A Silicon Valley dealmaker is looking to swap his 14-acre estate for shares of the AI giant Anthropic – the latest sign of the lengths investors will go to get a piece of the red-hot artificial intelligence sector, The Post has learned.
Storm Duncan, founder of the tech-focused investment bank Ignatious, detailed in an exclusive interview how the unusual transaction could work – including Duncan covering all the closing costs for any Anthropic equity holder who takes him up on the offer.
Duncan said real-estate advisors have pegged the value of his spread – a 4,400-square-foot, four-bedroom mansion perched in the hills of Mill Valley just north of the Golden Gate Bridge – at roughly $8 million. The lavish compound and its infinity pool boast sweeping views of San Francisco Bay and nearby Mount Tamalpais.
“There’s definitely been some interest in it,” Duncan told The Post. “But it’s not your typical deal.”
The 56-year-old financier’s listing – which sparked chatter in tech circles after he posted it on Linkedin this week – shows that even well-connected tech insiders are scrambling to snag shares of privately held AI startups before they go public.
Some social media users flagged Duncan’s pitch as the latest indicator the AI market is overheating.
“Peak late-cycle vibes. Please frame this and put it on the wall,” one X user commented.
Duncan said he already has Anthropic shares which he acquired in a 2024 funding round. He has gotten to know Anthropic’s management team through prior work and said he believes they will succeed in the AI race long term.
“It’ll be a conversation,” Duncan said. “But I don’t take my offer as a sign that the market has reached the top.”
San Francisco-based Anthropic has lately fielded offers from venture capitalists that would value it at $800 billion or more, according to a Bloomberg report this month. Duncan said his own analysis of Anthropic’s financials yields a similar valuation.
Acquiring shares directly from another individual versus buying them through so-called secondary markets offers more transparency, Duncan said, adding that determining the legitimacy of still-private startup shares can be difficult and risky.
There are also tax advantages to doing a swap for his house, he added.
A swap would have to occur at a current valuation for Anthropic and he would allow any takers to retain 20% of the upside value of the exchanged shares before they could be legally transferred to him, Duncan said.
Duncan has invested in numerous AI startups including Gecko Robotics which has been valued at $1.25 billion; he has also backed enterprise networking company Upscale AI, which inked a $200 million Series A financing in January.
The Mill Valley estate at 114 Inez Place has long served as a party destination. In the years before Covid, Duncan said he threw shindigs for as many as 700 guests, with models, real-estate bigwigs and influential technologists in attendance.
“Suffice to say that if the house blew up during a party, it would have been a problem for the tech world,” Duncan said. “My goal with those parties was to get people together from different walks of life.”
Duncan said he now splits his time between homes in Miami and Wyoming and that a “very famous” venture capitalist currently lives at his Mill Valley estate, declining to name the renter.
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