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The Realm of Peter thiel

PayPal, Facebook, SpaceX, the Trump Presidency. Why does it seem like tech billionaire and Hobbit obsessive Peter Thiel has his hands in everything, from HQ to the lawsuit that killed Gawker? Because he does. Here’s an insight into his holdings.

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Words by Gary Rivlin Design by Jeremiah mCNair

n February 2018, a tech news site revealed that Peter Thiel, Donald Trump’s highest-profile supporter in Silicon Valley, was an investor in the popular game show app, HQ Trivia. Within 24 hours, the hashtag #deleteHQ was trending on Twitter. “Peter Thiel is a blight on this world,” one user tweeted. Peter Thiel was once known as a co-founder of PayPal, the online payment company born in 1998, and as the first outside investor in Facebook, in 2004. These days, though, Thiel, a venture capitalist and hedge fund manager, is best known for his right-wing political beliefs (he’s a libertarian and Ayn Rand devotee who thinks politics have gone downhill since women were granted the right to vote) even as he reigns as one the startup world’s more active investors. Thiel has sunk money into noble ventures such as The Ocean Cleanup, a Netherlands-based concern that develops technologies to extract, prevent, and intercept plastic pollutions, and the free press nonprofit, Committee to Protect Journalists.

But after it was revealed that Thiel donated $1.25 million to the Trump campaign, there have been repeated calls on Facebook to dump him from its board of directors. And when occasional boycott movements flare up, the question is whether the backlash relates to his support of Trump or his surreptitious funding of the legal campaign that led to the shutdown of Gawker, the celebrity gossip site. Or maybe it’s his ownership stake in the CIA-backed Big Data firm that has been accused of spying on U.S. citizens. In early 2018, Bloomberg put Thiel’s net worth at $3.8 billion. At this point, he owns a stake in hundreds of startups. The breadth of his holdings is so vast – from breakthrough energy and biotech companies to popular consumer sites such as Airbnb, Lyft, and Spotify – that it might not even be possible to avoid them all, no matter how polarizing a figure some may find him.

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477 Acres in New Zealand

The Hills, Los Angeles

Penthouse at Bloomberg Tower, NYC

Maui

personal investments

Part of a 2018 B round in this biotechnology company, looking to commercialize technologies that program the human immune system by modifying the DNA in related cells.

Part of a B Round in 2017 for this clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, founded in 2011.

An early investor in this work-related social networking site co-founded by his friend, Reid Hoffman. Bought by Microsoft for $26.2 billion in 2016.

Part of a Series A investment in this Big Data analytics company seeking to use machines to answer society's toughest questions.

Part of a 2016 seed round for this company aiming to manufacture the “World’s fastest production drone.”

Part of a 2016 seed round to fund this company that helps patients plan, manage and pay for medical expenses.

Part of a 2015 seed round in this artificial intelligence company developing products based on reinforcement learning technologies.

Part of a 2015 seed round investment in this nuclear reactor design company promising clean, safe, and affordable nuclear power. One of Thiel’s venture firms, Founders Fund, is also an investor.

Part of a 2013 seed round in this smartphone app to help businesses integrate customer communication, invoicing and payments.

Thiel invested $500,000 in Facebook in 2004 only a few months after Zuckerberg launched a social network that connected his Harvard classmates and friends. Two years later, Thiel’s venture firm, the Founders Fund, also took part in a $27.5 million funding round that valued the company at $500 million. Thiel sold the vast majority of his shares, as well as those held by his venture fund, shortly after the company went public, in 2012—cashing out slightly more than $1 billion in Facebook stock. Thiel has served on the Facebook Board of Directors since 2005, which earns him $50,000 per year in cash and another $300,000 per year in stock award.

Founders Fund led a $200 million series B investment in 2013 that valued the company at $2.5 billion. Airbnb is still privately owned but Thiel & Co. are already seeing a 15x return on a company valued at $30 billion in 2017.

Led a $15 mill B round in 2013. By the end of 2017, it was valued at $11 billion.

Led a € 11.6 million euro round in 2010. Spotify filed to sell on the New York stock exchange in March, a public offering expecting to give the company a value of at least $17 billion U.S. dollars.

Led a $20 million A round in 2008 for Elon Musk’s rocket company, valued in 2017 at more than $21 billlion. (Musk was a partner of Thiel’s in PayPal).

Part of a 2008 A round in the game company behind Mafia Wars and Farmville. Zynga was valued at $7 billion when the company went public in 2011.

Thiel personally invested in 2011 in a seed round early on in this online payment startup today valued at more than $9 billion. The Founders Fund and Thiel part of $20 million B round in 2012 and then led an $80 mill C round in 2015.

