FTX Stops Sale of $500 Million Stake in AI Firm Anthropic: Report

After months of due diligence, FTX’s advisers informed bidders that the bankrupt crypto exchange would be halting the sale of its stake in Anthropic.

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX appears to be having second thoughts about getting rid of its $500 million stake in upcoming Artificial Intelligence firm Anthropic. 

According to a report from Bloomberg on Tuesday, Perella Weinberg Partners, the investment bank advising FTX on restructuring efforts, informed bidders that it would no longer be selling its $500 million stake in the firm.

People familiar with the matter disclosed that the sale was halted after several months of potential bidders assessing the private information of the Anthropic stake.

San Francisco-based Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former employees of OpenAI and quickly became one of the most sought-after investments for venture firms looking for a lucrative AI opportunity. 

A report from Semafor earlier this month disclosed that Anthropic is valued at $4.6 billion. The firm received a $400 million investment from Google in February and another $450 million in Series C funding led by Spark Capital in May. Internal documents before the firms’ bankruptcy filing revealed that FTX and Alameda had invested $500 million in Anthropic.

Without the sale going through, the FTX debtors will have to look at other ways to find value for the exchange’s creditors and fill the $2 billion discrepancy that still remains. In a second interim report published earlier this week, the FTX debtors said they had recovered $7 billion in liquid assets so far, and efforts to recoup more funds were still ongoing.

Still, some FTX creditors hailed the debtors’ move to suspend the Anthropic sale as wise and opined that the company was a good portfolio asset to keep to preserve value.

FTX pauses Anthropic sale. Wise move.

Selling losers first is crucial.

Anthropic tokenisation might also synergise well with FTX 2.0, as an exclusive listing. pic.twitter.com/WJd900JBYw

— FTX 2.0 Coalition (@AFTXcreditor) June 27, 2023