Thrive Capital was founded in 2009 by Joshua Kushner, then just 24 years old, from its base in New York's Puck Building. The firm started with roughly $5 million in seed capital, including backing from General Catalyst co-founder Joel Cutler, and raised its first institutional fund of $40 million in 2011 with money from Princeton University, the Wellcome Trust and Peter Thiel. From those beginnings it has become one of the largest venture firms in the world, with total fundraising of $22.3 billion and over $50 billion under management as of 2026.

The firm's thesis centres on software and internet investments, but its distinctive strategy — as the Financial Times described it in 2024 — is investing heavily in fewer companies, giving Thrive a closer relationship with founders and more visibility into each business. It remains faithful to early-stage investing while participating aggressively in growth and late-stage rounds, with Nitin Nohria, the former dean of Harvard Business School, serving as executive chairman since 2022. Kushner retains approximately 96.7% ownership of the firm.

  • OpenAI — a $130 million investment in 2022 at a $29 billion valuation, the only term sheet the organisation received at the time
  • Instagram, GitHub, Spotify and Twitch — early bets on era-defining platforms
  • Stripe, Plaid, Ramp and Databricks — fintech and data infrastructure leaders
  • Anduril, Airtable, Glossier, A24, Anysphere, Physical Intelligence and Scale AI — recent high-conviction positions

Fund progression tells the story of compounding ambition: from Fund VI ($1 billion, 2018) to Fund VIII ($3 billion, 2022), then Thrive IX — over $5 billion raised in August 2024, split between a $4 billion late-stage fund and a $1 billion early-stage fund — and Thrive X, which closed in February 2026 at more than $10 billion, with $1 billion for early-stage and $9 billion for growth-stage investments. Along the way, Petershill Partners paid around $120 million for a 3% stake in 2021 (valuing the firm at $4 billion), and a group including Bob Iger, Mukesh Ambani and Henry Kravis bought 3.3% at a $5.3 billion valuation in 2023. Thrive has also launched Thrive Eternal, a permanent-capital vehicle that acquired a stake in the San Francisco Giants in 2026.

Why it matters for founders

Thrive is the archetype of the concentrated, high-conviction investor: it backs fewer companies and goes deeper with each one. For founders, that means a lead investor willing to write very large cheques across the entire journey — from early rounds through $10-billion-scale growth funds — and a partner known for genuine founder relationships rather than portfolio spray-and-pray.