A startup company for artificial intelligence (AI) called Anthropic received about $500 million from former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried roughly six months before to FTX’s tragic collapse, according to reports of a $300 million investment from Google Cloud.
Financial Times published the $300 million figure on February 4, however Anthropic acknowledged the investment collaboration with Google Cloud the same day without providing any numbers:
In the same statement, Anthropic also affirmed that their Series B fundraising round included contributions from Sam Bankman and Caroline Ellison, a former CEO of Alameda Research, among others:
“The Series B round was driven by Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX. The round likewise included investment from Caroline Ellison, Jim McClave, Nishad Singh, Jaan Tallinn, and the Middle for Emerging Risk Research (CERR).”
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According to Crunchbase, Bankman fundraising initiatives were carried out in April 2022.
According to a recent article by The New York Times, of the $580 million raised, roughly $530 million was raised by Bankman-Fried and his former business partners.
However, some think it may possibly be higher.
One of the FTX creditors estimates that Bankman-investment in the AI firm may be worth up to $1.1 billion. The creditor, however, gave no further details on the sum.
Other members of the Crypto Twitter community are also speculating as to whether Bankman investment will be utilized to settle the significant debt that FTX has racked up as a result of their previous scandals.
In terms of the collaboration, Anthropic will now use the GPU and TPU clusters on Google Cloud to train, expand, and implement “Claude,” a ChatGTP-like AI chatbox.
According to the Financial Times, Google Cloud received around a 10% interest in Anthropic.
While it is unclear where the majority of the debt in the FTX bankruptcy case will come from, Bankman-Fried personally entered a not guilty plea to all eight accusations against him that were related to fraud and conspiracy on January 3.
Until his scheduled trial on October 2, 2023, Bankman-Fried will continue to reside under house arrest at his parents’ California home.
