Naver Jealous of SKT: "Couldn't Buy Anthropic Shares Directly, Invested via VC Fund"

Growing Investor Interest in Anthropic Ahead of October IPO

There has been growing interest in the background of Naver's investment in the U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic, which is scheduled to go public in October, as it was recently confirmed that Naver had invested in the company.

On August 11, Naver announced that it had invested about 10 billion won in Anthropic several years ago, through a U.S. venture capital (VC) fund. In June last year, Naver established Naver Ventures in San Francisco and, through this entity, directly invested in video AI company Twelve Labs and voice AI company Eleven Labs, among others.

Originally, Naver hoped to acquire shares in Anthropic directly, but when this was not possible, the company chose to invest through a VC fund as a secondary option. Anthropic, which supplies the AI model 'Claude,' was valued at 965 billion dollars (approximately 1,380 trillion won) in its Series H fundraising round last May. As expectations have grown for significant investment gains upon Anthropic’s listing, major global companies have been actively acquiring shares and investing in the company.

Lee Hae-jin, Chairman of the Board at Naver Corporation. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

In South Korea, SK Telecom’s investment in Anthropic is a representative example. On August 14, 2023, SK Telecom acquired a stake in Anthropic for about 132.1 billion won. As of the end of last year, the book value of this investment soared sevenfold from 192.5 billion won to 1.3762 trillion won.

Although SK Telecom’s ownership share was reduced to 0.3% as Anthropic issued new shares, the current value of its stake has reached 4 trillion won. Last May, SK Telecom also participated in Anthropic's Series H fundraising round to acquire additional shares. In addition, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix also joined Anthropic’s Series H round to expand their AI semiconductor supply chains.

SK Telecom CEO Jeong Jaeheon told reporters in Tokyo last June, “We recently made an additional investment in Anthropic. Because we were an early investor, we gained another opportunity to participate.” At the time, Jeong explained, “Rather than focusing on profits from Anthropic’s IPO, we believe it is better to continue investing in order to strengthen our collaborative relationship.” This shows that the company prioritizes expanding business partnerships through deeper cooperation over simply recouping its investment after the IPO.

Regarding the Anthropic investment, a Naver representative said, “The investment through the VC fund was made a long time ago, and while the scale was not significant, it is somewhat unfortunate that it was not a direct investment.” The spokesperson added, “Anthropic is highly committed to the Korean market, and since Naver also sees many opportunities for synergy with Anthropic in the AI field, both companies plan to cooperate in building the AI ecosystem.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.