Venture Capital · Profile from Venture Capital Research Companion
Founders Fund
The San Francisco firm built by the "PayPal Mafia" around Peter Thiel's contrarian, power-law worldview — a small partnership that writes very large, concentrated cheques into hard-technology monopolies (SpaceX, Palantir, Anduril) and promises never to fire a founder.
At a glance
- Founded
- 2005, San Francisco
- Founders
- Peter Thiel, Ken Howery and Luke Nosek (PayPal co-founders); Sean Parker joined as a partner in 2006
- Headquarters
- San Francisco (Presidio); partners also based in Los Angeles, Miami and elsewhere; Thiel's Thiel Capital is separate but closely linked
- Ownership / structure
- Private partnership owned by its general partners; Thiel remains the anchor GP. General partners commit very large sums of their own capital to the funds
- Leadership (2026)
- Peter Thiel (founding partner); general partners including Brian Singerman, Napoleon Ta (growth), Trae Stephens (also Anduril co-founder and chairman), Delian Asparouhov (also Varda co-founder), Lauren Gross, John Luttig and others (verify current roster). Keith Rabois left in 2024 to return to Khosla Ventures
- AUM / capital raised
- ~$11bn+ AUM reported in the early 2020s; cumulative commitments well above $15bn by 2025–26 including Growth III ($4.6bn, 2025) and a reported Growth IV (~$6bn, verify)
- Stage focus
- Seed through growth; concentrated "best ideas" approach; strong bias to hard tech (aerospace, defence, energy, biotech, AI infrastructure) and to category monopolies
- Signature investments
- Facebook (Thiel personal angel), SpaceX, Palantir, Airbnb, Spotify, Stripe, Lyft, Nubank, Anduril, Scale AI, Neuralink, Rippling, Ramp, Flexport, Polymarket, Varda; failures/misses: Halcyon Molecular, Knewton and other 2010s consumer and edtech bets; sold early on Lyft and Facebook positions; bitcoin bought 2014, sold 2022 (reported)
9 deals and moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2008
SpaceX
Venture Round
2009
Halcyon Molecular
Seed / Early Rounds
2010
Palantir
Series D
2012
Airbnb
Series C
2012
Lyft
Series B
2015
Nubank
Series C
2017
Anduril
Seed
2019
Scale AI
Series C
2024
Polymarket
Series B