Founders Fund nears $6 billion close for latest growth fund, sources say

Peter Thiel's Founders Fund is on the brink of finalizing its fourth growth fund, known as Founders Fund Growth IV, with a remarkable $6 billion in capital commitments, according to sources familiar with the situation. This latest fundraising effort has seen demand from external investors surpassing the fund's capacity, highlighting the strong interest in the fund's opportunities. Of the total capital raised, approximately $1.5 billion is being contributed by the partners of Founders Fund themselves. This new fund comes less than a year following the closure of the firm's third growth fund, which amassed $4.6 billion and was primarily aimed at supporting follow-on investments in its successful late-stage portfolio companies. Founded 21 years ago, Founders Fund boasts an impressive array of startups in its portfolio. The firm was an early backer of various innovative companies, including Crusoe, a leader in AI cloud computing, workforce management platform Rippling, and fintech giants Stripe and Ramp. Additionally, Founders Fund was the first institutional investor in Palantir Technologies, a major player in data analytics, and holds stakes in several defense tech firms such as SpaceX, Flock Safety, and Anduril, the latter co-founded by Founders Fund partner Trae Stephens. Notably, Anduril is reportedly in the process of raising an extensive $4 billion round at a staggering $60 billion valuation. The ambitions of Founders Fund in the growth-stage capital market extend beyond its existing portfolio. Recently, the firm made its inaugural direct investment in Anthropic, co-leading a substantial $30 billion investment round alongside D. E. Shaw Ventures, Dragoneer, ICONIQ, and MGX. This investment positions Founders Fund as one of the few firms with significant stakes in both leading AI laboratories, also having investments in OpenAI. Despite the aggressive push for growth capital, Founders Fund has not launched a new early-stage fund since early 2022. At that time, it announced its eighth early-stage fund with $1.8 billion in commitments. However, in response to deteriorating market conditions in 2023, the firm halved that fund to $900 million, reallocating the balance into a new early-stage fund that officially launched last October. Founders Fund has chosen not to comment on these developments.