Solutions Ecosystems Reports Resources Data Pricing Login Book a demo
Investor profile

Founders Fund

Venture capital firm · San Francisco, USA · Founded 2005 · Active in 2026

← Power Law Ranking

A public taster of the full Dealroom platform — request a demo to explore live deal flow, full investor history, and team intel. · Last updated 15 Apr 2026 · Methodology

130 Power Law outcomes Power Law Ranking #11 · 130 Power Law outcomes · Active 2026
Enterprise value ↑ 100% 5y
$5.6T
Unicorns ↑ 35% 5y
119
Decacorns ↑ 40% 5y
28
Thoroughbreds ↑ 37% 5y
126
Featured in #11Power Law Investor Ranking · Global · 2026 Top 0.5%by Seed → $100M+ revenue outcomes

Founders Fund was founded in San Francisco in 2005 by Peter Thiel, Ken Howery, and Luke Nosek — three of the original PayPal mafia. The contrarian thesis — "we wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters" — has driven heavy concentration in deep tech and frontier categories: space, defence, AI infrastructure, and crypto.

Signature bets include SpaceX, Palantir, Anduril, Stripe, and an early position in Facebook.

Portfolio analysis

The 130 Founders Fund Power Law outcomes ($100M+ revenue and above).

Snapshot of where the outcomes are concentrated by country, sector, and stage entered.

By countryCount
  1. USA110
  2. UK4
  3. Germany3
  4. Canada2
  5. New Zealand2
  6. Brazil1
  7. Senegal1
  8. Australia1
  9. India1
  10. Sweden1
  11. Norway1
  12. Netherlands1
By sectorCount
  1. Fintech28
  2. Health Tech & Medtech15
  3. AI12
  4. Other B2B Software11
  5. Biotech & Life Sciences11
  6. Cybersecurity8
  7. Other8
  8. eCommerce & Marketplaces8
  9. Transportation7
  10. Marketing5
  11. Space5
  12. Energy5
By stage enteredCount
  1. Series B+69
  2. Series A30
  3. Seed26
01 · Portfolio market map

Founders Fund's 130 Power Law outcomes.

Toggle between a sector landscape and a world map. Both views respond to the stage and outcome-tier filters. The faded names at the bottom of bigger boxes are part of the full list — click "+ N more" to reveal them.

Stage entered
Outcome tier
Region
Group by
130 of 130 Power Law outcomes
Logos hosted by Dealroom; click any chip to open the company in app.dealroom.co. The dot inside each chip shows the company's highest tier — red Gigacorn, violet Centicorn/Decacorn, lavender Unicorn, blue Thoroughbred, green Colt. Tiers are inclusive: a Unicorn (e.g. Klarna) also matches the Thoroughbred filter, a Decacorn also matches Unicorn and Thoroughbred, and so on up the ladder. Colt is a separate axis (high-growth, smaller revenue) and only matches itself. Map dots use the same colour code; hover for details. Sectors are mutually exclusive (priority-ordered classification). Stage entered = the round Founders Fund first invested in (where data is available — coverage 93%).
02 · Origin of portfolio founders

Where Founders Fund's founders come from — and where they study.

388 founders across the 130 Power Law outcomes — split by country of origin, university attended, and the company they worked at before founding. Stanford University and Alphabet | Google are the deepest single pipelines.

LocationCount
United States220
Portugal14
India12
South Africa9
Canada8
Iran8
Romania7
Australia6
Germany6
Palestine6
+19 more →
UniversityCount
Stanford University32
Harvard University17
Berkeley16
Massachusetts Institute of Technology12
University of Texas at Austin9
Cornell University8
Stanford University Graduate School of Business7
University of Pennsylvania7
University of Oxford6
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania6
+113 more →
Origin companyCount
Alphabet | Google41
Microsoft24
Meta16
Palantir9
Uber8
Rocket Internet7
Apple5
Dropbox5
Amazon4
Quora4
+131 more →
Origin = country a founder is born in or grew up in (founders may have multiple origins; counts include all entries). University = highest-listed degree. Origin company = a previous employer where the founder was tagged before starting their current company. Explore the full Sequoia infographic on Thoroughbreds & Unicorns →
03 · Key people

Key people at Founders Fund.

Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel
Co-founder & Partner
Forbes Midas 2025 · #3
SpaceX
 Trae Stephens
Trae Stephens
Partner
Forbes Midas 2025 · #19
Anduril
 Brian Singerman
Brian Singerman
Partner
Forbes Midas 2025 · #84
Affirm
Photos sourced from public partner pages (firm websites + Wikipedia). Roster and Midas ranks are sourced from the official Forbes 2025 Midas List (compiled by Forbes & TrueBridge Capital Partners). Notable-deal attributions are the most-cited public lead deal for each partner; corrections welcome at [email protected].
04 · Compare with peers

How does Founders Fund stack up?

Founders Fund in orange, your selection in blue and other colours. Pick from the global roster of 35 peer investors — filter by region or hit "Find similar shapes" to auto-pick the three closest. The funnel matrix mirrors the spider chart on the ranking page; the line chart shows each firm's share of global unicorns minted that year — peaks reveal vintage years.

Compare against

Stage focus

Companies by entry stage and outcome tier

Sector focus

Companies per investor across the 10 highest-volume sectors

Share of new unicorns per year

% of all global unicorns minted that year, year by year
Source: Dealroom Power Law dataset. Investors shown are the 2026 Power Law top 35 by combined entry-to-outcome score, drawn from the overview and locations_data sheets. Funnel-matrix axes rescale per-axis using the maximum among the currently selected investors, so the polygons always fill the chart for shape comparison.

Want the full picture on Founders Fund?

The Dealroom platform tracks every round, every co-investor, and every portfolio company in real time — across 25,000+ investors and 3M+ companies globally.

View Founders Fund in app → Book a demo
Data as of 15 Apr 2026 · Source: Dealroom Power Law dataset · Methodology
Suggest an edit