Part of a $16 mill A round in 2013. Facebook bought this virtual reality company for $2 billion in 2014.

Led a $13 million C round in 2012 in this company that lets users hire strangers to do odd jobs. Ikea bought the company for an undisclosed amount in 2017.

Part of a $5 million A round in 2009 in this social networking site that Microsoft bought for $1.2 billion in 2012.

Part of a 2010 seed round in this photo-sharing and messaging service acquired by a South Korean company in 2015 for an undisclosed amount.

Founders Fund invested $20 million in this wireless charging device company in a B round investment in 2017.

Part of a B round investment in 2005 in this photo and video sharing site founded by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin. Google paid $182 million for the company in 2010.

Part of a C round investment in 2016 in Levchin’s next company, an online lender, valued at $1.5 billion at the end of 2017.

Part of a C round investment in this New York-based sex toy company run by women that sends subscribers a box of products every three months.

Part of a B round investment in 2015 in this experimental education company that has the backing of some of the Valley’s heaviest hitters, including Thiel, Mark Andreessen, and the VC firm Kleiner Perkins.

Part of a C round investment in 2012 in this company that uses Big Data to help farmers better predict the weather, among other factors, in a world of unpredictable climate change. Monsanto bought for $930 million in 2013.

Part of a B round investment in 2017 in this company that designs therapeutics that prevent, halt, or reverse numerous diseases of aging.

A $42 million investment in this cancer drugmaker in 2012 that was acquired for $10.2 billion in 2016. The firm reportedly pocketed roughly $1.7 billion on its investment.

The Thiel Foundation, created in 2006, launched Breakout Labs to “provide critical ‘first mile’ support to companies driving scientific breakthroughs towards commercialization.” The same people also run Breakout Ventures, a $60 million fund that invests in the foundation’s most promising enterprises. Through them, Thiel funds technology to bring about potential medical miracles: the creation of synthetic muscle (Ras Labs), infection-free tissue regeneration (Gel4Med), a bone-growing company (EpiBone), wearable sensors (Blumio and Logic.Ink), new generation drug makers, etc. They also back ventures in alternative energy (Opus 12, UbiQD), a bio-fabricated leather (Modern Meadow), and tech to better monitor our food supply (C2Sense).

In 2012, Thiel and a partner created Mithril, a San Francisco-based investment firm that has invested in 27 companies over its first five years. Mithril raised $540 million in 2013 and another $850 million in 2017. JD Vance of Hillbilly Elegy fame is listed as a “principal” at the firm. The firm’s name is derived from Lord of the Rings: mithril, a lightweight metal stronger than steel. They’ve had two exits: MagForce—a nanotechnology-based cancer treatment which went public in 2011, and SilverRail Technologies, a rail travel booker that was bought by Expedia in 2017.

a cloud accounting software company.

an “e-commerce solution.”

a mobile messaging company.

a platform that enables marketers to create a real-time relationship with native smartphone calendars.

Thiel owns a 7,000-square-foot property in the hills above the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles and an oceanfront home in Maui which, at $27 million, is believed to be the most expensive single-home purchase in Maui history. He also owns a penthouse in the Bloomberg Tower complex, “so far up in the clouds,” the New York Times reported, “that it literally looks down on Trump Tower.” Thiel owns property in New Zealand: a 477-acre lakefront estate he reportedly bought for around $10 million.

personal investments

REal estate

Founder funds

BREAKOUT Labs

Mithril Capital Management

Valar ventures

REal estate

Get more stunning visual stories every week.

click on logos for more information

Personal Investments

REal estate

Founder funds

BREAKOUT Labs

Mithril Capital Management

Valar ventures

click on logos for more information

personal investments

REal estate

Founder funds

BREAKOUT Labs

Mithril Capital Management

Valar ventures

hover on logos for more information

Another Thiel-backed venture firm, this one smaller than the others and New York-based. Valar raised $100 million in 2012, and another $200 million in the years since. Four of their companies have “exited” by either going public or being acquired.

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Thiel and a partner created Mithril in 2012. A San Francisco-based investment firm that invests generally in promising tech startups its people come across 27 investments over its first five years. Raised $540 million in 2013 and another $850 million in 2017. JD Vance of Hillbilly Elegy fame is listed as a “principle” at the firm. The firm’s name is derived from Lord of the Rings: mithril, a lightweight metal stronger than steel. They’ve had two exits: MagForce—a nanotechnology-based cancer treatment which went public in 2011, and SilverRail Technologies, which booked and managed rail travel, which was bought by Expedia in 2017.