Is the AI ​​bubble about to burst?

The AI ​​craze has driven OpenAI and Anthropic's valuations to hundreds of billions of dollars, but investors warn that SPVs are fueling the risk of a bubble and fraud.

SPVs are becoming increasingly popular in AI companies. Photo: Alyssa Powell/BI .

Amidst the artificial intelligence (AI) craze with valuations reaching hundreds of billions of dollars, a parallel market is booming with specialized investment vehicles (SPVs). This is a long-standing mechanism that allows multiple investors to pool capital in a single transaction. In the context of widespread FOMO (fear of missing out), SPVs are being used to acquire stakes in prominent companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Anduril, and Perplexity.

Currently, there are many legitimate types of SPVs, but numerous deals have been criticized for exorbitant fees, opaque structures, and multiple layers of intermediaries. Analysts warn that inexperienced investors are easily becoming victims of schemes exploiting the "trillion-dollar AI dream." Bill Gurley, a veteran investor behind Uber and Zillow, frankly shared that SPVs are not as "rosy" as people portray them.

Even leading AI companies are expressing concern. OpenAI warned on its blog this week that unauthorized SPVs could render investments “ economically worthless.” Anthropic, in its $170 billion funding round, even asked some venture funds not to use SPVs.

Many founders and investors revealed to Business Insider that they are constantly receiving offers to invest in SPVs. Ankur Nagpal, CEO of Carry, compared this phenomenon to "a new version of a long-standing scam," where people pay exorbitant fees for access that doesn't actually deliver outstanding results.

Leslie Feinzaig, founding partner of Graham & Walker, describes the current SPV market as a “wild west” and predicts that fraud will arise.

Mark Klein, CEO of SuRo Capital, recounted that when looking to invest in OpenAI, he found each SPV deal to be more complex and questionable than the last, to the point that even a professional analyst would find it difficult to understand where they were investing.

The main reason, according to Autograph CEO Hari Raghavan, lies in the lack of liquidity. Unlike listed stocks that trade daily, private companies only raise capital at specific times. “Between rounds, the market is completely paralyzed, and when a new round opens, FOMO (fear of missing out) surges tremendously. Imagine the New York Stock Exchange only being open one day a month,” Raghavan said.

The surge in SPVs shows a strong influx of capital into AI, but at the same time raises concerns about a new financial bubble, where greed and fear of missing out outweigh rational investment.

Source: https://znews.vn/bong-bong-ai-sap-xay-ra-post1579521.html