Odaily Planet Daily report: Leopold Aschenbrenner, known as the "AI Oracle," managed Situational Awareness Fund saw a cumulative gain of 439% before June 2026, but suffered significant losses during the July AI sector sell-off. The fund is currently engaging with existing investors and lenders to secure additional capital and offering certain limited partners the opportunity to purchase assets from the portfolio.
Sources say this capital communication was more of an ad hoc response than a coordinated new fundraising effort. The fund previously used leverage through multiple major investment bank prime brokers to amplify its exposure to AI trading, turning market pullbacks into further funding pressures.
In his letter to investors on July 24, Aschenbrenner acknowledged that the fund failed to avoid this market shock, particularly impacting Asian markets. However, he believes this sell-off may represent the best buying opportunity since early 2025 and plans to open a new capital window on August 1, while viewing Anthropic’s potential IPO as a catalyst for the second half of the year.
It was disclosed that certain positions experienced significant declines in July, with Oracle and AMD falling approximately 20% during the month, while Nebius, Saronic AI, Bloom Energy, and SanDisk saw even larger losses; the Nasdaq 100 Index dropped about 10% in July, and the KOSPI Composite Index fell by approximately one-third.
Due to the lack of specific data on the fund’s drawdown magnitude, it is currently impossible to determine whether this financing was a passive capital injection driven by leverage pressure or an active move to capitalize on opportunities. However, market trends suggest the former is more likely. If forced selling occurs, the deleveraging process may also create discount opportunities for assets whose fundamentals have not significantly changed.