As investors scramble to get their hands on shares in all kinds of AI companies, Anthropic updated its website this week to warn investors that many private and secondary investment platforms that offer access to AI company stocks are not actually authorized to do so.
The company cited Open Doors Partners, Unicorns Exchange, Pachamama Capital, Lionheart Ventures, Hiive (new offering), Forge Global (new offering), Sydecar, and Upmarket as companies that are not authorized to provide access to buy or sell their stock.
“Any sale or transfer of Anthropic stock or interest in Anthropic stock offered by these companies is void and will not be recorded in our books and records,” the company’s support page says.
When contacted for comment, Forge Global claimed it had been included in error. “We are working with Anthropic to remove Forge’s name from this alert,” the platform told TechCrunch. “Forge does not facilitate trading in the stock of any private company without the company’s express approval.”
Meanwhile, Sydecar said it only works in an administrative capacity. “We do not buy or sell securities or solicit transactions in private companies. Additionally, Sydecar requires sponsors to review relevant documentation regarding the transferability of their shares and to certify that they have obtained the necessary approvals and consents from the company,” the company said in an emailed statement.
Anthropic’s updates come alongside a growing number of investment platforms offering exposure to AI company equity (and its growth) through the secondary market, where existing shareholders sell their shares, “tokenized” securities, special purpose vehicles (SPVs), or secondary market holdings.
The company, which is rumored to be raising new funding at a $900 billion valuation, is in particular demand, with some secondary market brokers telling TechCrunch last month that the company is one of the “toughest” stocks to raise.
“Anthropic is right to take concerns about fraudulent stock sales and investment fraud seriously,” Hive spokeswoman Dakota Betts said in an emailed statement. “We share these concerns, which is a key reason why Hiive has invested heavily in its legal, compliance and diligence infrastructure from the beginning, and all share transfers facilitated by Hiive are approved by the issuer.”
Over the past year, some crypto companies, such as crypto exchange OKX, have launched investment products that sell exposure to AI companies. These often take the form of pre-IPO perpetual futures contracts. This is a derivative product that tracks the value of a private company in the secondary market, but does not provide actual ownership of the stock.
SPVs differ from these derivative systems in that they offer investors the opportunity to purchase shares in companies that own at least a portion of Anthropic’s shares. The shares could come from formal investors, or they could have been acquired when investors were forced to liquidate their holdings, as happened during FTX’s bankruptcy. In other cases, the stock claim may be completely fraudulent.
Anthropic said that both its preferred stock and common stock are subject to transfer restrictions, and that any sale or transfer of stock not approved by the company’s board of directors is considered null and void. According to Anthropic, third-party platforms that claim to sell their shares directly or use forward contracts (particularly SPVs and private investment companies) are not permitted to do so.
“We do not allow special purpose vehicles (SPVs) to acquire Anthropic stock, and our transfer restrictions render any transfer of stock to an SPV null and void,” the company wrote on its blog. “Offers to invest in Anthropic’s past or future financing rounds through the SPV are prohibited.”
Note: This story has been updated with comments from Hiive and Sydecar.
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