Sam Bankman-Fried, the jailed founder of FTX and Alameda Research, could have made enough money to save his companies thanks to his large stakes in Anthropic and Anysphere, the parent company of Cursor.
SBF could be the biggest loser in next week’s IPO, which is expected to value Anthropic at more than $1.5 trillion, a figure that could reach $2 trillion if the shares surge, as analysts and Polymarket traders expect.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research was one of the earliest backers of Anthropic. It invested $500 million in 2021, a deal that reportedly gave it a 14% stake. At the time, Anthropic was a small AI lab that few people knew about. If the company goes public at a $1.5 trillion valuation, that stake would be worth about $37 billion.
The FTX estate, however, liquidated the Anthropic stake to repay creditors, which means it will not benefit from the IPO. The estate sold the stake in 2024 in a $1.3 billion deal, with the proceeds going to creditors and depositors. The buyers included Mubadala, the Ford Foundation, and Jane Street, the firm where SBF once worked.
SBF also invested in other top companies that have gone ahead to become highly valuable. For example, he $200,000 in Anysphere in a pre-seed round. After years of growth, Anysphere, the creator of Cursor, was acquired by SpaceX in a $60 billion deal, meaning that the investment would have been worth billions of dollars.
Another notable investment was Robinhood (NASDAQ:HOOD), which he invested $500 million in in 2022. The 8% stake in the company would now be worth over $4.5 billion today.
SBF has said he regrets filing for bankruptcy and has cited the potential returns in his pleas for a pardon. He has applied for a pardon from President Donald Trump, made a direct appeal in a Fox News interview, and posted in support of Trump’s policies. In January, however, Trump said he would not grant him a pardon.
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