Founders Fund is an American

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

fund formed in 2005 and based in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. The fund has roughly $17 billion in total

assets under management In finance, assets under management (AUM), sometimes called fund under management, refers to the total market value of all financial assets that a financial institution—such as a mutual fund, venture capital firm, or depository institutio ...

as of 2025. Founders Fund was the first institutional investor in Space Exploration Technologies (

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

) and Palantir Technologies, and an early investor in

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

. The firm's partners have been founders, early employees and investors at companies including

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support E-commerce payment system, online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alter ...

, Palantir Technologies, Anduril Industries and SpaceX. The firm's investments include

Airbnb Airbnb, Inc. ( , an abbreviation of its original name, "Air Bed and Breakfast") is an American company operating an online marketplace for short-and-long-term homestays, experiences and services in various countries and regions. It acts as a ...

, Anduril,

DeepMind DeepMind Technologies Limited, trading as Google DeepMind or simply DeepMind, is a British–American artificial intelligence research laboratory which serves as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Founded in the UK in 2010, it was acquired by Go ...

, Rippling,

, Ramp, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX,

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

, Stripe, Neuralink, and Nubank. Notable partners include

Peter Thiel Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) 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. According ...

and Trae Stephens. Former partners include Brian Singerman, Keith Rabois, Cyan Banister, Ken Howery, Kevin Hartz, Sean Parker, and Bruce Gibney.

History

The firm was organized by

, 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. Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster and ex-president of

, joined in 2006. In 2007, the firm raised a new fund of $220 million. In 2010, the firm raised its third fund, with $250 million in committed capital, and in 2011, a fourth fund with $625 million of committed capital was raised. 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. In 2016, Founders Fund raised a sixth, $1.3 billion fund, bringing the firm's aggregate capital under management to more than $3 billion. 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. 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. In March 2023, Founders Fund 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. In 2025, Founders Fund raised its third growth fund, Founders Fund Growth III, at $4.6 billion for late-stage investments.

References

External links

* (official website) {{DEFAULTSORT:Founders Fund Financial services companies established in 2005 Venture capital firms of the United States Companies based in San Francisco