[ad_1]
Joshua Kushner, Thrive Capital Edward Berthelot—Getty Images
Thrive Capital’s Joshua Kushner has backed fast-growing startups like Stripe and OpenAI with his venture capital firm. He has invested in more than a dozen other venture capital funds. luck Have learned.
As of last fall, Thrive was out of its $3.3 billion 8th growth stage fund, according to emails between Thrive’s investor relations team and California Public Employees’ Retirement System, one of its largest limited partners. It had invested in at least 17 venture capital firms. Recent donations are luck According to a Freedom of Information Act request. Many of the VC firms Thrive backs are startups launched in recent years by emerging managers, including Los Alamos Capital, a fund founded by Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. be. Not Boring Capital, newsletter writer Packy McCormick’s VC fund. Sheva VC is an Israeli venture capital firm founded by investors David Citron and Omri Caspi, a former NBA player with the Memphis Grizzlies in which Kushner is a minority shareholder.
Thrive declined to comment, so it’s unclear how much Thrive has invested in new VCs (often referred to as emerging executives) over the years or how that fits into the company’s broader investment strategy. be. However, this investment provides a rare perspective on a less-discussed but important aspect of the VC industry. Venture firms incorporate other VCs into their portfolios for reasons such as supporting deal flow or giving votes of confidence to certain people in their networks. Or as an act of goodwill towards a partner who is leaving.
Some of these types of investments may end up being quite profitable. Thrive Capital itself currently manages $14 billion in assets, according to SEC filings, and was seeded by General Catalyst and the company’s co-founder Joel Cutler. Many of the best-performing venture capital funds on the market are run by emerging managers. But without a track record, these funds also have a higher risk of failure.
Kyle Stanford, an analyst at PitchBook, said that typically only venture capital firms worth $1 billion or more use existing funds to back other investors. This is due to the government’s standards for non-qualified investments, which do not allow venture capital funds to allocate more than 20% of their capital to fund-of-fund investments, debt, secondary investments, etc. It is possible to raise specific funds). It also depends on what kind of agreement the venture company has with its own investors, called limited partners.
However, the main reason Stanford University invests in other VCs is for early-stage deal flow. “You have a source of information on ongoing deals and an idea of what deals are going to happen. [companies] Things are going well. Since we have additional data, [use to go] And you might make better decisions and invest in the future. ”
Thrive Capital is reportedly preparing its next round of growth funding. Early last year, Thrive bought back shares held by Goldman Sachs and resold them to executives including Bob Iger, Henry Kravis and Jorge Paulo Leman.
In response to a request for comment, a CalPERS spokesperson said the pension fund “does not discuss investment strategy or the operations of its investment partners.”
[ad_2]
Source link
