FTX to Sell Majority Stake in Anthropic to Consortium of Buyers for $884 Million

FTX, a bankrupt crypto exchange, has agreed to sell the majority of its stake in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic to a consortium of buyers for $884 million. The buyers include ATIC Third International Investment Co., a group aligned with Mubadala, a sovereign wealth fund in the United Arab Emirates, which is purchasing nearly $500 million worth of Anthropic shares. Other buyers in the consortium include Jane Street, a quantitative trading firm, and venture fund HOF Capital, the Ford Foundation, and funds managed by Fidelity Management.

The sale, which would collectively account for nearly two-thirds of FTX’s shares in Anthropic, is subject to approval by Judge John Dorsey overseeing FTX’s bankruptcy case. The deal comes as FTX seeks to repay clients following its collapse in late 2022. FTX had invested $500 million in Anthropic, which was founded by ex-OpenAI employees in 2021. The company’s valuation reached $18 billion in December 2023, making FTX's roughly 8% stake worth about $1.4 billion. FTX has been recovering assets under new CEO John Ray III, including cash, luxury property, and crypto, with the aim to repay customers and creditors. FTX had been in negotiations for a potential reboot, but those efforts were abandoned in January.