Social Capital (venture capital)

Social Capital was founded in 2011 by Chamath Palihapitiya, who had previously worked at Facebook.[1] Mamoon Hamid and Ted Maidenberg also joined the firm that year as General Partners.[3][4]

In January 2015, Fortune reported that Kleiner Perkins was in acquisition talks with Social Capital,[5] but the acquisition reportedly fell through.[6] In May 2015, Social Capital raised $600 million in their third and largest venture capital fund.[1] PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel praised Palihapitiya's approach, and as of 2015 served as a limited partner.[7][8]

In 2017, Marc Mezvinsky joined Social Capital as vice chairman as it sought to expand beyond traditional venture capital.[9]

In August 2017, Hamid left Social Capital to join Kleiner Perkins as a general partner and managing member.[10]

In spring of 2018, Mezvinsky departed Social Capital. Later in 2018, then-partners Arjun Sethi, Jonathan Hsu, and Ted Maidenberg left the firm to co-found Tribe Capital.[11]

Social Capital invested in Yammer in 2011, which was later bought by Microsoft.[7] In 2012, the firm invested in Impermium, which was acquired by Google in 2014.[12] Also in 2012, the firm was a venture investor in InstaEDU, acquired by Chegg in 2014. Social Capital led a round of Series B funding for Wave Accounting. In 2014, Social Capital also invested in LotusFlare.[13]

In May 2015, the firm was a leading investor in a funding round for Slack Technologies.[14]

Through 2016 and 2017, the firm began a Discover program which led to several investments in climate-related companies Aclima,[15] UrbanFootprint,[16] and DroneSeed,[17] and space technology companies Swarm Technologies[18] and Relativity Space.[19]

In September 2020, their SPAC IPOB merged with Opendoor Technologies with a market cap of $4.8 billion.[20]

• Official website