Key Takeaways
- Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital closed Thrive X, raising over USD 10 billion. This is double the USD 5 billion raised for Thrive IX in August 2024. It is the firm’s largest fund to date.
- Around USD 1 billion is allocated to early-stage investments. Nearly USD 9 billion is reserved for growth-stage companies. Focus areas include AI infrastructure, AI applications, space technology, robotics, and life sciences.
- Strong investor demand was driven by Thrive’s stakes in leading private firms such as OpenAI, SpaceX, and Stripe. These holdings significantly strengthened limited partner confidence and led to oversubscription.
- Earthian AI ranked Thrive Capital as the #1 AI venture capital firm in 2025. The ranking cited early investment conviction and strong value creation per dollar deployed.
Quick Recap
Thrive Capital, the New York-based venture capital firm founded by Josh Kushner, officially closed its record-breaking $10 billion fund, Thrive X, on February 17, 2026. The fund was heavily oversubscribed, with the firm turning away billions in prospective commitments. Bloomberg first reported the news, confirming that Thrive X gives the firm an expanded war chest across AI, space, robotics, and life sciences.
Josh Kushner founded Thrive Capital in 2009 with a $10 million inaugural fund. Over the following fifteen years, the firm expanded its assets under management to more than $25 billion and established a strong performance record in venture investing. Growth has been driven by a disciplined investment model focused on select opportunities rather than broad portfolio diversification.
The firm follows a concentrated strategy, making a limited number of investments each year while deploying significant capital into high conviction companies and maintaining long term ownership. This approach enabled early stakes in companies such as Instagram, Spotify, Stripe, Slack, GitHub, Robinhood, Affirm, OpenAI, and SpaceX, many of which later became category leaders.
The recently announced Thrive X fund totals $10 billion, doubling the size of the $5 billion Thrive IX fund raised eighteen months earlier. Of this capital, $1 billion is allocated to early stage investments and $9 billion to growth stage opportunities. This structure indicates a continued focus on leading large late stage rounds, particularly in artificial intelligence and frontier technologies, where significant technological advancement is anticipated in the coming years.
Thrive Capital AI Portfolio
| Company | Sector | Latest Round | Amount Raised | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Isomorphic Labs | AI Drug Discovery | Series A | $600M | 2025 | Led by Thrive; Alphabet participated |
| Anthropic | Foundation Models / LLMs | Series E | $3.5B | 2025 | Participated alongside Lightspeed and Salesforce |
| Lila Sciences | Scientific AI / Autonomous Labs | Seed | $200M | 2025 | Flagship-backed; Thrive participated |
| ElevenLabs | Generative AI / Audio | Series B | $180M | 2025 | Co-led with Andreessen Horowitz |
| Hugging Face | Open Source AI Infrastructure | Series D | $235M | 2023 | Strategic LP in community-driven model ecosystem |
| Rogo | AI Search for Finance | Series B | $50M | 2025 | AI copilot for investment banking workflows |
| Shield Technology Partners | AI-Enabled IT Services | Growth Investment | $100M | 2025 | Deployed via Thrive Holdings permanent capital arm |
| ThriveAI | AI Agents / Product Management | Pre-Seed | $1.2M | 2025 | Slack- and Teams-native PM automation agents |
Competitive Landscape
| Feature / Metric | Thrive Capital (Thrive X) | Founders Fund (Growth Fund III) | General Catalyst (Fund XII) |
| Latest Fund Size | $10 billion | $4.6 billion | ~$8 billion (incl. SMAs) |
| Founded | 2009 | 2005 | 2000 |
| Total AUM | ~$25 billion+ | NA | ~$33.6 billion |
| Key AI Bets | OpenAI, Anthropic, Isomorphic Labs, ElevenLabs | Anthropic, Scale AI, Anduril | Commure, AI health assurance, defense AI |
| Investment Style | Concentrated, few bets per year, large checks | Concentrated, contrarian, founder-aligned | Multi-strategy (seed to growth + creation + SMAs) |
| Early vs. Growth Split | $1B early / $9B growth | Primarily growth-stage | $4.5B core VC / $1.5B creation / $2B SMAs |
| Unique Edge | Thrive Holdings (PE-style AI operating company) + OpenAI equity stake | Deepest defense tech portfolio (SpaceX, Anduril) | Health Assurance Ecosystem across 23 hospital systems |
| Oversubscription | Yes – turned away billions | Yes – 270 LPs, GP capital contributed | NA |
Strategic Analysis
Thrive Capital maintains a highly concentrated investment strategy centered on artificial intelligence, supported by close relationships with portfolio companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Through its Thrive Holdings operating platform, the firm combines capital deployment with operational involvement, creating a reinforcing cycle between investment insight and portfolio development. This structure strengthens its positioning in high conviction AI opportunities and enables deeper engagement with category defining companies.
In comparison, General Catalyst operates a diversified, multi strategy platform with exposure across healthcare operations, defense, and climate technologies. Its broader thematic approach extends beyond traditional venture investing and may provide greater balance across economic cycles. In the event of valuation adjustments within the AI sector, this diversification could offer resilience through exposure to multiple structural growth areas rather than concentrated reliance on a single technology theme.
Bayelsa Watch’s Takeaway
From a fintech and artificial intelligence market perspective, the $10 billion Thrive X fund raised by Thrive Capital signals strong confidence in the next cycle of technology innovation. The scale of capital available provides meaningful support for advanced AI platforms, robotics ventures, and other frontier technologies, including companies such as OpenAI that are shaping the current development curve. This level of funding is expected to accelerate late stage rounds and reinforce long term ecosystem growth.
The fundraise also reinforces the viability of a concentrated venture model focused on founder alignment and long term ownership. While broader, multi strategy firms continue to expand, Thrive’s disciplined and founder centric approach may offer sustainable value creation across market cycles. For emerging companies in AI and related sectors, the current environment presents a favorable backdrop for strategic capital formation.
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