Capital

First institutional check into OpenAI — $50M at a $1B valuation, now worth ~$8B. AI-first thesis across the portfolio.

Recent: Topped the 2026 Forbes Midas List on the OpenAI position and is raising up to $5.5B in new funds, the firm's largest raise since 2004.

Watch for: Where the new $5.5B goes — the firm has signaled fusion, humanoid robots, and AI infrastructure alongside models.

The largest solo capital allocator in AI. Backed Anthropic, Mistral, Perplexity, and Harvey early, with every decision flowing through one person.

Recent: Raised roughly $3B for his first institutional fund — double the initial target — and led into Cognition's Series D in May 2026.

Watch for: Whether a one-person, $3B fund can keep pace on follow-ons as AI round sizes climb into the tens of billions.

Launched an AI-native fund before ChatGPT existed. Hosts No Priors, the most-listened AI investor podcast.

Recent: Portfolio marks stacked up through 2026: Harvey at $11B, OpenEvidence at $12B, Sierra at $15B; Conviction is now on its third fund after a $230M Fund II.

Watch for: Fund III sizing and whether Conviction stays seed-focused or follows its winners into growth rounds.

Publishes the annual MAD (ML/AI/Data) landscape — the industry's reference map — and hosts the MAD Podcast.

Recent: The 2025 MAD Landscape, titled 'Bubble & Build,' was the biggest redraw in the map's history, putting agents and the data/control plane at the center.

Watch for: The 2026 MAD Landscape — his consolidation calls tend to preview which categories get acquired or die.

Runs the largest venture platform in AI: a $20B growth megafund plus five more funds totaling $15B closed in January 2026.

Recent: a16z launched a $1.1B 'Machine Age' fund in August 2026 to finance the physical buildout of AI — chips, data centers, robots — days before topping up growth to $8.5B.

Watch for: Whether a16z's scale forces it to behave like a sovereign fund — index-buying the AI category rather than picking within it.

Now co-runs Sequoia with Alfred Lin. Led the firm's Harvey and Hugging Face positions and its growth-stage AI book.

Recent: Since taking over in late 2025, helped raise $10B across new funds and led Harvey's March 2026 round at $11B.

Watch for: How Sequoia manages holding OpenAI, xAI, and now Anthropic simultaneously — a rival-stacking position no top firm has tried before.

Sequoia's other co-steward. Former Zappos COO; holds the firm's OpenAI board-adjacent relationship and early-stage AI book.

Recent: With Grady, raised a $7B expansion fund in April 2026 and put $2.5B into Anthropic — breaking the VC taboo on backing direct rivals.

Watch for: Sequoia's $10B push into AI-driven reindustrialization — factories and physical economy, not just software.

The most concentrated OpenAI bull in venture. First backed it at $29B; Thrive's AUM has tripled to $65B largely on that position.

Recent: Put roughly $1B more into OpenAI at a $285B valuation in February 2026, then publicly chided Silicon Valley over AI euphoria in August.

Watch for: Thrive Holdings — OpenAI took a stake in it to push AI adoption into the real economy; watch what it buys.

Financial lead of the $500B Stargate buildout and OpenAI's biggest single backer. No one deploys more capital into AI.

Recent: SoftBank closed its $41B OpenAI commitment, put $30B more into the February 2026 round at $840B, and pledged ~$87B for AI data centers in France.

Watch for: Whether Stargate hits its 10GW target and how SoftBank funds the remaining commitments — asset sales, debt, or Arm.

Runs Abu Dhabi's AI-dedicated sovereign vehicle — the largest single pool of state capital aimed exclusively at AI.

Recent: MGX co-led Anthropic's $30B Series G and OpenAI's $122B round in 2026 — its fifth follow-on into OpenAI — plus co-lead in Databricks' Series K.

Watch for: MGX's stated 70-80% US deployment target and how far Gulf capital is allowed into frontier labs as scrutiny grows.

Rebuilt a $43B venture firm into a 'global investment and transformation firm' with applied AI in healthcare, defense, and industrials as the thesis.

Recent: Committed $5B to India's AI and startup ecosystem at the India AI Impact Summit in February 2026.

Watch for: GC's healthcare system ownership play — using AI to run hospitals it actually owns is the most direct applied-AI bet in venture.

Backed Mistral, Black Forest Labs, and Anthropic as a16z's frontier-AI GP; now runs AMP, a firm that supplies compute alongside capital.

Recent: Left a16z in October 2025 to found AMP, pairing GPU allocations with equity checks for early-stage AI startups.

Watch for: Whether compute-for-equity becomes a standard term sheet structure — AMP is the test case.

Ex-Glean founding team, now Menlo's AI infrastructure investor and one of the most-followed AI commentators among working VCs.

Recent: Promoted to Partner in September 2025 after co-launching the $100M Anthology Fund with Anthropic and backing 35 startups.

Watch for: Anthology Fund deployments — it is the clearest read on which application layers Anthropic itself thinks are investable.

Runs Nvidia's venture arm with a two-person team that has minted 20 unicorns — the most leveraged capital operation in AI.

Recent: 43 new investments in the 12 months to May 2026, spanning legal AI, robotics, biotech, quantum, and AI cloud infrastructure.

Watch for: Antitrust attention on Nvidia funding its own customers — NVentures sits at the center of the circular-revenue question.

Took over OpenAI's corporate venture fund from Sam Altman in 2024. His portfolio doubles as a map of what OpenAI won't build itself.

Recent: The fund doubled to $400M in August 2026, with a single investor taking the entire new vehicle.

Watch for: Conflicts management as OpenAI ships products that compete with its own fund's portfolio.

Lightspeed's AI and infrastructure lead — drove the firm's lead investment in Anthropic's $3.5B Series E.

Recent: Doubled down on Anthropic through successive rounds and fronts Lightspeed's Generative SF program with frontier lab founders.

Watch for: Lightspeed's follow-through as Anthropic approaches an IPO — the firm is among its largest venture holders.

Built the growth platform inside the $100B wealth manager for tech's elite — now one of Anthropic's largest outside investors.

Recent: ICONIQ has put roughly $4B into Anthropic ahead of a potential IPO, despite first backing the company only in 2025.

Watch for: Whether ICONIQ's client money keeps flowing into late-stage AI at IPO-adjacent prices — a bellwether for crossover appetite.

Led Index's defining AI infrastructure bets (Cohere, Scale AI, Confluent); now deploys his own capital through Hanabi with two ex-Index colleagues.

Recent: Hanabi has made 26+ investments since its 2025 launch, including a $100M position in LiveKit in January 2026.

Watch for: Whether the no-LP, personal-capital model outperforms — Hanabi answers to no fund cycle and can hold indefinitely.

The loudest crossover voice in AI markets. Nvidia is over 28% of Altimeter's book, and his BG2 podcast moves sentiment.

Recent: Called AMD's warrant deal with OpenAI a 'bet-the-farm' move and spent 2026 on stage with Jensen Huang arguing the US must win the AI race.

Watch for: His positioning into AI IPOs — Cerebras first, with Anthropic and others queued behind it.

Co-founded Inflection and Manas AI while investing at Greylock. The connective tissue between AI capital, labs, and Washington.

Recent: Stepped off Microsoft's board in June 2026 after nearly a decade to go 'founder mode' on Manas AI, his AI drug-discovery company.

Watch for: Manas AI's first pipeline results — his thesis that AI compresses oncology drug discovery gets tested in the clinic.