IT之家 October 20 news: According to Bloomberg, sources say former Google CEO Eric Schmidt holds roughly a 1% stake in the company thanks to his early investment in the startup Anthropic. Once the company goes public, this investment will become one of the highest-return investments among individual investors.
Sources who asked not to be named said Schmidt invested tens of millions of dollars in Anthropic's Series A funding round. It is currently unclear whether he sold any shares after that initial investment.
The highly anticipated Anthropic IPO will bring huge returns to its employees and investors. Based on the valuation from its last funding round, the startup's seven co-founders each already have a net worth of $8 billion (IT之家 note: approx. 53.542 billion yuan at current exchange rates), wealth that has landed them on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index among the world's 500 richest people.
Data firm Pitchbook's records show that when the 71-year-old Schmidt first invested in Anthropic in 2021, the company was valued at $461 million (approx. 3.085 billion yuan at current exchange rates). Investors said last week that a reasonable valuation range for the company is $1.8 trillion to $2 trillion (approx. 12.05 trillion to 13.39 trillion yuan at current exchange rates); the top of that range would be more than 4300 times the valuation at the Series A round.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index calculates that at that valuation, Schmidt's net worth would increase by about a third, approaching $80 billion (approx. 535.419 billion yuan at current exchange rates). Even at Anthropic's latest valuation of $965 billion (approx. 6.46 trillion yuan at current exchange rates), Schmidt's original $57.5 billion fortune (approx. 384.833 billion yuan at current exchange rates) would gain nearly another $10 billion (approx. 66.927 billion yuan at current exchange rates).
Over the past fifteen years, Schmidt has become an active tech investor, deploying capital through multiple investment vehicles, including TomorrowVentures, Innovation Endeavors, and the family office Hillspire. Pitchbook data shows Hillspire has participated in hundreds of venture investments.
His early portfolio focused on consumer internet, software, and fintech; in recent years, artificial intelligence has become the core focus, with investments including Mistral AI, Reflection AI, World Labs, and Anthropic.
If Anthropic lists at a valuation of $2 trillion (approx. 13.39 trillion yuan at current exchange rates), the return multiple on Schmidt's investment would exceed Innovation Endeavors' 2011 early investment in Uber Technologies Inc. When Uber went public in 2019, its valuation had grown roughly 1400 times, reaching $82 billion (approx. 548.805 billion yuan at current exchange rates).
Earlier this month, sources said Anthropic will begin IPO marketing as early as the week of November 9 and is expected to list before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, with the debut anticipated no later than the end of this year.
The company behind the Claude chatbot also has other major investors, including Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, and Microsoft, all of which have poured billions of dollars into it. Venture firms Altimeter Capital, Dragoon, Greenoaks, and Sequoia Capital each invested more than $2 billion (approx. 13.385 billion yuan at current exchange rates) when they co-led a $65 billion (approx. 435.028 billion yuan at current exchange rates) funding round in May. After that round, Anthropic's valuation surpassed rival OpenAI for the first time.
Sources said the company hopes its IPO valuation will match or even exceed the record $1.77 trillion (approx. 11.85 trillion yuan at current exchange rates) IPO valuation SpaceX set in June.