Disruptive raises $10B fund to make big bets on at least 10 companies

The Dallas-based investment firm Disruptive, whose past bets include Palantir, Airbnb, and Spotify, announced a $10 billion fund to back at least 10 late-stage companies, with checks of up to $1 billion, it said Tuesday.

It’s one of the biggest fundraises of the year so far, aiming to back (what else?!) the capital-intensive fields of AI and defense. The WSJ first reported earlier this month that the firm was seeking to raise the fund and by then had already secured at least $7.5 billion in capital commitments. 

The firm was founded in 2012 by Alex Davis, grandson of billionaire oil magnate Marvin Davis.

This is technically the firm’s first blind-pool fund, meaning investors commit money without knowing which companies it will back. Until now, the firm raised money through deal-by-deal special purpose vehicles. Disruptive has nonetheless made headlines in recent years for pouring money into companies like chip startup Groq and the AI voice-generation startup ElevenLabs. Bloomberg reported that the firm told LPs it has returned more than $6 billion on the roughly $1.9 billion it has poured into startups. 

According to the Dallas Business Journal, the new vehicle is the largest venture fund raised in Texas history.