A venture capitalist claimed large profits from brokering an Anthropic secondary equity deal and deleted the post after scrutiny. Commenters questioned whether she was a licensed broker-dealer or working with one. Anthropic later updated guidelines on unauthorized stock sales and investment scams, stating that transactions purporting to sell Anthropic shares without proper board approval are invalid. Secondary markets allow buyers to purchase startup equity before public trading, often through special-purpose vehicles that negotiate with founders, employees, or early investors. Demand has surged for AI company equity as valuations have risen rapidly. Many offered deals are described as sketchy and only loosely legitimate, raising concerns about legality and investor protection.
"Simply brokering an Anthropic secondary deal made me more money than my entire net worth from working in my 20s. Arora, who appeared on a European Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2024, had apparently served as a middleman for a client buying equity in the A.I. giant, and had taken a hefty fee in return. Unfortunately for her, the online boasting invited scrutiny of that practice; one commenter wrote, "I assume she's a licensed broker dealer. Otherwise; this is, of course illegal. @SECGov.""
"Anthropic updated its guidelines for "Unauthorized Anthropic stock sales and investment scams" to read, "if someone purports to sell Anthropic shares without proper board approval, that transaction is invalid." There has long been a "secondary market" in startup equity, for buyers who want to grab a piece of a company before it goes public on the open stock market. A typical secondary-market deal might see an investment syndicate, in the form of a bespoke company entity called a special-purpose vehicle, or S.P.V., interact directly with a company's founders or other stakeholders, such as early employees or angel investors, to arrange a purchase of equity."
"Currently, there's a bonanza in the secondary market for A.I. companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX, which recently merged with Elon Musk's xAI, as those companies' valuations have soared with a speed that the tech industry last witnessed during the cryptocurrency boom. Yet many of the investment deals on offer are sketchy and tenuously legitimate-the digital equivalent of a man in a trenchcoat offering his wares on the sidewalk."
Read at The New Yorker
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