The Founders Fund is a venture capital firm investing in a wide variety of companies developing technologies and businesses in aerospace & transportation, biotechnology & health, advanced machines & artificial intelligence, energy, analytics & software, consumer internet & media. Peter Thiel, Ken Howry, and Luke Nosek founded the Founders Fund in 2005, and the firm is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Notable investments made by the Founders Fund include: Airbnb, Lyft, Spotify, Facebook, ZocDoc, Palantir Technologies, and SpaceX.
Timeline
Funded Companies
Facebook is a social media and social networking service company.
Bolt Threads is a biotechnology company that makes high performance fabrics and materials using biology.
Indee Labs focuses on the development of microfluidic vortex shedding for rapidly and efficiently transfecting human primary immune cells with negligible perturbation. The team is focused on developing its core technology for short turnaround chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) development and manufacturing.
Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, better known as SpaceX, is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California.
A cloud communications platform for building SMS, Voice & Messaging applications on an API built for a global scale that was founded in 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Flexport is a licensed freight forwarder and shipping company based in San Francisco, CA, USA. They manage global logistics for businesses.
Nubank is a financial technology company based in Brazil issuing, administrating, processing and transfering payments related to post-paid credit cards and equity investments.
Just, Inc. (formerly known as Hampton Creek) is a food technology company developing and selling plant based food products around the world.
Domo designs and delivers an executive management platform as a service to help executives manage their business.
A biotechnology company that has built a robotic cloud lab which allows on-demand services for biology laboratories.
Lyft is an American transportation network company. It designs, markets and operates a mobile application for matching drivers with passengers.
Mixhalo is a technology company that has created a closed wifi network capable of transmitting audio in near real-time from a sound source to an app on a smartphone. It was founded in 2016 and is located in San Francisco, California.
LightSail Energy was a Berkeley, California based company developing above-ground compressed air energy storage (CAES) systems
Blend invites companies that service the mortgage industry to sell digital tools--APIs--through its platform.
Anduril builds AI platforms to protect troops, fight wildfires, perform search & rescue missions and border surveillance. It was founded in 2017 and is located in Irvine, California.
An insurance technology company utilizing technology, design and data to humanize health care. and offer health insurance.
Branch offers microloans through a free-to-download Android app in emerging markets.
The Long-Term Stock Exchange is a financial services company and Securities Exchange.
Emerald Therapeutics is a biotechnology company located in San Fransisco, California, founded by Brian Frezza and DJ Klienbaum in 2010. Emerald Therapeutics offers cloud a based software and hardware platform that allows researchers to remotely perform automated scientific laboratory experiments.
A company offering an online platform for collaborative design in team environments.
Notable Labs is a company providing personalized drug combination testing service for cancer patients.
A biotechnology company using cellular agriculture to produce high-protein pet food.
An artificial intelligence software company specializing in deep learning and computer vision.
Associated investment funds
People
Aaron VanDevender
Chief Scientist and Principle
Brian Singerman
Partner
Cyan Banister
Partner
Eric Scott
Principle
Erin Gleason Lane
Vice President of Communications
Jeff Lonsdale
Managing Director, Asia
John Luttig
Associate
Ken Howry
Partner
Lauren Gross
Partner and Chief Operating Officer
Matias Van Thienen
Principle
Michael Solana
Vice President
Mike Petriano
Creative Director
Napoleon Ta
Partner
Neil Pai
General Counsel
Neil Ruthven
CFO
Peter Thiel
Partner
Scott Nolan
Partner
Trae Stephens
Partner
Zachary Hargreaves
Principle
Further reading
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
Brandon Kochkodin , Jen Skerritt , and Craig Giammona
Web
In-car commerce startup Cargo raises $22 million led by Founders Fund
Kristen Korosec
Web
Documentaries, videos and podcasts
Companies
Affirm
Consumer Internet & Media
AltSchool
Analytics & Software
Anduril
Advanced Machines & Intelligence
Branch
Analytics & Software
Cedar
Analytics & Software
Cloud9
Consumer Internet & Media
Collective Health
Biotechnology & Health
Compass
Analytics & Software
Credit Karma
Consumer Internet & Media
Forward
Biotechnology & Health
Harbor
Analytics & Software
HQ
Consumer Internet & Media
Hubble
Biotechnology & Health