Chamath Palihapitiya reopens Social Capital to outside investors

Chamath Palihapitiya is seeking to raise billions of dollars in outside capital for his venture capital firm, Social Capital, Axios has learned from multiple sources.

Why it matters: This comes four years after Palihapitiya effectively turned Social Capital into a family office, controversially shunning longtime limited partners and slimming down the firm’s investment and operations teams.

• Social Capital was known for its early bets on companies like Slack, while Palihapitiya later became a major player in the SPAC market.
• Palihapitiya, an early Facebook employee and former minority owner of the Golden State Warriors, recently chose to close a pair of tech-focused SPACs, while keeping two biotech-focused SPACs operational.

Details: Palihapitiya is said to expect to hold a first close on the new fund sometime in early 2023, and currently is speaking with large investors about commitments in excess of $100 million. One source says that Palihapitiya is speaking with investors around the globe, including in the U.S. and the Middle East.

• One source familiar with the situation says that Palihapitiya sees lots of private market investment opportunity, but that his personal wealth isn’t sufficient to support too many large deals.
• It’s unclear if Palihapitiya plans to deviate from the data-driven investment model that caused so much of the earlier friction at Social Capital.