Venture Capital · Profile from Venture Capital Research Companion
Social Capital
Chamath Palihapitiya's Palo Alto firm. It began in 2011 as a data-driven, founder-friendly venture partnership with some of the decade's best enterprise wins (Yammer, Slack, Box, Intercom). It became the leading sponsor of the 2019–2021 SPAC boom, and since 2019 it has been a technology holding company and family office around one investor.
At a glance
- Founded
- 2011, Palo Alto, California (as The Social+Capital Partnership)
- Founders
- Chamath Palihapitiya (ex-Facebook VP of growth), with Mamoon Hamid and Ted Maidenberg as founding general partners
- Headquarters
- Palo Alto, California
- Ownership / structure
- Private partnership; closed to new outside LP capital in 2019 and run as a technology holding company / family office controlled by Palihapitiya; separate public SPAC vehicles (IPOA–IPOF, DNAA–DNAD; a new SPAC in 2025, verify)
- Leadership (2026)
- Chamath Palihapitiya, founder and CEO; as of 2024 the only remaining senior investing partner (reported)
- AUM / capital raised
- Venture funds of roughly ~$1.5bn+ cumulative from outside LPs (2011–2017, reported); ~$2bn+ AUM cited at peak; ~$4.7bn+ raised across six IPO-series SPACs and ~$1bn across four DNA-series SPACs (2017–2021)
- Stage focus
- Originally Series A–C venture in enterprise SaaS, consumer, health, education and fintech; 2016–18 hard-tech seeds; 2019–21 SPAC sponsorship; now proprietary capital
- Signature investments
- Wins: Yammer, Slack, Box, Intercom, Groq, SoFi (via SPAC). Misses / failures: Virgin Galactic, Opendoor, Clover Health (post-SPAC collapses), Akili (sold for ~$34m), two liquidated SPACs (IPOD, IPOF)
10 deals and moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2011
Yammer
Growth Round Lead
2012
Wave Accounting
Series B
2014
Slack
Series C Lead
2016
Groq
Seed
2019
Virgin Galactic
SPAC Merger via IPOA
2020
Clover Health
SPAC Merger via IPOC
2020
Opendoor
SPAC Merger via IPOB
2021
SoFi
SPAC Merger via IPOE
2022
Akili
SPAC Merger via DNAA
2022
ProKidney
SPAC Merger via DNAC