Gigafund

Gigafund is a venture capital and private equity firm that is headquartered in Austin, Texas and was founded in 2017 by Luke Nosek (a member of the PayPal mafia and partner at Founders Fund) and Stephan Oskoui (former venture partner at FoundersFund and CEO of Smiley Media). The company focuses its investments in technology companies with long term potential. Co-founder Luke Nosek left Founders Fund, a venture capital firm he co-founded with Peter Thiel, to start Gigafund. When leaving the Founders Fund, the company released a public statement regarding Nosek leaving the company he co-founded by saying:

"Luke is leaving Founders Fund to launch a new endeavour. His unwavering commitment to entrepreneurs and passion for technology shaped the founding ethos of Founders Fund. We are grateful for his contributions and wish him well.

Initially Nosek's plans for Gigafund was to focus the firms efforts on raising money for SpaceX to ensure the company is not held back by financial constraints, but after the company successfully invested in SpaceX Gigafund began focusing on investing in other companies.

Investment funds

On July 26, 2017 Gigafund filed a Sec D form detailing Gigafunds first investment fund. The company successfully raised $100 million in funding according to the Sec D form. The form listed Luke Nosek and Stephen Oskoui as the partners of Gigafund. At the time of Sec D filing for their first fund Gigafund's official address was 1220 Seaport Blvd, Redwood City, California.

Investments

SpaceX

Gigafund's largest investment was in SpaceX on May 24, 2019. The company participated in a venture funding round held by SpaceX. Co-founder of Gigafund, Luke Nosek, has served on the board of SpaceX since 2008, and led the first venture investment from the Founders Fund into SpaceX.

Luminous Computing

On June 4, 2019 Gigafund lead the seed funding round for Luminous Capital.

The Boring Company

On July 25, 2019 Gigafund participated in a venture funding round held by The Boring Company.

Golden

On May 1, 2019 Gigafund co-led the seed funding round for Golden.

Timeline

July 26, 2017

Raising of first investment fund

On July 26, 2017 Gigafund filed a Sec D form detailing Gigafunds first investment fund. The company successfully raised $100 million in funding according to the Sec D form.

2008

Partner Luke Nosek was the first venture capital investor to back SpaceX (with a $20 million investment in 2008), Gigafund began investing $100's of millions into SpaceX after partnering with Stephen Oskoui.

2001

After the $1.5 billion sale of PayPal to eBay in 2001, Luke launched Founders Fund with his PayPal co-founders Peter Thiel and Ken Howery.

Funded Companies

Company

Description

Industry

Website

Location

Golden

Golden is a company started in San Francisco, USA. The company is building an encyclopedia and knowledge tool. The founder and CEO of Golden is Jude Gomila.

Machine learning

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Software

Database

Knowledge management (KM)

Business intelligence (BI)

Educational technology

U.S-based e-learning platform teaching coding, UX, and data science.

Synthetic biology company that uses AI, DNA synthesis, and robotics to discover biological molecules.

Machine learning

Artificial intelligence (AI)

A technology company using photonics to improve the data processing capabilities of artificial intelligence models by attempting to create a supercomputer on a chip.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

luminouscomputing.com, luminous.co

Mountain View, California

Sana

A company developing sleep mask with light therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), pain, and insomnia treatment. It was founded in 2015 and is located in Lafayette, Colorado.

Artificial intelligence (AI)