Founders Fund raises a big $1B fund to plunk into startups

Major venture firm Founders Fund is announcing a hefty new fund.

It’s packing $1 billion, according to a press release that came out today. That’s quite a large amount, considering that the most recent fund came out to $625 million and that, since starting in 2005, Founders Fund had raised $1.15 billion across four funds.

It’s a larger amount than the $750 million figure for the fund that we reported back in January.

High-profile investor and PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel is leading the new Founders Fund V alongside fellow partners Ken Howery, Luke Nosek, Brian Singerman, Lauren Gross, Geoff Lewis, and Scott Nolan.

Howery and Nosek also cofounded PayPal with Thiel. Together, the trio launched Founders Fund.

Founders Fund makes big investments. It’s industry-agnostic, although lately it has been especially active in health care and genetics.

Asana, the Climate Corp., Hampton Creek Foods, Lyft, Palantir, Quantcast, Quid, SpaceX, and Topsy are a few of the hot companies in Founders Fund’s portfolio.

Other venture firms have been busy locking down big funds of their own. True Ventures, which focuses on early-stage investments, just raised $250 million for a new fund. And Andreessen Horowitz is reportedly raising about $1.5 billion for a new fund.