Founders Fund is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded in 2005 by Peter Thiel, Ken Howery, and Luke Nosek, best known for the credo "we wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters" and a contrarian appetite for hard science and frontier technology over incremental consumer apps. The firm backs category-defining, often monopoly-scale companies across aerospace and defense, artificial intelligence, biotech, fintech and crypto, energy, semiconductors, robotics, and deep tech, investing from seed through late-stage growth with an increasingly concentrated, high-conviction style (its recent growth funds put hundreds of millions of dollars into a small number of companies). Founders Fund manages roughly $17 billion in assets as of 2025 and is headquartered at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco's Presidio. Its portfolio includes many of the defining technology companies of the era, among them SpaceX, Palantir, Anduril, Stripe, Airbnb, Facebook, Neuralink, OpenAI, DeepMind, Ramp, Nubank, Spotify, and Figma.
aid: founders-fund
name: Founders Fund
description: >-
Founders Fund is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded in 2005 by
Peter Thiel, Ken Howery, and Luke Nosek, best known for the credo "we wanted
flying cars, instead we got 140 characters" and a contrarian appetite for hard
science and frontier technology over incremental consumer apps. The firm backs
category-defining, often monopoly-scale companies across aerospace and defense,
artificial intelligence, biotech, fintech and crypto, energy, semiconductors,
robotics, and deep tech, investing from seed through late-stage growth with an
increasingly concentrated, high-conviction style (its recent growth funds put
hundreds of millions of dollars into a small number of companies). Founders
Fund manages roughly $17 billion in assets as of 2025 and is headquartered at
the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco's Presidio. Its portfolio
includes many of the defining technology companies of the era, among them
SpaceX, Palantir, Anduril, Stripe, Airbnb, Facebook, Neuralink, OpenAI,
DeepMind, Ramp, Nubank, Spotify, and Figma.
x-type: venture-capital
x-category: Venture Capital
image: https://foundersfund.com/wp-content/themes/foundersfund/assets/images/logo.svg
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-17'
specificationVersion: '0.20'
tags:
- Venture Capital
- Seed
- Series A
- Growth
- Deep Tech
- Aerospace and Defense
- Artificial Intelligence
- Fintech
- San Francisco
- United States
apis: []
common:
- type: Website
url: https://foundersfund.com
- type: Portfolio
url: https://foundersfund.com/portfolio/
- type: Portfolio
url: portfolio/founders-fund-portfolio.yml
- type: Team
url: https://foundersfund.com/our_team
- type: Team
url: team/founders-fund-team.yml
- type: InvestmentThesis
url: https://foundersfund.com/2018/01/manifesto
- type: Blog
url: https://foundersfund.com/anatomy-of-next/
- type: Crunchbase
url: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/founders-fund
- type: Features
data:
- 'Stage: Seed, Series A, Growth (seed through late-stage)'
- 'Sectors: aerospace and defense, artificial intelligence, biotech, fintech and crypto, energy, semiconductors, robotics, deep tech, consumer'
- 'Geography: primarily United States, with global investments (Europe, Latin America)'
- 'AUM: ~$17B (2025, reported)'
- 'Founded: 2005'
- 'Founders: Peter Thiel, Ken Howery, Luke Nosek'
- 'HQ: Letterman Digital Arts Center, San Francisco, CA'
sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founders_Fund
- https://foundersfund.com
updated: '2026-07-17'
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
email: kin@apievangelist.com
url: https://apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
url: https://apisjson.org
- FN: Founders Fund
url: https://foundersfund.com