Thrive Capital plots new fundraising as it doubles down on tech

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Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital is preparing to ask investors for at least $3bn in fresh capital after the New York venture fund made mammoth bets on technology start-ups last year, even as the sector tanked and many of its peers put investments on hold.

The fundraising, which three people close to the matter said was at an early stage and is expected to kick off formally in the next few months, would put Thrive among just a handful of large growth funds that are turning to investors for more cash as economic uncertainty and high interest rates continue to squeeze the tech sector.

The target has not yet been formally communicated to investors, but one of the people close to the matter said $3.4bn had been mooted, which would make it around the same size as its most recent fund raised in 2022.

The fundraising will be “a very interesting litmus test” for other investors in a market in which fundraising has slowed dramatically, said one investor in Thrive.

The group became one of the most influential venture firms in the US last year, investing $1.8bn in payments company Stripe and becoming a key venture backer of Sam Altman’s OpenAI. It invested about $130mn into the artificial intelligence group in early 2023 and is the lead investor in an ongoing employee stock sale at the company. Since it launched in 2009, investments have also included Reddit, Twitch and Robinhood.

Kushner’s large cheques appeared to be at odds with the mood elsewhere in the venture market. Fundraising by US venture firms hit a six-year low in 2023 and the groups spent less than half the amount they did in 2021 on fledgling companies, according to PitchBook. Insight Partners and Tiger Global, two of the largest US growth investors, cut target sizes for new funds late last year as institutional investors reined in their backing for private tech groups.

Kushner has…