Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has sold two-thirds of its stake in AI startup Anthropic to a consortium of buyers.
The deal will see around two dozen investors pay $880 million for the shares.
ATIC Third International Investment Company, a sovereign wealth fund owned by the government of Abu Dhabi is the biggest buyer, purchasing 16,664,167 shares of Anthropic from FTX for $500 million.
Jane Street Global Trading, the former employer of disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, was the second biggest buyer, purchasing shares worth almost $100 million.
Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven counts of fraud and money laundering in November 2023 after the collapse of the FTX the previous year. He is due to be sentenced on March 27, with prosecutors recommending a sentence of between 40 and 50 years.
AI startup Anthropic was founded in 2021 by OpenAI's former vice president of research, Dario Amodei, and a number of former OpenAI staffers. Its AI model Claude has been trained on constitutional AI, a system that uses a “set of principles to make judgments about outputs,” which helps Claude to “avoid toxic or discriminatory outputs” such as helping a human engage in illegal or unethical activities.
Google acquired a 10 percent stake in Anthropic for $300 million back in late 2022, investing an additional $500 million in October 2023 and pledging to provide another $1.5bn over an unknown timeline.
The sale will see FTX make a profit from its 2021 $500 million investment in the AI startup. The funds will be used to pay back clients of the crypto exchange who lost money when it collapsed. Last month, lawyers told a judge in Delaware that FTX expects to fully repay customers and creditors.
