A Peek Inside Founders Fund - TechCrunch
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Tangentially relevant to AI safety as Founders Fund invests in frontier tech companies; provides context on VC funding dynamics around powerful technology development, though not directly focused on AI safety or alignment.
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Summary
TechCrunch reports on Founders Fund closing $5 billion across two new venture capital funds, providing insight into the firm's investment strategy and portfolio focus areas including defense tech and deep technology. The article offers a window into how one of Silicon Valley's prominent VC firms, co-founded by Peter Thiel, approaches high-risk, transformative technology bets.
Key Points
- •Founders Fund closed approximately $5 billion across two new funds in early 2022, representing a significant capital raise.
- •The firm, co-founded by Peter Thiel, focuses on transformative 'hard tech' investments rather than incremental software plays.
- •Founders Fund has backed companies like SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril, reflecting interest in defense and frontier technology.
- •The fundraise signals continued strong LP interest in deep technology venture investing despite market uncertainty.
- •Founders Fund's philosophy emphasizes backing contrarian founders working on ambitious, civilization-scale problems.
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| Founders Fund | Organization | 50.0 |
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A look inside Founders Fund, as it closes on $5 billion across two new funds | TechCrunch
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A look inside Founders Fund, as it closes on $5 billion across two new funds
Connie Loizos
4:44 PM PST · March 4, 2022
Founders Fund has garnered a lot of money from investors; it has also returned quite a bit of capital.
A lot of the action on both fronts has happened very recently. Yesterday, the 17-year-old outfit took the wraps off more than $5 billion in fresh capital commitments across two new funds — a $1.9 billion early-stage and a $3.4 billion growth-stage vehicle — that brings its total assets under management to roughly $11 billion. That’s a lot of moolah. But as the San Francisco-based outfit, which more recently opened an office in Miami, told us earlier today, over the last two years alone, it has returned $10 billion worth of shares to investors after its portfolio companies have hit the public markets.
To learn more about how its new funds are likely to be invested, we talked earlier today with both Lauren Gross and Brian Singerman, longtime partners of the 35-person outfit. They also answered questions about how the firm is structured these days; how often investing decisions involve the firm’s famous co-founder, Peter Thiel; and whether Founders Fund plans to incubate more companies (it’s how Anduril and Palantir got their start). Our chat follows, edited lightly for length.
TC: About a third of your overall staff is made up investors. How many of them are now in Miami, versus San Francisco?
FF: We have five team members in Miami, including Keith Rabois [who opened the office], who is the [general partner] there. We also have Matias [Van Thienen] who was recently promoted to partner and Delian [Asparouhov], one of our principals, is there.
Who on the team is more focused on earlier-stage, and who is focused on growth-stage deals?
All of our team members are considered generalists. We expect people to be able to work across sectors and across stages. We have an entirely opportunistic approach. That’s what has served us best from a returns perspective. We encourage people to find their own competitive advantage and pursue either sectors or stages of particular interest, but it’s not mandated by the firm.
Techcrunch
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