Thrive Capital invests $100 million in Shopify, taking a rare public-market gamble on AI commerce.

      Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital has invested nearly $100 million in Shopify, marking a rare public-market move by the venture firm, which is mainly recognized for supporting OpenAI, SpaceX, and Stripe. Shopify's stock has declined about 40% year-to-date due to guidance indicating a slowdown in revenue growth. Thrive has positioned this investment as a wager on AI-driven commerce. The firm, which raised a $10 billion fund in February, previously earned $522 million from a contrarian trade involving Carvana and is part of a rising number of VC firms entering the public equity space.

      According to Bloomberg, which quoted insiders, Thrive Capital has taken a roughly $100 million stake in Shopify. This investment is notable not so much for its amount—being relatively small compared to the firm’s latest fund—but rather for what it indicates about where leading venture investors see potential value. Thrive, well-known for its early support of private companies like OpenAI, SpaceX, and Stripe, is now investing in a public company whose stock has decreased 40% this year.

      The firm communicated to its stakeholders that investing in Shopify is a bet on the potential of artificial intelligence to enhance commerce. This perspective aligns with Thrive's broader thesis that AI will reshape the economics across various industries, including defense, drug discovery, and online retail software.

      Thrive is part of a small yet growing group of venture firms that have begun investing in public stocks alongside their traditional startup investments. The firm operates as an investment adviser, which permits it to allocate the same funds toward both public and private investments, a structure shared by firms like Accel and Andreessen Horowitz that have taken similar steps.

      Thrive’s previous investments within its own portfolio offer useful context. In March 2022, the firm acquired a substantial stake in Carvana during a period of financial trouble for the company, resulting in a $522 million profit from this investment, as reported by Bloomberg. This move was not traditional venture investing; it was a contrarian play in the public market that ultimately succeeded.

      The rationale behind the Shopify investment mirrors this logic. Although Shopify's first-quarter revenue rose 34.3% year-on-year to $3.17 billion, its second-quarter forecasts suggested a decline in growth to approximately 27.5%, leading to a drop in stock price. Currently, shares are trading almost 46% below their 52-week high. Thrive, however, appears to view the stock's decline as an attractive entry point rather than a red flag.

      Other venture firms are making similar investments in public equities. For instance, Accel, which mainly invests in early-stage software companies, has taken a position in Nebius Group, a cloud computing provider. Sequoia Capital increased its holdings in Figma this year, building on its earlier investment in the design tool back in 2019. Thrive also maintains public stakes in companies like Figma, StubHub, and Oscar Health, the health insurance company co-founded by Kushner.

      This trend reflects a broader structural change, as startups are taking longer to go public. The median duration from founding to IPO for many venture-backed firms has extended beyond ten years. During this transitional period, the most valuable private entities, such as OpenAI at $852 billion and Anthropic approaching $900 billion, are commanding valuations with less room for growth compared to publicly traded companies like Shopify, whose stock has suffered due to a slowdown in growth.

      Over the past year, Shopify has been attempting to expand into larger markets. Originally catering to small and medium-sized businesses that sought alternatives to Amazon, the company is now targeting bigger retailers, betting that increased order volumes from these larger clients will enhance growth beyond what its existing customer base can provide.

      The emphasis on AI is central to this strategy. Earlier this year, Shopify introduced "agentic commerce," a sales channel that enables merchants to display products directly within AI chat platforms like ChatGPT. According to the company, AI-driven orders on its platform increased 15 times year-on-year in 2025. The belief is that as consumers begin to engage with AI assistants rather than search engines, the connections between merchants and these assistants will be as vital as the storefront itself.

      This is the thesis Thrive is backing—not that Shopify's current growth rate justifies a higher valuation multiple, but rather that AI will fundamentally change the economics of commerce in ways the market hasn’t yet accounted for. This mirrors the earlier bet Thrive made on OpenAI when its potential was still being fully realized, now applied to a public, profitable company that has already seen a 40% decline.

      Thrive's latest $10 billion fund, launched in February, is its largest to date. While the firm continues to lead private investment rounds, including significant deals in defense technology and Alphabet's Isomorphic Labs, the Shopify investment signals that Kushner sees public markets as an increasingly crucial area of opportunity. With private valuations soaring into the hundreds of billions and public stocks in the same sectors being discounted by