We are excited to announce a strategic partnership between OpenAI and Thrive Holdings. Through our partnership, OpenAI will become an equity owner in Holdings, and collectively we will set out to deliver frontier technology for our customers.
For decades, technology has transformed the world’s largest industries from the outside-in. We believe the AI paradigm will be different in that some of the most profound transformations will now occur from the inside-out. We view the businesses that we own and operate as the right reward system to build, test, and improve industry-specific products and models.
The partnership will bring together a unique, cross-functional team, comprising OpenAI’s leading research and applied AI teams working alongside engineers, operators, and industry experts at Holdings to deeply integrate AI into the businesses that we own and operate. Our long-term orientation to transforming companies is possible because our time horizon at Holdings is forever.
By training the most advanced models for specific tasks within our businesses, guided by both company-specific data and expert feedback, we believe we can continuously improve model capabilities and ultimately establish AI as an integral driver of long-term enterprise value.
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https://t.co/4NO7HkwffD
Balderton Capital got a ~2,050× multiple on its £1.5M seed investment in Revolut. Today that stake is worth around $6.15B 🤯
The numbers (roughly from Crunchbase & Bloomberg data):
Balderton first invested £1.5M in Revolut’s 2015 seed round at an £8M valuation, which gave the firm 14.56% of the company. Seedcamp also invested at this stage.
In 2016, Index Ventures led a £4.8M follow-on seed round. The dilution from this round reduced Balderton’s stake to ~9.1%.
Shortly after, Balderton led the Series A. Following that round, their position adjusted to ~10.9%.
As Revolut scaled, several significant fundraising rounds followed:
- $250M at a $1.95B valuation
- $580M at $6.08B
- $800M at $33.8B
After these rounds, Balderton’s stake moved to 9.29% → 8.40% → 8.20%.
At the $33.8B valuation, their stake was worth approximately $2.77B.
In 2024 and 2025, secondary transactions priced Revolut at $45B and then $75B.
At the $75B valuation, Balderton’s ~8.2% stake is estimated at $6.15B.
Across their early checks (roughly £3M in total), this results in an approximate 2,050× return on capital.
For context:
An individual who invested £1,000 on the same terms would see that grow to roughly £2,050,000.
This single position generated more than 20× the size of Balderton’s £300M fund 🤯
This is probably the best single VC investment in Europe's history
Landing a rocket precisely is incredibly challenging, even though SpaceX makes it look routine with their boosters touching down perfectly in the ocean. These impressive feats are the result of an enormous amount of work by SpaceX employees.
In “Interstellar” (2014) on the water planet, the soundtrack in the background has a prominent ticking noise. These ticks happen every 1.25 seconds. Each tick you hear is a whole day passing on Earth.
“By the end of the decade, AI data centers could consume as much as 20% to 25% of U.S. power requirements. Today that’s probably 4% or less." - @renehaas237 https://t.co/Vrqhc0jxBl