A 13-acre home in Mill Valley, north of San Francisco, recently hit the market in a rare way: the owner offered to exchange the property for equity in the artificial intelligence company Anthropic.
The property is owned by homeowner and investment banker Storm Duncan. He created a LinkedIn page specifically for the home and stated on the page that he wanted to "exchange the property for Anthropic equity."
Duncan reportedly described the approach as a "diversified allocation" arrangement. He said that considering the importance of artificial intelligence in the future, his current allocation to AI investment is on the low side, while his allocation on real estate is on the high side; correspondingly, a younger Anthropic employee may be in the opposite asset structure.
In terms of transaction methods, Duncan said that interested potential buyers can communicate with him via email for specific details. He also said it would be a private transaction and would not require buyers to sell their shares directly. According to its LinkedIn page, homebuyers will continue to retain 20% of the incremental value of the shares exchanged during the lock-in period.
Public information shows that Duncan claims to have lived in the Bay Area for a long time, but moved to Miami during the epidemic. He purchased the property in 2019 for $4.75 million. Regarding the current use of the property, Duncan said that a "well-known venture capitalist" currently lives here, but he declined to disclose the identity of the other person.
Judging from the information disclosed in the report, this transaction is not a listed sale in the traditional sense, but more like a customized exchange attempt between the equity of unlisted technology companies and high-end real estate. In the context of the current artificial intelligence craze that continues to heat up, this approach also highlights that some market participants are re-evaluating the allocation weight between real estate and AI-related assets.