# Funds & investors: the US mega-funds that move the global startup economy
> Seven US-based and Japan-based venture capital firms, managing more than US$350 billion combined, determine which technologies scale, which founders win, and where power concentrates.

**Meta:** type: reference · date: 2026-07-03 · heads:  · 4 takes · 2 lenses · 2 regions

## What it is

The "Funds & investors" sub-beat tracks the venture capital firms that set the capital agenda for global technology. Unlike public-market funds, these firms take illiquid stakes in private companies years before any exit, set valuations that the rest of the market follows, and determine which sectors get funded at scale. The seven firms on this tracker collectively control more than US$350 billion in assets under management, a concentration of private capital that gives them outsized influence over startup formation, talent allocation, and government policy as well as pure returns. Several act as explicit political actors: they maintain Washington, DC offices, submit filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and position portfolio companies for US and allied government procurement.

## History

US venture capital was formalised under the US Small Business Investment Act of 1958 and grew around partnerships in Menlo Park, California. Sequoia, founded by Don Valentine in 1972, set the original template: small funds, concentrated bets, and long holding periods. Annual US VC totalled between US$20 billion and US$30 billion during the recovery from the 2000 to 2003 dot-com crash.

The first structural reset came in 2017 with SoftBank's Vision Fund 1, the largest technology investment vehicle ever raised at US$98.6 billion, anchored by US$45 billion from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. It inflated valuations in ride-hailing and real estate and left many portfolio companies unable to reach public-market viability on those terms.

The second reset is AI. US AI investment reached US$222 billion in 2025, representing 65.4 percent of all US venture deal value, according to the 2026 NVCA Yearbook. The top five AI companies alone, OpenAI, CoreWeave, xAI, Anthropic, and Databricks, raised nearly US$60 billion that year.

## Current state

As of mid-2026, capital concentration among the largest firms is tightening further. The top ten US VC funds captured 32.9 percent of all VC capital raised in 2025. [Andreessen Horowitz's Fund VII](/ja/n/a16z-fund-vii-2026) closed in January 2026 at over US$15 billion, the largest VC fundraise in US history. Sequoia closed a US$7 billion expansion fund in April 2026. Thrive Capital raised its Thrive X vehicle at US$10 billion, reaching roughly US$37 billion in firm-wide assets.

Non-traditional investors, including sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, and corporate strategics, participated in roughly 30 percent of deals in 2025 but accounted for 83 percent of all US VC investment value, meaning the largest rounds are no longer pure venture capital transactions. The roster firms are deploying capital into the central AI bets: see [Anthropic closes $65bn Series H at a $965bn valuation, files for IPO](/ja/n/anthropic-series-h-ipo-2026), [アンドゥリルがシリーズH 50億ドルで評価額610億ドルに倍増](/ja/n/anduril-series-h-2026), and earlier-stage AI plays including [Skild AIが汎用ロボット頭脳の構築へ、評価額140億ドルで14億ドルを調達](/ja/n/skild-ai-series-c-2026).

## Relationships

The seven roster subjects fall into three archetypes. Platform mega-funds: Sequoia (roughly US$85 billion AUM) and Andreessen Horowitz (over US$100 billion AUM) run full-stack models with in-house operating specialists, dedicated AI and defense vehicles, and Washington presences; they compete head-to-head on nearly every major US deal. Concentrated-bet funds: Founders Fund (Growth IV at US$6 billion, closed May 2026) and Khosla Ventures (roughly US$17 billion AUM) write fewer, larger checks in AI, biotech, and aerospace, without the platform overhead. Growth-stage specialists: Thrive Capital and General Catalyst (over US$43 billion AUM) concentrate at late stage. Thrive, founded by Josh Kushner in New York City, has become the dominant US AI growth-stage player. General Catalyst runs a health-assurance thesis alongside its tech practice, with a portfolio spanning the US and Europe. SoftBank Vision Fund stands apart: it is a corporate arm of Japan's SoftBank Group Corp., and its US$166 billion in total AUM across two funds reflects CEO Masayoshi Son's conviction cycles rather than conventional LP mandates.

## What to watch

- Whether late-stage AI valuations hold when portfolio companies approach US public markets. Secondary transactions returned nearly as much capital as IPO exits in 2025, per NVCA, signalling LP pressure for liquidity before the IPO window opens.
- How [the surge in US defense-tech venture capital](/ja/n/defense-tech-funding-record-2026) plays out for Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz, whose American Dynamism strategies depend on the US Pentagon maintaining its commitment to commercial procurement.
- Whether US outbound investment restrictions tighten in ways that create compliance problems for firms, including SoftBank Vision Fund, that hold equity in both US defense-technology companies and Gulf or Chinese-capital-backed entities.

## Regional takes (batched by bias / lens)

### official record
- **National Venture Capital Association** (United States, en) — The 2026 NVCA Yearbook, released April 13 2026 with data from PitchBook, documents US$320 billion deployed across 15,352 US deals in 2025, the second-highest total on record; AI captured 65.4 percent of all deal value, and the top ten funds alone took 32.9 percent of all VC capital raised that year.
  Source: https://nvca.org/2026-nvca-yearbook/
- **SoftBank Group Corp.** (Japan, en) — Official SoftBank corporate segment page covering Vision Fund 1 (US$98.6 billion committed capital) and Vision Fund 2 (approximately US$56 billion), the two largest technology investment vehicles by committed capital in history.
  Source: https://group.softbank/en/segments/svf

### fund strategy
- **TechCrunch** (United States, en) — Reports Andreessen Horowitz's January 2026 US$15 billion fundraise across five dedicated strategy vehicles, the largest single raise in US venture capital history; places it in the context of widening structural concentration between mega-platform firms and the rest of the industry.
  Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/09/the-venture-firm-that-ate-silicon-valley/
- **TechCrunch** (United States, en) — Reports Sequoia's April 2026 close of a US$7 billion expansion fund under new co-managing partners Alfred Lin and Pat Grady, nearly double the 2022 comparable vehicle, targeting US and European AI companies approaching public-listing scale.
  Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/16/new-leaders-new-fund-sequoia-has-raised-7b-to-expand-its-ai-bets/

## Across the graph
- Related: [[a16z-fund-vii-2026]], [[defense-tech-funding-record-2026]], [[anthropic-series-h-ipo-2026]], [[anduril-series-h-2026]], [[skild-ai-series-c-2026]]
- Entities: Org:sequoia, Org:a16z, Org:founders Fund, Org:thrive Capital, Org:general Catalyst, Org:khosla Ventures, Org:softbank Vision Fund

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