Maverick Capital is an American

hedge fund A hedge fund is a Pooling (resource management), pooled investment fund that holds Market liquidity, liquid assets and that makes use of complex trader (finance), trading and risk management techniques to aim to improve investment performance and ...

firm. It was founded by

Lee Ainslie Lee S. Ainslie III (born 1964) is an American businessman who founded the hedge fund firm Maverick Capital. He is also a board member of the Robin Hood Foundation and owns a minority stake in the Washington Commanders of the National Football ...

in 1993, who was a " Tiger Cub" under

Julian Robertson Julian Hart Robertson Jr. (June 25, 1932 – August 23, 2022) was an American hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. Robertson founded Tiger Management, one of the first hedge funds, in 1980. From its inception in 1980 to its 1998 asset pe ...

Tiger Management Tiger Management Corp. is an American hedge fund and family office founded by Julian Robertson. The fund began investing in 1980 and wound down in March 2000-01. It continues to operate in direct public equity investments and seeding new inves ...

. It primarily invests in

shares In financial markets, a share (sometimes referred to as stock or equity) is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation. It can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Sha ...

(avoiding bonds, commodities, currencies, and options), holding both long and short positions and buying what it thinks will beat the market. It employs

fundamental analysis Fundamental analysis, in accounting and finance, is the analysis of a business's financial statements (usually to analyze the business's assets, Liability (financial accounting), liabilities, and earnings); health; Competition, competitors and Ma ...

and examines management closely. It examines companies for "good capital-allocation decisions", and especially how incremental returns on invested capital compare to the cost of capital.

History

Maverick Capital was founded by

in 1993, who was a " Tiger Cub" under

, helped raise $38 million in capital by the family of Texas entrepreneur

Sam Wyly Samuel Evans Wyly (born October 4, 1934) is an American businessman. He first appeared on ''Forbes''s list of richest Americans in 2000 with a net worth of $750 million, and he remained on that list throughout 2010 with a net worth of $1 billio ...

. From 1995 to 2014, the fund returned a compounded return of 13% annually. It started to diversify into young companies in 2004 under its flagship equities hedge fund (under David Singer). In October 2014, Maverick announced that it would be hitting the startup scene by launching its first venture capital fund on January 1, 2015. Many of its investments involve healthcare and biotechnology. By the end of 2015, it carried over $6.9 billion in holdings. In 2006, Lee Ainslie mentioned "It’s quite frustrating as a shareholder that companies are not using cash more productively for their shareholders, whether by buying back stock or by issuing dividends". Lee Ainslie describes Maverick Capital as a traditional fund that puts greater premium on the value of its relationships with management teams than more "interventionist" hedge funds. In May 2025, it was reported the company invested in

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

hardware start-up called 'io', founded in 2024 by

Jony Ive Sir Jonathan Paul Ive (born 27 February 1967) is a British-American designer. He is best known for his work at Apple Inc., where he was senior vice president of industrial design and chief design officer. Ive is the founder of LoveFrom, a crea ...

, and then acquired by

OpenAI OpenAI, Inc. is an American artificial intelligence (AI) organization founded in December 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. It aims to develop "safe and beneficial" artificial general intelligence (AGI), which it defines ...

for $6.5 billion, subject to regulatory approval.

References

Tiger Cub firms Hedge fund firms in Texas {{US-finance-company-stub