Peter Thiel's Founders Fund is nearing the end of its fourth growth fund, Founders Fund Growth IV, with $6 billion in capital commitments, according to people close to the company. As with most of the company's financings, demand from outside investors has exceeded the fund's capacity, sources said. Additionally, about $1.5 billion of the funding is coming from Founders Fund partners, one of the sources told TechCrunch.
The new funding comes less than a year after Founders Fund closed its third growth fund. The fund is a $4.6 billion capital primarily intended for follow-on investments in successful later-stage companies.
The 21-year-old company has an impressive portfolio of successful startups. Founders Fund was an early investor in AI cloud computing company Crusoe, workforce management platform Rippling, and fintech companies Stripe and Ramp.
The firm was also the first institutional investor in data analytics giant Palantir Technologies, and has stakes in a number of other defense technology companies, including SpaceX, Flock Safety, and Anduril, co-founded by Founders Fund partner Trey Stevens and backed by the firm from its first seed round. (Nine-year-old Anduril has now reportedly raised a whopping $4 billion at a valuation of $60 billion.)
Founders Fund's growth-stage capital ambitions are not limited to its existing portfolio.
Last month, for example, the San Francisco-based company made its first direct investment in Anthropic. Founders Fund co-led a $30 billion investment in AI companies with a post-money valuation of $380 billion in collaboration with DE Shaw Ventures, Dragoneer, ICONIQ, and MGX. With this investment, Founders Fund is one of the few companies with significant stakes in both major AI labs and is also an investor in OpenAI.
Although Founders Fund has been actively raising capital for growth, the company has not raised any new early-stage funds since announcing its eighth early-stage fund with $1.8 billion in capital commitments in early 2022.
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The company cut its funding in half to $900 million in 2023 in response to worsening conditions. Founders Fund reallocated the remaining $900 million to another early-stage fund that was formally launched last October, according to a regulatory filing.
Founders Fund declined to comment.