Mithril Capital Management 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 ...

firm founded by

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 Ajay Royan 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 ...

in 2012. It was named after the fictional metal

mithril Mithril is a fictional metal found in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. It is described as resembling silver, but being stronger and lighter than steel. It was used to make armour, such as the helmets of the citadel guard of Minas Tirit ...

History

Thiel initially invested $100 million and allowed Royan to run the firm. Thiel subsequently served as chair of the investment committee. Since its inception, Mithril has financially partnered with entities such as

Temasek Temasek ( or , also spelt Temasik or Tumasik) is an early recorded name of a settlement on the site of modern Singapore. The name appears in early Malay and Javanese literature, and it is also recorded in Yuan and Ming Chinese documents ...

, the

MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 117 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.6 billion and ...

, and the

Sawiris family The Sawiris family () is an Egyptian Coptic Christian family that owns the Orascom conglomerate, spanning telecommunications, construction, tourism, industries and technology. In 2008, ''Forbes'' estimated the family's net worth at US$36 bil ...

. In 2018, Mithril relocated to

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

. The firm was subject to a 2019 federal investigation for potential financial misconduct. That year, Mithril invested in Glance, and Indian software company owned by

InMobi InMobi (formerly mKhoj) is an Indian multinational technology company, based in Bangalore. Originally an SMS-based search engine, it now operates a mobile-first platform to enable contextual mobile advertising. The company was founded in 200 ...

Personnel

Leading figures of the company have included

Brian Behlendorf Brian Behlendorf (born March 30, 1973) is an American technologist, executive, computer programmer and leading figure in the open-source software movement. He was a primary developer of the Apache Web server, the most popular web server software ...

, Crystal McKellar, and Jim O'Neill. Future U.S. vice president

JD Vance James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman, August2, 1984) is an American politician, author, attorney, and Marine Corps veteran who is the 50th vice president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republic ...

worked for the firm for a year in 2016. Vance went on to form Narya Capital alongside Mithril colleague Colin Greenspon in 2019.

History

Personnel

References

Further reading