News linked to both this project and an event.
The Situational Awareness fund, managed by "AI Stock God" Leopold Aschenbrenner, accumulated a gain of 439% before June 2026. However, it suffered severe setbacks during the AI sector sell-off in July. The fund is currently communicating with existing investors and lenders to seek new capital and is offering some LPs the opportunity to purchase assets from its portfolio.Sources say this capital discussion appears more like an ad-hoc response than an organized new fundraising round. The fund had previously used leverage through prime brokers at several major investment banks to amplify its AI trading exposure, turning market drawdowns further into funding pressure.In a letter to investors on July 24, Aschenbrenner acknowledged that the fund failed to avoid this market shock, noting that Asian markets were particularly affected. However, he believes this sell-off could present the best buying opportunity since early 2025. He plans to open a window for new capital on August 1st and views Anthropic's potential IPO as a catalyst for the second half of the year.According to disclosures, some holdings saw significant declines in July. Oracle and AMD fell approximately 20% for the month, while Nebius, Saronic AI, Bloom Energy, Sandisk, and others saw even larger drops. The Nasdaq 100 index fell about 10% in July, and South Korea's Kospi index dropped by roughly one-third.Currently, lacking specific data on the fund's exact drawdown magnitude, it is difficult to determine whether this fundraising is a passive capital injection driven by leverage pressure or an active move to increase positions for an opportunity. However, market trends suggest it is closer to the former. If forced selling occurs, the deleveraging process could also create discount opportunities in assets whose fundamentals haven't materially changed.
AI data center Crusoe Energy Systems is in talks for a new round of financing worth approximately $3 billion. Upon completion of this round, the company's valuation is expected to roughly triple from the previous round, reaching the $30 billion range.Founded in 2018, Crusoe initially started with crypto-related businesses before transitioning into an AI infrastructure and data center service provider. It is currently categorized as one of the "neocloud" firms, a new type of cloud computing company focused on providing computational power support for generative AI. The company has signed compute supply contracts with tech giants including Meta and Oracle. As demand for AI infrastructure construction surges, the scale of its compute business continues to expand.According to previously public information, Crusoe completed a funding round of approximately $1.38 billion last year, with a valuation exceeding $10 billion. If this new round is successfully completed, it would become another large-scale capital move in the AI infrastructure sector.Market sources estimate that the final valuation for this round could be around the $30 billion level, but the deal is still in progress and has not yet been finalized. (Reuters)