Thiel Capital provides "strategic and operational support" for many of Peter Thiel's initiatives and ventures.[8] Thiel Capital has incubated several major investment firms — Founders Fund, Mithril, and Valar Ventures—as well as other business and philanthropic initiatives like the Thiel Fellowship and Breakout Labs.
History
The firm should not be mistaken for Thiel Capital Management, which was founded by Peter Thiel in 1996 and was the predecessor of Clarium, which had Thiel Capital as its successor.[9][10][11]
A registration paper involving Bridgetown Holdings Limited (whose chairman is Matt Danzeisen, the spouse of Peter Thiel) sent to the SEC states that, "Thiel Capital and its predecessors have incubated and launched several investment firms now with billions of dollars under management, including Founders Fund, Mithril and Valar Ventures. Numerous other business and philanthropic ventures, including the Thiel Fellowship and Breakout Labs, have also started under the Thiel Capital umbrella."[1]
The firm's investments include startups in bio- and med-tech like Alloy Therapeutics (the startup's investors include not only Thiel Capital, but also the Founders Fund, and 8VC which Thiel invests in),[12][13][14] EnClear Therapies (Jason Camm became a board member in 2020),[15][16] the German unicorn ATAI Life Sciences (found by Thiel's friend, the biotech billionaire Christian Angermayer),[17][18]Compass Pathways (which is also partly owned by ATAI),[19][20] Pilgrim (founded by Thiel Fellow Jake Adler, the startup creates solutions for nanoparticle-enabled vaccines and applications in defense),[21] in femtech like Hugoboom,[22] Rhea,[23] in cryptocurrency like Bullish Global (Founders Fund and Angermeyer are also investors),[24]FTX (also received investment from Rivendell LLC),[25] in software like QA Wolf,[26], Rollup (software platform to develop complex hardware),[27], in defense hardware like Neros (found by Thiel Fellow Soren Monroe-Anderson)[28][29] and Quantum Systems. Thiel Capital is also an investor (including post-IPO financial investment as major backer) of the dual-use German laser communications startup Mynaric. Angermayer also backs Mynaric.[30][31]
Quantum Systems
In October 2022, Peter Thiel invested in the Gilching-based surveillance drone startup Quantum Systems founded by the former Bundeswehr officer Florian Seibel, through Thiel Capital. His involvement with the company, as well as his subsequent backing of the Berlin-based attack drone startup Stark, also found by Seibel (a new company needed to be found because some of Quantum Systems' investors were not allowed to invest in weaponized drones), are sometimes considered controversial, due to Thiel's politics. Seibel said he knew about Thiel's politics, but he considered Thiel "one of the most successful, if not the most successful tech investor in the world". Later he told Follow the money that, "We have experienced tremendous support and introductions by Peter. I do not share political views with him but selected him in 2021 for his network into tech and being one of the most successful investors worldwide."[32][33][34] In May 2025, Quantum Systems became Europe's first dual-use unicorn and third defense unicorn, after fellow Bavarian startup Helsing and the Portuguese Tekever (Thiel has a role in the success of Helsing too and the startup is considered a part of the "Thiel ecosystem", although he does not directly invest in it).[35][36][37][38]
Personnel
Peter Thiel in 2014
The private equity firm Crescendo Equity Partners, which is co-founded by Matt Danzeisen, is sponsored by Thiel Capital.[39][10]
Jack Selby is the founder of AZ-VC (formerly invisionAZ Fund), which focuses on Arizona and described as "the largest venture capital fund in the state’s history". He deliberately seeks backing from Arizona’s real estate firms, and not from Thiel, Thiel Capital or the firm's partners, saying "With my day job with Peter, and I say this very humbly, but I basically know every LP that allocates venture capital in the world, whether they’re here in Abu Dhabi or Tokyo or New York or wherever it is. They all know who we are, and they would love to curry favor with him by giving money to some new fund that’s connected to Peter’s universe. But I wanted to use the fund as a litmus test to see if the Arizona community wanted to see something like this fund rise up and get off the ground."[4][40]
Some of Thiel Capital's employees are also notable for their political activities, which are sometimes considered controversial.
In early 2022, Sebastian Kurz, who had just resigned from his office as Chancellor of Austria following instablity in the coalition and corruption allegations, began his work as a global strategist for Thiel Capital.[41][42] A report by the politician Sophie in 't Veld, the rapporteur for the EU Committee of Inquiry (that investigated the use of the software Pegasus created by the firm of the same name, found by the Israeli entrepreneur Shalev Hulio), notes that, "The cooperation between Kurz and Hulio constitutes an indirect but alarming connection between the spyware industry and Peter Thiel and his firm Palantir."[43]
Thiel Capital's former COO, Blake Masters, was a U.S. Congress candidate from Arizona. He resigned from Thiel Capital in 2022 amidst ethical concerns.[44] Thiel supported Masters' campaign with $15 million, but the campaign did not succeed.[45]
Kevin Harrington and Michael Kratsios were both former employees of Thiel Capital. The two senior White House officials attended the 2025 Bilderberg Meeting alongside Peter Thiel.[46]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
