Founders Fund

Last updated

Founders Fund
Company typeVenture fund
Industry Venture capital
FoundedJuly 2005
Headquarters
Letterman Digital Arts Center
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Key people
 Peter Thiel
Ken Howery
Luke Nosek
Brian Singerman
Cyan Banister
Lauren Gross
Scott Nolan
AUM US$11 billion (2022)
Website www.foundersfund.com

Founders Fund is a San Francisco based venture capital firm formed in 2005 and has roughly $12 billion in total assets under management as of 2023. [1] Founders Fund was the first institutional investor in Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Palantir Technologies, and early investor in Facebook. [2] [3] [4] The firm's partners have been founders, early employees and investors at companies including PayPal, Palantir Technologies, Anduril Industries and SpaceX. [5]

Contents

History

Peter Thiel Peter Thiel.jpg
Peter Thiel

The firm was organized by Peter Thiel, Ken Howery, and Luke Nosek in early 2005 and raised its first fund of $50 million from individual entrepreneurs and angel investors in January of that year. [6] Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster and ex-president of Facebook, joined in 2006. [6] In 2007, the firm raised a new fund of $220 million. [7]

In 2010, the firm raised its third fund, with $250 million in committed capital, [8] and in 2011, a fourth fund with $625 million of committed capital was raised. [9] [10]

In 2014, Founders Fund raised a $1 billion fifth suite of funds, bringing the firm's aggregate capital under management to more than $2 billion. [11]

In 2016, Founders Fund raised a sixth, $1.3 billion fund, bringing the firm's aggregate capital under management to more than $3 billion. [12]

In 2020, Founders Fund raised a seventh flagship fund and its first growth fund, representing $3 billion in new capital and bringing the firm's aggregate capital under management to more than $6 billion. [13]

In 2022, Founders Fund raised an eighth flagship fund and its second growth fund, representing over $5 billion in new capital and bringing the firm's aggregate capital under management to more than $11 billion. [14]

In 2023, Founders Fund advised companies to withdraw money from Silicon Valley Bank upon announcement of their attempt to raise capital, helping to spur a bank run on the bank and inducing the FDIC to take over. [15]

In March 2023, Founders Fund quietly cut the size of its eighth venture capital fund in half, from around $1.8 billion to around $900 million, to adapt to uncertain market conditions. [16]

Partners

As of winter 2023, the firm had thirteen Partners:

Former partners include:

Investments

Founders Fund is a generalist firm investing in companies across all sectors, stages and geographies.[ citation needed ]

The firm's investments include Airbnb, Armada, [25] DeepMind, Lyft, Facebook, Flexport, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, Spotify, Stripe, Wish, Neuralink, Nubank, and Twilio. [26]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Thiel</span> American entrepreneur and venture capitalist (born 1967)

Peter Andreas Thiel is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. As of June 2023, Thiel had an estimated net worth of $9.7 billion and was ranked 213th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Draper Fisher Jurvetson</span> American venture capital firm

Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) is an American venture capital firm. In January 2019, DFJ Venture, the early-stage team, spun out and formed Threshold Ventures. DFJ Growth continues to be managed by co-founder John Fisher and co-founders Mark Bailey, Randy Glein, and Barry Schuler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soros Fund Management</span> Private investment firm

Soros Fund Management, LLC is a privately held American investment management firm. It is currently structured as a family office, but formerly as a hedge fund. The firm was founded in 1970 by George Soros and, in 2010, was reported to be one of the most profitable firms in the hedge fund industry, averaging a 20% annual rate of return over four decades. It is headquartered at 250 West 55th Street in New York. As of 2023, Soros Fund Management, LLC had $25 billion in AUM.

Benchmark is a venture capital firm founded in 1995 by Bob Kagle, Bruce Dunlevie, Andy Rachleff, Kevin Harvey, and Val Vaden.

