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SPVs are increasingly common at AI companies. Photo: Alyssa Powell/BI . |
Amid the AI craze with valuations in the hundreds of billions of dollars, a parallel market is booming with specialized investment vehicles called SPVs. This is a long-standing mechanism that allows multiple investors to contribute capital to a single deal. In the context of widespread FOMO (fear of missing out), SPVs are being used to hunt for shares in big names such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Anduril and Perplexity.
There are many legal types of SPVs, but many have been criticized for their high fees, opaque structures, and multiple layers of intermediaries. Analysts warn that inexperienced investors can easily fall victim to the “trillion-dollar AI dream” scam. Bill Gurley, a veteran investor behind Uber and Zillow, is candid about the fact that SPVs are not as “rosy” as people say.
Even leading AI companies are concerned. OpenAI warned in a blog this week that unauthorized SPVs could make investments “ uneconomic .” Anthropic, in a $170 billion funding round, even asked some venture funds not to use SPVs.
Several founders and investors told Business Insider that they are constantly being approached with offers to invest in SPVs. Ankur Nagpal, CEO of Carry, likened the phenomenon to “a new version of the age-old scam,” where people pay exorbitant fees for access that doesn’t actually deliver superior results.
Leslie Feinzaig, founding partner of Graham & Walker, describes the current SPV market as “the Wild West” and predicts more fraud will arise.
Mark Klein, CEO of SuRo Capital, recounted that when he was looking to invest in OpenAI, he found each SPV deal more complicated and suspicious than before, to the point that even a professional analyst had difficulty understanding what he was investing in.
The main reason, according to Autograph CEO Hari Raghavan, is a lack of liquidity. Unlike publicly traded stocks that trade daily, private companies only raise capital at specific times. “The market is completely paralyzed between rounds, and when a new round opens, FOMO is at its peak. Imagine if the New York Stock Exchange was open only one day a month,” Raghavan said.
The SPV boom shows that money is pouring into AI, but at the same time raises concerns about a new financial bubble where greed and fear of missing out overwhelm investment rationality.
Source: https://znews.vn/bong-bong-ai-sap-xay-ra-post1579521.html
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