In Brief Posted: 1:35 PM PDT · August 9, 2026 Image Credits:Getty Images Anthony Ha Embattled hedge fund Situational Awareness invests $400M in chip startup Source Foundry Situational Awareness may have had to sell off the majority of its public portfolio last month, but the AI-focused hedge fund is still making some big bets. This week, the fund invested $400 million into Source Foundry, a startup founded by Stanford researchers aiming to make chip manufacturing faster and cheaper, according to The Wall Street Journal. That brings its total investment in Source Foundry to $500 million.
Situational Awareness was founded by Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher in his mid-twenties who had no trading experience when he launched the fund in 2024. Early returns were reportedly strong, but the fund faced steep losses in recent months amidst the decline in AI infrastructure stocks. At the end of July, Situational Awareness sold off the majority of its public portfolio to Ken Griffin’s Citadel, although the fund held on to its Anthropic shares.
Its assets under management reportedly fell from $20 billion to $10 billion. On the bright side, Aschenbrenner didn’t let those setbacks get in the way of his wedding. Topics AI, Fundraising, situational awareness Related Government & Policy Historian Jill Lepore says Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy Anthony Ha 6 hours ago Latest in Fundraising In Brief Embattled hedge fund Situational Awareness invests $400M in chip startup Source Foundry Anthony Ha 30 minutes ago In Brief Defense tech Hadrian raises $1.37B at $8B valuation Julie Bort 3 days ago Startups Naïve raises $28.5M to automate the grunt work of setting up and running a company Ram Iyer 3 days ago