The Stanford Review is a student-run independent newspaper that serves Stanford University in Stanford, California. It was founded in 1987 by Peter Thiel and Norman Book.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David O. Sacks</span> South African American entrepreneur (born 1972)

David Oliver Sacks is an entrepreneur, author and investor in internet technology firms. He is a general partner of Craft Ventures, a venture capital fund he co-founded in late 2017. Additionally, he is a co-host of the All In podcast, alongside Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg. Previously, Sacks was the COO and product leader of PayPal, and founder and CEO of Yammer. In 2016, he became interim CEO of Zenefits for ten months. In 2017, Sacks co-founded Craft Ventures, an early-stage venture fund. His angel investments include Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, and Airbnb.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luke Nosek</span> Polish-born American entrepreneur; co-founder of PayPal

Łukasz Nosek is a Polish-American entrepreneur, notable for being a co-founder of PayPal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Index Ventures</span> European worldwide venture capital firm

Index Ventures is a European venture capital firm with dual headquarters in San Francisco and London, investing in technology-enabled companies with a focus on e-commerce, fintech, mobility, gaming, infrastructure/AI, and security. Since its founding in 1996, the firm has invested in a number of companies and raised approximately $5.6 billion. Index Venture partners appear frequently on Forbes’ Midas List of the top tech investors in Europe and Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accel (company)</span> Venture capital firm

Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is an American venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional operating funds in London, India and China.

Redpoint Ventures is an American venture capital firm focused on investments in seed, early and growth-stage companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PayPal Mafia</span> Term for a group of former PayPal employees

The "PayPal Mafia" is a group of former PayPal employees and founders who have since founded and/or developed additional technology companies based in Silicon Valley such as Tesla, Inc., LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, Affirm, Slide, Kiva, YouTube, Yelp, and Yammer. Most of the members attended Stanford University or University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign at some point in their studies.

Palantir Technologies Inc. is a public American company that specializes in software platforms for big data analytics. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, it was founded by Peter Thiel, Nathan Gettings, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Alex Karp in 2003. The company's name is derived from The Lord of the Rings where the magical palantíri were "seeing-stones," described as indestructible balls of crystal used for communication and to see events in other parts of the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clarium Capital</span> Defunct American investment management and hedge fund company

Clarium Capital Management LLC was an American investment management and hedge fund company pursuing a global macro strategy. It was founded in San Francisco in 2002 by Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and early investor in Facebook. Its assets under management grew to $8 billion in 2008, after which a series of unprofitable investments and client redemptions shrank that to about $350 million as of 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keith Rabois</span> American technology executive and investor

Keith Rabois is an American technology executive and investor. He is a managing director at Khosla Ventures. He was an early-stage startup investor, and executive, at PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide, and Square. Rabois invested in Yelp and the Xoom Corporation prior to each company's initial public offering (IPO). For both investments he insisted on being a board of directors member.

CapLinked is an online business transaction and project management application developed in the United States. The company's SaaS platform includes tools for document management, similar to a Virtual Data Room, messaging, updates, and business intelligence tools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Singerman</span>

Brian Singerman is a partner at Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm with over $11 billion under management.

Stephen Oskoui is an American investor and venture capitalist who is managing partner and co-founder of Gigafund, a venture capital firm backing entrepreneurs globally. Gigafund makes long-term concentrated investments in founders and CEOs who are capable of growing with their companies and maximizing impact over a period of decades.

Valar Ventures is a US-based venture capital fund founded by Andrew McCormack, James Fitzgerald and Peter Thiel in 2010. Historically, the majority of the firm's investments have been in technology startups based outside of Silicon Valley, including in Europe, the UK, the US and Canada. Valar Ventures originally spun out of Thiel Capital, Peter Thiel's global parent company based in San Francisco, and is now headquartered near Madison Square in Manhattan. The firm's namesake is the Valar of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, who are god-like immortal spirits that chose to enter the mortal world to prepare it for their living creations.

