On this photo illustration, Anthropic logo is seen on a smartphone screen.
Pavlo Gonchar | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has struck a take care of a consortium of buyers to sell the majority of its stake in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic for $884 million, in response to a filing submitted late Friday to a Delaware court.
The document, dated March 22, lists a combination of buyers, with the biggest stake going to ATIC Third International Investment Company, an enterprise aligned with Mubadala, a sovereign wealth fund in the United Arab Emirates. That group is purchasing nearly $500 million value of Anthropic shares.
Multiple sovereign wealth funds were reportedly clamoring for a chunk of FTX’s Anthropic stake. Sources told CNBC on Friday that Saudi Arabia was specifically ruled out over national security concerns. The dominion has been sinking billions of dollars into tech investment funds to attempt to capture talent from the UAE and to diversify away from oil.
The second-biggest buyer in the Anthropic transaction is Jane Street, the quantitative trading firm where FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried worked before venturing out on his own. Caroline Ellison, the ex-CEO of FTX’s sister hedge fund Alameda Research, also previously worked at Jane Street. The firm is purchasing shares value almost $100 million.
Jane Street’s head of quantitative research, Craig Falls, has also proposed to personally buy around $20 million value of shares.
Enterprise fund HOF Capital, The Ford Foundation and funds managed by Fidelity Management are others on the list of nearly two-dozen buyers.
The sales will not be yet final and have to be cleared by Judge John Dorsey, who’s overseeing FTX’s bankruptcy case in Delaware. Should it’s approved, the sale would collectively account for nearly two-thirds of FTX’s shares in Anthropic.
In November, Bankman-Fried was convicted of seven criminal counts tied to the collapse of FTX. His sentencing is scheduled for Thursday, and prosecutors are recommending a sentence of 40 to 50 years.
Indicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried leaves the U.S. Courthouse in Latest York City, July 26, 2023.
Amr Alfiky | Reuters
Under Bankman-Fried’s leadership, FTX invested $500 million in Anthropic, which was founded by ex-OpenAI employees in 2021, before the generative AI boom. The corporate’s valuation hit $18 billion in December 2023, which might put FTX’s roughly 8% stake at about $1.4 billion.
For months, the bankruptcy estate has been seeking to sell its shares in Anthropic, because it attempts to pay back clients that lost money when FTX collapsed in late 2022. Anthropic raised $7 billion in the previous couple of years from big tech corporations like Amazon and Alphabet. Meanwhile, rival OpenAI’s valuation tripled to $80 billion in lower than ten months.
Under latest CEO John Ray III, FTX has been clawing back money, luxury property, and crypto, in addition to tracking down missing assets. His team has already collected greater than $7 billion, not including valuables like $26 million in gifts and property to Bankman-Fried’s parents, or the $700 million handed over to K5 Global and founder Michael Kives, who invested FTX money in corporations like SpaceX. A few of those investments have seen a precipitous rise in value.
Lawyers representing the bankruptcy estate told a judge in Delaware last month that they expect to totally repay customers and creditors with legitimate claims. Bankruptcy attorney Andrew Dietderich, who works with FTX’s latest leadership team, said “there remains to be an excellent amount of labor and risk” ahead in getting all of the a refund to clients, but that the team has a “strategy to attain it.”
FTX had been negotiating with bidders a couple of potential reboot of the corporate, but those efforts were scrapped in January.
WATCH: FTX to sell shares in Anthropic to pay back customers
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