Ex-OpenAI researcher's fund seeks capital after AI rout
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- Situational Awareness approached investors and lenders for fresh capital after borrowing amplified losses during July's AI stock sell-off, the Financial Times reported.
- Leopold Aschenbrenner, an ex-OpenAI researcher, founded the fund in 2024; it held around $20 billion in AUM as of June 8 and had gained 439% after fees through June.
- A March SEC filing showed roughly $1.11 billion in positions across seven Bitcoin miner stocks, including IREN, Core Scientific, Riot Platforms, and CleanSpark.
- The fund offered some investors the option to buy portfolio assets, citing a July 24 investor letter seen by the FT.
- Aschenbrenner wrote in the July 24 letter that the sell-off had created attractive investment opportunities.
- The fund's core thesis centered on power and data centers supporting AI, including Bitcoin miners pivoting into AI computing.
Why it matters: A hedge fund that had quadrupled in value through June is now scrambling for capital because leverage turned a July drawdown into a fund-threatening event, and its $1.11 billion Bitcoin-miner bet shows how AI infrastructure and crypto-mining stock plays were tightly intertwined in one concentrated portfolio.
