Google invests $300 million in a company previously funded by FTX owner

Google Cloud reportedly invested $300 million in Anthropic, an artificial intelligence (AI) startup that had previously received more than $500 million from Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of bitcoin exchange FTX, around 6 months before the collapse.

Among FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, Jim McClave, Nishad Singh, Jaan Tallin, and the Center for Emerging Risk Research (CERR), a Swiss non-profit organization] also took part in the round.

Crunchbase reports that the Bankman-Fried-led fundraising took place in April 2022. Anthropic’s worth was once estimated to be $5 billion after raising money. Crunchbase reports that the business raised $704 million in Series A and Series B investment rounds in 2022. The majority of the Series B funding came from SBM, the founder of the FTX crypto exchange.

According to the New York Times, around $530 million of the $580 million raised by the company came from Bankman-Fried and his former business partners. Some, though, claim the amount is significantly greater.

According to one FTX lender, SBF’s share in the AI startup might be worth up to $1.1 billion!

What is Anthropic?

Claude is the name of Anthropic’s intelligent chatbot, which competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The business has raised more than $700 million through Google investments made before the end of 2022, but the amount has not been disclosed.

Google has already stated that ChatGPT is a concern to their search engine. Thus, they are seeking a balanced answer and have enlisted the assistance of Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The company has deployed over 20 AI initiatives since the beginning of the year! Meanwhile, Microsoft is investing in OpenAI’s chatbot, which will infuse AI into its products.

OpenAI and Anthropic both want to create generative AI, which are complex computer algorithms that can script and generate artwork in seconds.

Anthropic and Google collaboration

Anthropic was founded in 2021. Dario Amodei, former vice president of research at OpenAI, launched the project. Amodei hired some OpenAI researchers, notably Tom Brown, chief developer of the GPT-3 language model. He quit OpenAI due to “disagreements regarding the company’s direction,” specifically the increased commercial focus following the first collaboration with Microsoft in 2019.

Google made an unannounced investment in Anthropic in late 2022. In return, the corporation earned a 10% ownership. Anthropic also announced this week that Google Cloud will be its “preferred cloud service provider,” while partnering on AI computing systems.

However, since the capital contribution from the FTX was relatively recent, refunds are highly likely. Furthermore, according to the teams in charge of the FTX bankruptcy, this approximately $500 million might greatly assist in the repayment of FTX’s creditors.