wurster says Schwab client behavior shows otherwise.

"We were fortunate to participate in SpaceX," Wurster says. "And I think one of the things that that demonstrates is the attractiveness of our client base as holders."

Not only have Schwab clients held on to their SpaceX shares, some clients have bought more, Wurster says. "And as companies in the future evaluate where they're going to distribute their IPO, we're hopeful retail becomes a bigger share because they're great holders of the stock."

SpaceX priced its initial public offering at $135 a share, and the stock rallied to close its first day of trading at $160.95. Shares were changing hands at $138.19 at midday Friday, 2.4% higher than their IPO price.

Wurster adds that there has been growing demand for IPO access from retail investors, which he attributes in part to their familiarity with the private companies entering the public market. "People know SpaceX because of Elon [Musk]," he says. "Many individuals are using Claude, so they know Anthropic. It's in the news every single day. And these are huge companies."

This year has been volatile for IPOs, with a large increase in the amount of money raised but a decline in the overall number of offerings. Total proceeds raised stands at $148.9 billion so far this year, a 337.4% jump from last year, according to data from Renaissance Capital. The number of IPOs, however, has fallen 33.3% year over year to 122.

In addition to private companies giving retail investors a bigger part to play, some brokerage firms are making it easier to gain access to IPOs. For example, Fidelity Investments recently lowered the asset minimum clients had to meet to participate in IPOs to $25,000. Previously, Fidelity customers generally had to have at least $100,000 or $500,000, depending on the offering. Robinhood has no minimum asset requirement, according to its website. Schwab's minimum is $100,000.

Retail interest in IPOs comes as more companies are staying private for longer, if they ever become publicly traded. Wurster says Schwab is striving to provide investors with opportunities to invest in private companies should they wish. "We've seen a number of private companies and the capitalization of private companies grow substantially," he says. "Meanwhile, on the public side, you've actually seen a number of public companies come down quite a bit."

In March, Schwab closed its acquisition of Forge Global, a private marketplace for shares of pre-IPO companies. Private investments have traditionally been restricted to institutions and ultrawealthy investors.