Founders ETF plans to buy Anthropic shares on their first trading day despite the technology stock selloff, portfolio manager Michael Monahan said in an interview published on Nov. 6.
Monahan said the fund had been willing to invest at a $1.5 trillion valuation and would seek more shares at $1.2 trillion. Those figures described potential purchase valuations, rather than a confirmed price for the artificial intelligence company's initial public offering, its first sale of shares to public investors.
“We will buy into Anthropic day one,” he said on Bloomberg Technology. He said the company fits the fund's approach of investing in businesses that their founders still run, citing their vision, execution and persistence.
Monahan said he expects Anthropic's revenue to keep growing and newly elected politicians to soften their opposition to data centers as they seek jobs for constituents. He argued that construction and power supply work would support household incomes.
He rejected the argument that data centers necessarily increase nearby households' electricity bills. He said most facilities supply their own power or pay to expand the capacity of the electricity systems they join, and argued they can lower local power costs.
Monahan described the technology selloff as excessive and said pressure to create jobs would encourage politicians to support investment. He also linked data center construction to maintaining the United States' position in artificial intelligence, arguing that insufficient investment would let China and other countries gain ground.
The fund bought during the previous day's decline, he said. He named SpaceX and Nvidia as opportunities and said he had personally bought more shares in the fund, without giving purchase amounts or prices.
Returning to Anthropic's prospective valuation, Monahan said a lower price would increase his appetite for the offering. “We were excited by the company at $1.5 trillion,” he said. “We are more excited to have the opportunity to buy it at $1.2 trillion.”
At the lower valuation, he said the fund would work with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to obtain as many shares as possible at the opening trade. He did not specify an intended investment amount or a maximum price the fund would pay.
Monahan rejected the argument that Anthropic's rise in private-market value had exhausted its potential gains after listing. He said the shares could still rise fivefold or tenfold, citing the speed at which businesses are adopting the technology.
He put annual billings at the top 100 law firms at $150 billion and said artificial intelligence could capture a large portion of that work. He cited legal services as one industry that could support further growth, without giving a timetable for those gains.
