Iconiq Invests Billions in AI Startups, Rivaling Silicon Valley VCs, ETEnterpriseai

Iconiq, the once-private wealth manager for Silicon Valley’s elite, put more than $3 billion into AI startups in 2025 and has expanded into venture capital at scale, investing as much as some of Silicon Valley’s best-known VC firms. The firm manages roughly $100 billion in assets, holds about $26 billion earmarked for VC investing and raised $5.75 billion for its last venture fund. Iconiq has invested about $4 billion in Anthropic and is reported to be one of the company’s largest backers, and it plans to raise billions more for a new fund, according to regulatory filings and people familiar with the matter.

"It's been all AI, all the time," Iconiq partner Matthew Jacobson said in an interview. "The creative destruction creates a tremendous amount of opportunity."

Context and details

• Iconiq organised a high-profile trip last year that sent Anthropic PBC chief Dario Amodei and several executives roughly 8,000 miles from San Francisco to the Middle East to meet with potent investors, including Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and Abu Dhabi-based MGX; photos of Amodei with Ibrahim Ajami, head of ventures at Mubadala Capital, circulated online.
• The firm, co-founded by South African-born Divesh Makan in 2011, has long managed the personal fortunes of top tech leaders and global elites. Reported clients include Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Dustin Moskovitz, Sheryl Sandberg and Reid Hoffman; recent reporting also named Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as a client.
• Iconiq’s early VC funds have produced strong returns by industry benchmarks: its first fund, a $509 million vehicle launched in 2013, returned investors roughly 2.6 times their money, and its second fund, $1.02 billion, returned about 4.2 times and ranked in the top 5% of its peer group as of the most recently available comparisons.
• Despite its growing public footprint in startup financing, Iconiq remains protective of client and deal details and declined to comment on its stake in Anthropic, its fundraising plans and broader performance.
• Beyond capital, Iconiq leverages access as part of its investment approach. The firm has facilitated more than 100 introductions to potential customers for startups before investing and stages exclusive events — from a soccer scrimmage with David Beckham to private film screenings with Tom Cruise — that have connected founders to celebrities and potential partners.
• Examples of that networking include ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski meeting Tom Cruise at an Iconiq event and using Iconiq-hosted opportunities such as a Grammy Awards appearance and a pop-up demonstration to promote his firm’s AI translation and music-generation tools.
• Iconiq founder Divesh Makan has said the firm is selective about clients: "We end up being fairly targeted in who we invite because this business is not scalable," he told Bloomberg in 2024. London partner Seth Pierrepont described the firm’s client service ethos: "We sort of operate on this mantra of giving twice before asking once."

Outlook: With billions already deployed into generative AI builders and a plan to raise further capital for venture investing, Iconiq is positioning itself as a major, trans-Pacific backer of AI start-ups. Its combination of deep-pocketed clients, deal-level capital and high-touch introductions gives it an influence that rivals traditional Silicon Valley firms—raising questions about valuation discipline, but also signalling that Iconiq intends to be a long-term, high-profile participant in the AI funding landscape.