It’s a query all of us heard as youngsters, and our solutions have been continuously telling. A baby’s reply— whether or not firefighter, astronaut, or, in my case, paleontologist—stated one thing about their instincts and their imagined future.
A number of youngsters dream of area and fireplace vans, however Philip Clark had a definite set of ambitions: he needed to be a physicist and the CEO of Lockheed Martin.
“Oh, I loved the [now-retired Lockheed recon aircraft] SR-71 when I was a kid,” stated Clark. “I remember my parents put me in a preschool interview, and I was telling people about the aerodynamics of F-16s. I don’t know how much I really understood at the time, but I was definitely talking about it in building-block interviews with preschool and kindergarten principals. They were like: ‘So, you really want to talk about the air resistance on the angular momentum of this particular wing?’”
In the present day, Clark will not be the CEO of Lockheed Martin (although he’s solely 28, so he nonetheless has time) however he’s discovered one other route into protection—in 2022, Clark started engaged on Thrive Capital’s funding in protection tech juggernaut Anduril, final valued this summer time at $30.5 billion. Since becoming a member of Thrive from 8VC in 2022, Clark has additionally labored on the agency’s investments in OpenAI, Cursor, Wiz, Nudge, and Bodily Intelligence. Now, Clark has been promoted to accomplice at Thrive, Fortune has completely realized.
“There aren’t that many companies that end up mattering in world history,” he advised Fortune. “I often talk about the alien test: If aliens were to come down to Earth and ask how the world works, what companies would appear in your description of the world?… The test at Thrive, for the companies we invest in, is that we need to believe they will appear on that list.”
Thrive, began in 2011 by Joshua Kushner (profiled in Fortune final 12 months), has turn into identified for its huge swings—huge even amongst VCs, like doubling down on OpenAI within the largest personal tech deal ever.
“I often think about the word ‘counterfactual’ when investing,” stated Clark. “There are two types of counterfactuals that are really important when I partner with someone. Test A: If this company or idea didn’t exist, would the world look the same or different? And I don’t mean it in a loosey-goosey way. If you walked down the street, would the world look physically different? Or if you go on your computer, does that computer look different? And Test B: Is this person counterfactually impactful? Could I give another really smart person this same idea, and get a similar result on this company? The answer to both these questions is that the idea needs to be counterfactually impactful, and the person needs to be counterfactually important.”
Clark’s been on the heart of the AI growth—leaping in to assist rent at Cursor after Thrive’s funding in 2024 and dealing on the agency’s OpenAI deal—and he doesn’t suppose there’s an AI bubble.
“People are way too narrow in how they think about what the impact of AI will be on the world,” he stated. “There’s a lot about automating knowledge work, but we talk way too little about the fact that this is unlocking fundamentally new ways of manipulating atoms in the physical world… You can actually build fast, manufacturable, easily configurable, highly-customized, valuable hardware and physical world solutions to lots of problems.”
That stated, there’s, in fact, nuance.
“Things can be simultaneously true,” stated Clark. “Lots of less strong businesses can be funded as the most important companies in the world are created. I don’t think we’re in a dotcom era bubble right now, but it was true even then that the most important companies of the Internet were created—Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc. That was true even as you had Pets.com and Webvan. Our job is to make sure you partner with Amazon, and as long as you do that early—’97, ‘99, 2001—that’s going to be an important and wild journey.”
AI replace… Anthropic introduced yesterday it raised $13 billion at a $183 billion valuation, with traders together with Iconiq, Constancy, and Lightspeed. Elsewhere, OpenAI introduced plans to amass Statsig for $1.1 billion in an all-stock deal. In Could, we had the unique on Statsig’s final funding spherical, which was performed on the similar valuation it was acquired for.
See you tomorrow,
Enterprise Offers
– Anthropic, a San Francisco-based developer of AI fashions, raised $13 billion in Collection F funding. ICONIQ, Constancy Administration & Analysis Firm, and Lightspeed Enterprise Companions led the spherical and have been joined by Altimeter, Baillie Gifford, affiliated funds of BlackRock, Blackstone, Coatue, and others.
– HappyRobot, a San Francisco-based developer of customized AI enterprise staff, raised $44 million in Collection B funding. Base10 Companions led the spherical and was joined by current traders a16z and Y Combinator and others.
– Kite, a San Francisco-based developer of digital infrastructure for AI brokers, raised $18 million in Collection A funding. PayPal Ventures and Basic Catalyst led the spherical and have been joined by 8VC, Samsung Subsequent, Alumni Ventures, SBI US Gateway Fund, Vertex Ventures, Dispersion Capital, Avalanche Basis, GSR Markets, LayerZero, and others.
– Meroka, a New York Metropolis-based platform designed to assist unbiased physicians transition possession of their practices to their staff, raised $6 million in seed funding. Higher Tomorrow Ventures and Sluggish Ventures led the spherical and have been joined by 8VC and others.
Non-public Fairness
– Bradford, a portfolio firm of Gemspring Capital, acquired Solo Labs, a Broadview, Unwell.-based developer, formulator, and producer of liquid and aerosol private care merchandise. Monetary phrases weren’t disclosed.
– Bregal Sagemount acquired a majority stake in Spark Membership, a Tampa, Fla.-based supplier of membership administration and embedded funds software program to martial arts studios. Monetary phrases weren’t disclosed.