Social Capital, formerly known as Social+Capital Partnership, is a venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. The firm specializes in technology startups, providing seed funding, venture capital, and private equity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bruce Gibney</span> American writer and venture capitalist

Bruce Cannon Gibney is an American writer and venture capitalist. He was one of the first investors at PayPal, and went on to work for PayPal founder Peter Thiel's hedge fund Clarium and his venture capital company Founders Fund. His first book, A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America, was published by Hachette in 2017.

References

  1. ↑ "A look inside Founders Fund, as it closes on $5 billion across two new funds". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
  2. ↑ "Thiel's Founders Fund sells remaining Facebook shares". Reuters. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
  3. ↑ "Private rocket company SpaceX gets $20M from The Founders Fund". VentureBeat. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
  4. ↑ "Palantir Technologies Files to Go Public". The New York Times. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
  5. ↑ Brehse, Tami. "The 'PayPal Mafia' formed in the early 2000s, and includes everyone from Elon Musk to the Yelp founders. Here's where the original members have ended up". Business Insider. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  6. 1 2 Guynn, Jessica (December 13, 2006). "The Founders Fund emerges as venture capital 2.0". The San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved January 20, 2007.
  7. ↑ Jessica Guynn (December 18, 2007). "Facebook backer now a rival to venture capitalists". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on February 5, 2008. Retrieved November 23, 2007.
  8. ↑ Founders Fund raises $250M vehicle (July 19, 2010). "Founders Fund raises $250M vehicle". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved August 27, 2013.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  9. ↑ Rusli, Evelyn M. (December 1, 2011). "Peter Thiel's Founders Fund Raises $625 Million". New York Times.
  10. ↑ "Want A Piece Of Founders Fund's Latest $625M Fund? Start By Trying To Change The World". TechCrunch. December 16, 2011. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  11. ↑ VentureBeat (March 5, 2014). "Founders Fund raises a big $1B fund to plunk into startups". VentureBeat. Retrieved September 16, 2014.
  12. ↑ Scott Martin (March 25, 2016). "Peter Thiel's Founders Fund Bags $1.3 Billion". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 22, 2017.
  13. ↑ "Founders Fund stocks up with $3B across two funds". PitchBook. February 20, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
  14. ↑ "Founders Fund Raises $5 Billion for Early- to Late-Stage Deals". Bloomberg. March 3, 2022. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  15. ↑ Hogg, Ryan (March 11, 2023). "Peter Thiel's Founders Fund got its cash out of Silicon Valley Bank before it was shut down, report says". Business Insider. Retrieved March 13, 2023.
  16. ↑ "Founders Fund". Angelspartners.com. Retrieved February 17, 2024.
  17. 1 2 3 Primack, Dan. "Peter Thiel's Founders Fund isn't really Peter Thiel's Founders Fund". Axios. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  18. 1 2 3 4 "Founders Fund Raises $5 Billion for Early- to Late-Stage Deals". Mergers & Acquisitions. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
  19. ↑ "VC Scott Nolan on using what he learned at SpaceX to invest at Founders Fund - Silicon Valley Business Journal". The Business Journals. Retrieved August 2, 2023.
  20. ↑ "Kevin Hartz Is Stepping Down as Partner at Founders Fund". Fortune. Retrieved July 24, 2018.
  21. ↑ "Sean Parker formally leaves Founders Fund". Fortune. March 6, 2014.
  22. ↑ Josh Constine (December 11, 2012). "Founders Fund Partner Bruce Gibney Has Left The Firm". Tech Crunch. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
  23. ↑ Susannah Birkwood (October 31, 2012). "Profile: Founders Fund's Bruce Gibney". Asian Venture Capital Journal. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
  24. ↑ McBride, Sarah (August 18, 2017). "Founders Fund's Geoff Lewis Leaves to Start His Own Fund". Bloomberg. Retrieved November 27, 2019.
  25. ↑ Konrad, Alex. "Startup Armada Is Bringing AI To Remote Places, Using SpaceX Starlink Satellites". Forbes. Retrieved January 30, 2024.
  26. ↑ "Portfolio". Founders Fund. Retrieved March 9, 2023.
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.