Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has paused the sale of its $500M stake in the AI startup Anthropic. The firm initially planned to sell the stake for a nine-figure amount. Perella Weinberg Partners, the investment bank acting as an adviser to FTX, informed the bidders about the halt. - The pause came several months after the potential buyers weighed in on the private information about the Anthropic stake.
- The potential bidders had been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) before accessing the private information about finances.
- Anthropic, valued at $4.6B, was founded by former employees of OpenAI, the firm behind a popular AI-powered chatbot dubbed ChatGPT, in 2021.
- FTX and its sister company Alameda Research invested $500M in the startup before the bankruptcy under the management of the former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF).
- The stake purchase was one of the biggest investments made by FTX, along with the $1.5B investment in crypto miner Genesis Digital.
In May, Anthropic raised $450M in funding to boost the development of its AI-powered chatbot, Claude. - FTX, previously the third-largest crypto exchange, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022, with all the 130 entities under the roof of FTX Group.
- The downfall followed the claims that SBF used customer funds in FTX to compensate for losses at Alameda Research.
- Most recently, the bankrupt exchange's new management also released a report showing that some of the company's transactions, including the venture capital (VC) investments, were partly funded by commingled customer deposits.
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