Jane Street’s trading haul juiced by surging bet on Anthropic

Jane Street currently holds nearly 27 million shares of CoreWeave, or roughly 7% of outstanding shares

Jane Street Group’s record haul this year has been boosted by savvy bets on the artificial intelligence boom that are showing up as big gains in its trading results, according to people familiar with the matter.

The market-making firm told investors that its investments in private companies and funds lifted its third-quarter trading revenue by about $830 million, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified citing private details. Anthropic PBC, which has seen its valuation surge this year, was responsible for a vast majority of those gains, the people said.

Those gains represented about 12% of Jane Street’s $6.83 billion in third-quarter net trading revenue. The 25-year-old firm is now on pace for its best year ever, vaulting above many established Wall Street rivals.

Most bank trading desks and some market-making peers don’t count such long-term investments in their trading results. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. had a group making bets with its own balance sheet, but spun that business out of its trading unit a few years back.

Jane Street holds strategic investments in some private companies and funds, some of which are held through an unrestricted subsidiary, and these investments make up about 7% of trading capital, the person said. Anthropic is one of Jane Street’s largest of such positions, they added.

A representative for Jane Street declined to comment.

Jane Street has invested in Anthropic’s series E and series F fundraising rounds, according to previous news releases. Anthropic’s valuation has increased rapidly to $183 billion as of the September announcement, up from around $60 billion in January, Bloomberg reported at that time. In November, Microsoft Corp. and Nvidia Corp. committed to invest as much as $15 billion combined in Anthropic — a move that ties the AI developer closer to two of the biggest backers for its rival OpenAI.

Jane Street also made money through a similar strategy with CoreWeave Inc., which went public in March, the person said. Jane Street currently holds nearly 27 million shares of CoreWeave, or roughly 7% of outstanding shares, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The firm’s second-quarter net trading revenue of $10.1 billion eclipsed the trading performance of every major Wall Street peer. While third-quarter revenue grew at a slower pace, up 18% from a year earlier, the result placed Jane Street among the top firms, just under JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs.