The venture capital unit of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX is taking a 30% stake in Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital.
(Bloomberg) — The venture capital unit of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX is taking a 30% stake in Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital.
SkyBridge has been wading deeper into crypto through direct token acquisitions as well as private investments in digital-asset firms, filings show.
The new capital is intended to help SkyBridge’s growth, with a portion being used to buy $40 million worth of cryptocurrencies as a balance sheet investment, according to a statement released on Friday.
“After working with Anthony and his team following our SALT conference partnership, we saw there was an opportunity to work closer together in ways that could complement both our businesses,” Bankman-Fried said in a statement.
“We look forward to collaborating closely with SkyBridge on its crypto investment activity and also working alongside them on promising non-crypto-related investments.”
Scaramucci, who is turning 60 in January 2024, said he intends to keep working but doesn’t “want to be a Shakespearean figure where I’m overly clinging to the firm,” he said in a Zoom interview with Bloomberg.
“I’m thinking about the next decade of SkyBridge.”
John Darsie, a SkyBridge partner, said FTX and FTX Ventures don’t expect Scaramucci’s firm to fully become a crypto shop. Instead, both Darsie and Scaramucci believe FTX views Skybridge as a bigger window into traditional finance.
He said the companies have ambitions similar to that of a traditional merchant bank.
“FTX is not an asset manager, they don’t accept outside capital, there’s a lot of deal flow that they get,” Darsie said.
“We’ll work closely with them on investment sourcing and deal flow.”
Digital-token exposure accounted for more than $800 million of the overall $2.5 billion in assets managed by SkyBridge at the end of June, according to the firm’s website.
In July, SkyBridge suspended withdrawals from its Legion Strategies fund, which had exposure to companies including FTX.
Scaramucci said the FTX capital could help SkyBridge further its goal of nearly doubling assets in the next two years and surpassing $10 billion within the next seven years.
Read more: Scaramucci Halts Withdrawals in a Fund After Stock, Crypto Swoon
The FTX Ventures investment deepens the relationship between Scaramucci’s enterprises and Bankman-Fried’s companies.
The two jointly launched a new crypto conference in the Bahamas, where FTX is located. The conference, held in April 2022, featured speakers including former US President Bill Clinton, ex-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and football star Tom Brady.
Bankman-Fried’s FTX is the presenting sponsor for Scaramucci’s conference series, according to a June press release.
Darsie said the goal was to make Bahamas event the “Sun Valley of crypto,” referring to the annual Allen & Co.
event in the Idaho town that attracts billionaires across media, entertainment, sports and investing.
The two groups did not disclose the financial terms of the deal. Earlier in June, Scaramucci described Bankman-Fried as “the new John Pierpont Morgan,” saying he was bailing out crypto companies and markets “the way the original JPMorgan did after the crisis of 1907.”
“Our business has continued to evolve since we founded the firm in 2005,” Scaramucci said.
“We will remain a diversified asset management firm, while investing heavily in blockchain.”
Watch: Bankman-Fried Happy to Be Called the JP Morgan of Crypto (Video)
(Adds comments from interview with Anthony Scaramucci and John Darsie starting in fourth paragraph)
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