Google Invested In This AI Project: FTX Is Behind It!

Google has invested $300 million in the artificial intelligence (AI) company, which was previously funded by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

The company, which received investment from Google, received over $ 500 million from the former CEO of FTX

Google recently invested $300 million in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic. The new investment includes an initial stake of about 10% in Google and boosts Anthropic’s financials at a time when it is buying significant computing resources from the search engine’s cloud computing division. Google has confirmed that it has invested and has a major cloud contract with Anthropic, according to reports that surfaced yesterday. On the other hand, the fact that SBF is one of the Anthropic investors causes the expectation of payback among investors who lost their funds in the November crash.

According to reports, the artificial intelligence (AI) venture firm had received over $500 million in investment from former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. While Google’s $300 million investment was announced by the Financial Times on February 4, Anthropic confirmed its investment partnership with Google Cloud on the same day, although it did not disclose any figures:

In the same announcement, Anthropic also confirmed that they had previously raised capital from Bankman-Fried and former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, among others, in a Series B funding round:

The Series B round was led by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. The tour was also attended by Caroline Ellison, Jim McClave, Nishad Singh, Jaan Tallinn and the Center for Emerging Risk Research (CERR).

SBF allegedly invested more than $1 billion

According to Crunchbase, fundraising efforts led by Bankman-Fried took place in April 2022. A recent post by The New York Times reported that of the $580 million raised, about $530 million came from Bankman-Fried and former business partners.

But some believe the figure is even higher. An FTX creditor believes Bankman-Fried’s stake in the artificial intelligence company could reach up to $1.1 billion. Other members of the Kritpo Twitter community are also considering whether Bankman-Fried’s stock could be used to pay off the huge pile of debt FTX has accumulated from its recent controversies.

As for the partnership, Anthropic will now use Google Cloud’s GPU and TPU clusters to train, extend and implement the AI ​​chatbox called “Claude”, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGTP. According to the Financial Times, Google Cloud has acquired an approximately 10% stake in Anthropic.

Can FTX creditors get refunds?

While it is not yet clear where most of the debt in the bankruptcy case will come from, Bankman-Fried personally denied all eight fraud and conspiracy charges against him on January 3. Bankman-Fried is currently under house arrest at his family’s California home until the hearing date, set for October 2, 2023. As reported by Kriptokoin.com, his lawyers recently argued that SBF’s former company, FTX, should have access to assets and cryptocurrencies.