Chamath Palihapitiya is seeking to raise billions of dollars in outside capital for his venture capital firm, Social Capital, Axios has learned from multiple sources.
Why it matters: This comes four years after Palihapitiya effectively turned Social Capital into a family office, controversially shunning longtime limited partners and slimming down the firm's investment and operations teams.
- Social Capital was known for its early bets on companies like Slack, while Palihapitiya later became a major player in the SPAC market.
- Palihapitiya, an early Facebook employee and former minority owner of the Golden State Warriors, recently chose to close a pair of tech-focused SPACs, while keeping two biotech-focused SPACs operational.
Details: Palihapitiya is said to expect to hold a first close on the new fund sometime in early 2023, and currently is speaking with large investors about commitments in excess of $100 million. One source says that Palihapitiya is speaking with investors around the globe, including in the U.S. and the Middle East.
- One source familiar with the situation says that Palihapitiya sees lots of private market investment opportunity, but that his personal wealth isn't sufficient to support too many large deals.
- It's unclear if Palihapitiya plans to deviate from the data-driven investment model that caused so much of the earlier friction at Social Capital.
