Elad Gil, one of the most closely watched investors currently operating in venture capital, has secured over $1 billion for his third, and largest, fund to date. The fresh capital further cements Gil as the most well-funded solo VC in Silicon Valley.
Cosmic — Aleph 3 has received commitments of nearly $1.1 billion from 54 investors after initially targeting $820 million, according to securities filings. The new fund is 77% larger than its predecessor, which closed on $620 million in 2021.
Gil’s ability to secure new capital at such a fast pace is remarkable, given that he was still fundraising for his preceding vehicle in 2021 and that many LPs are retreating from the asset class, according to PitchBook lead analyst Kyle Stanford. Gil’s comments on his investment focus, published mainly on his online blog, have included a growing interest in the breadth of future applications for generative AI technology.
Gil did not respond to a request for comment.
Solo VCs rose to prominence in recent years, gaining attention for their ability to beat larger firms to lead hot deals. The loosely defined group of investors has ditched traditional partnership structures and is known for moving faster and offering better terms and prices than competing investors.
Gil reportedly counts the Harvard University endowment among his LP base and says he has invested in over 30 unicorns at the early stage. His successful early bets include a seed investment in Pinterest and Series A stakes in AirBnB and Stripe.
Gil has continued to rack up exits for his LPs: He invested in the Series D round for Instacart, whose highly anticipated public listing took place in September, and in Figma, which Adobe agreed to buy for $20 billion in September 2022, a deal still pending approval by regulators.
Other prominent solo VCs have yet to raise new funds since the startup downturn began in earnest last year. Lachy Groom, a former Stripe employee turned GP, hasn’t announced a new fund since closing his third on $250 million in 2021, while Josh Buckley, ex-CEO of Mino Games, closed a $337 million fund last year, according to PitchBook data.
Still, solo VCs have increasingly punched above their weight in the last few years, going so far as to lead or co-lead mega-rounds of $100 million or more, a move nearly unheard of just five years ago. As smaller players that don’t require buy-in from other partners, solo VCs tend to benefit from the rapid-fire dealmaking pace of bull markets. In June 2021, Gil led a $450 million Series D for defense-tech startup Anduril.
In an interview with TechCrunch in May, Gil described the release of Chat GPT-3 as a “sea change” for generative AI technology, though he said that he has not invested in most of the companies developing foundational large language models.
Gil suggested in a blog post in August that “we are in the (very) early days of AI,” and that mass enterprise adoption of generative AI models is a while away. In March, he backed Character.ai, which develops an AI-powered chatbot, in a $150 million round at a $1 billion valuation.
“We are still very far away from peak AI usage or peak AI hype,” Gil wrote.
Featured image of Elad Gil by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images
