The skyrocketing valuation of Anthropic has become the biggest hope for FTX's debt repayment?

Original Author: ASXN

Compilation: Odaily Planet Daily Azuma

Editor's Note:

On September 25, the artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced it would receive up to $4 billion in investment from Amazon. Considering that FTX had previously invested $500 million as a lead investor in Anthropic's Series B funding, many FTX creditors view this equity investment's appreciation as their best hope of recovering principal.

The following is a specific analysis by Boutique Digital Asset analyst ASXN on the current value of this equity investment and its potential for appreciation, compiled by Odaily Planet Daily.

FTX and its affiliates were very active in the venture capital field, with records showing they invested billions of dollars in over 130 companies.

Among FTX's hundreds of investments, the most noteworthy is the lead investment in Anthropic's Series B round, where FTX contributed as much as $500 million. As Anthropic continues to stir up the primary market, its rising valuation naturally brings new hopes to FTX creditors.

First, here is some basic information about Anthropic. It is an AI company founded by former OpenAI employees, developing an AI chat application similar to ChatGPT called Claude, which is now widely regarded as OpenAI's biggest competitor.

Since its establishment, Anthropic has raised billions of dollars in venture capital through multiple funding rounds.

In April 2022, Anthropic completed a $580 million Series B round, in which FTX contributed a total of $500 million, including a lead investment from SBF himself, as well as participation from FTX co-CTO Nishad Singh and former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison.

However, the valuation details of this funding round were not disclosed, so we cannot know FTX's specific transaction price and shareholding ratio. Nevertheless, we can infer some insights from the subsequent Series C funding.

In May 2023, Spark Capital led Anthropic's $580 million Series C funding round. TechCrunch reported that the valuation for this round was approximately $4.1 billion. Considering that there has been no sign of a downturn in the AI concept during this period, it also implies that the valuation during the Series B round likely did not exceed $4.1 billion.

From this, we can infer that FTX's shareholding in Anthropic is likely to exceed 10%. Based on different specific valuation figures, we estimate FTX's corresponding shareholding ratio should be between 12.5% and 33.33%.

Another piece of evidence regarding FTX's shareholding ratio is Google's investment in Anthropic. In February 2023, Google invested $300 million in Anthropic, with multiple media outlets, including The Verge, reporting that this transaction secured Google a 10% stake in Anthropic.

Since FTX entered earlier and invested a larger amount, its shareholding ratio should be greater than Google's.

Returning to the latest developments, Anthropic has recently received a significant funding boost from Amazon. According to TechCrunch's public interviews with both parties, this investment will immediately materialize as $1.25 billion, with the total investment expected to reach $4 billion.

Although the valuation for this funding round has also not been disclosed, the capital market has made related speculations based on another event occurring at the same time.

On September 27, The Wall Street Journal reported that another major AI giant, OpenAI, is negotiating a share sale with potential investors at a valuation of $90 billion. Considering the competitive situation between OpenAI and Anthropic, there are rumors that the funding market's latest valuation for Anthropic has reached $30 billion.

We take a more conservative calculation approach, assuming that when FTX invested, Anthropic's valuation was $2.5 billion, and the current valuation is $15 billion, with FTX's shareholding ratio at 20% (all three figures are basic averages), the corresponding equity value has reached $3 billion.

Now, let's address FTX's own debt issues.

When FTX filed for bankruptcy, its asset shortfall was approximately $9 billion, while the documents submitted by FTX in May indicated that "approximately $7 billion in liquid funds have been recovered to date," leaving a remaining shortfall of $2 billion. If we do not consider liquidity issues (including the actual liquidity of the assets held by FTX and the restrictions on monetizing Anthropic's equity), it seems that the value of Anthropic's equity is sufficient to cover…

Perhaps there are still other non-transparent issues involved, but regardless, for creditors severely impacted by the FTX incident, the rise in Anthropic's valuation is undoubtedly a very positive change, bringing greater hope to the victims still suffering from a long wait.

This has also been reflected in the secondary market for FTX's debts, where the expected repayment rate has now risen to 35% - 40%, achieving a new high since the collapse of FTX.

Finally, the editor would like to interject an old piece of news.

In June of this year, insiders revealed that the investment bank Perella Weinberg, responsible for handling FTX's bankruptcy case, had been considering selling FTX's stake in Anthropic and had conducted months of investigations into potential bidders, but ultimately chose to abandon the sale.

Looking back now, this decision may change the fate of FTX and thousands of creditors.