Anthropic raised $3.5 billion at a $61.5 billion valuation in a round by Lightspeed Venture, according to an announcement on Monday. Cisco Investments, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity, General Catalyst and Salesforce Ventures, among others, participated.
In 2021, the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and related trading firm Alameda Research invested approximately $500 million in Anthropic, an AI development company founded by former OpenAI researchers. FTX held an approximately 8% stake in the company. Had its stake remained, its initial $500 million investment would now be worth $4.92 billion.
FTX collapsed in November 2022 amid allegations of fraud and mismanagement and entered bankruptcy proceedings. As part of its efforts to liquidate assets and repay creditors, the FTX bankruptcy estate sold its entire stake in Anthropic. FTX's Anthropic stake was worth over $1.3 billion when the AI firm hit a $18 billion valuation last year.
The exchange began its first round of disbursements to former users on Feb. 18. Many former customers have complained that their refunds reflect the market value of digital assets at the time of FTX’s collapse, in November 2022, rather than current prices.
A subsequent boom in AI has significantly increased Anthropic’s valuation, which was last valued at around $18 billion. This made FTX’s stake potentially worth over $1 billion, far exceeding Bankman-Fried’s original investment.
In March 2024, FTX sold about two-thirds of its stake in Anthropic for $884 million. ATIC Third International Investment Company, a firm with ties to Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, was the largest buyer, having purchased $500 million in shares. Jane Street, the trading firm where Bankman-Fried and several FTX executives worked before founding the exchange, also participated.
FTX sold its remaining Anthropic shares worth about $452 million in mid-2024, bringing the total dollar value of its investment to about $1.3 billion.
Bankman-Fried has argued, including in his first public comments since being incarcerated, that FTX was solvent but illiquid and that all customers could have been made whole had he not filed for bankruptcy.
FTX and Alameda were early buyers of several cryptocurrencies, including Solana’s SOL and Sui’s SUI. Last year, Mysten Labs paid $96 million to repurchase FTX’s equity stake and tokens.
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