Baillie Gifford trusts Scottish Mortgage, Schiehallion and US Growth have more than doubled their valuation of Anthropic, the Claude chatbot developer reported to be overtaking arch-rival OpenAI at $1trn.

Scottish Mortgage (SMT), Baillie Gifford’s £15.1bn global flagship, said after an upwards adjustment the unquoted AI company accounted for 2.5% of net assets at Friday’s close, up from 1.1% at 31 March.

Schiehallion (MNTN), the £1.4bn private equity fund, said its holding in Anthropic had jumped from 3.2% to 7.2% of its mostly unquoted portfolio in the same period.

Baillie Gifford US Growth (USA), an £841m listed fund where activist hedge fund Saba Capital holds a 29% stake, said its position in Anthropic had risen from 3.3% to 7.4% this month.

The three investment trusts, which had to make similar adjustments to their holdings in SpaceX in December, did not specify what valuation Baillie Gifford had put on the company, but media reports have suggested the figure is accelerating ahead of a possible US flotation in October. 

In February, the same month Anthropic that hit shares in software and data analytics firms with an extension of Claude, the company reached an $380bn post-money valuation in a series-G funding round that raised $30bn.

This month, the company’s valuation reportedly hit the $1trn mark on exchanges like Forge Global as investors chased a limited amount of private stock. An acceleration in annualised revenues from $9bn to $30bn this year is also a factor in the unprecedented growth.

USA shares rallied 4.4% to 316.8p leaving them at a narrow discount to their net asset value per share of 324.2p and pushing their one-year gain to 39%.

Dollar-based MNTN moved 3.2% higher to $1.96 as it revealed its NAV per share had jumped to 191.5 cents from 177.3 cents at its financial year-end of 31 January. That followed a 32.6% in the previous 12 months with the shares soaring 115% in the past year as the listed fund moved from a wide discount to a small premium over NAV.

Shares in SMT were more subdued, adding 5p to £14.02. They stand at a 1.5% premium and have rallied 58% in the past year. 

Our view

James Carthew, head of investment company research at QuotedData, said: “The impact of Claude Cowork on software and data businesses, and the handwringing about the release of Mythos on the cybersecurity market help illustrate the potential for Anthropic to impact on our lives. Baillie Gifford has not told us what the trigger was for the decision to raise the value of its Anthropic stakes – Google’s announcement on Friday that it would invest $10bn now and possibly another $30bn later at a $350bn valuation looks possible, but Anthropic had already raised $30bn at a $380bn valuation in February, and has since secured a possible $25bn from Amazon. There is also talk of a possible IPO, and an SPV that is said to give exposure to the company is now trading at a price that implies a $1trn valuation, but the valuation in Schiehallion, Baillie Gifford US Growth, and Scottish Mortgage needs to be based on something more tangible than that. So, maybe more upside to come.”

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