Facebook backer's venture firm seeks to raise $750M for fifth fund

By Nicel Jane Avellana

Jan 22, 2014 09:30 PM EST

Peter Thiel's Founders Fund is looking to gather around $750 million for its fifth fund, Bloomberg reported. Peter Thiel was an early backer of social media company Facebook Inc. The amount aimed for the latest fund represented a 20% increase from its previous pool, the report said.

Citing a presentation from the San Francisco-based company obtained by Bloomberg News, the report said the company is now providing information to investors and has plans to close the fund in the first quarter. Up to 70% of the fund will be dedicated for new investments while the remainder will be invested to additional rounds, the report said.

After issuing his first check to Facebook, Thiel began Founders Fund in 2005. Since that time, the company was already able to raise $1.15 billion. It has invested in companies like software maker Palantir Technologies Inc, Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp and business software maker Yammer which was purchased by Microsoft Corp in 2012 for a price tag of $1.2 billion, the report said.

Thiel also co-founded the payments platform PayPal. His co-founders Ken Howery and Luke Nosek as well as ex-Google executive Brian Singerman are some of the members of his investment team.

Last year was a big year for the venture industry, the highlight of which was the public debut of Twitter Inc. The social media site now has value of more than $35 billion. After a decade of trailing the stock market, the venture industry has boasted of at least 10 venture firms that were able to generate $1 billion or more from initial public offerings and purchases last year, the report said.

The presentation revealed that the management fee for the Founders Fund is 2.5%. It will retain 20% of the profits from investments. The venture firm's $625 million fourth fund was raised in 2011 to look for opportunities in aerospace, robotics, education and artificial intelligence, the report said.

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