Sam Bankman-Fried missed a $40bn gain from Anthropic’s IPO

In short: Sam Bankman-Fried would have made close to $40bn from Anthropic’s expected stock market listing, but he lost the stake after FTX collapsed.

What happened

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former head of crypto exchange FTX, invested $500mn in Anthropic in 2021 through Alameda Research Ventures. That deal reportedly gave Alameda nearly a 14% stake, when Anthropic was valued at about $4bn.

The Financial Times reports that Anthropic is expected to go public next week. “Going public” means its shares will be sold on a stock exchange, like putting a company’s ownership up for sale in a very large, public marketplace. The listing is expected to value Anthropic at about $1.5tn, or roughly $83 per share.

At that price, the FT calculates Alameda’s old stake would have been worth about $37bn, close to $40bn. But Alameda’s stake was sold off during the bankruptcy process in 2024 for about $1.3bn, with the money used to repay FTX customers and other creditors.

The FT says buyers of the Anthropic stake included ATIC Third International Investment (aligned with Mubadala in the UAE), Jane Street, HOF Capital, the Ford Foundation, and funds managed by Fidelity.

Why it matters

This story is a reminder of how early investments in fast-growing AI companies can become extremely valuable, and how quickly that value can disappear when a larger business collapses. It also shows how bankruptcy can shift ownership, meaning the biggest gains may end up going to new buyers, not the original investor.

Source: Financial Times