Josh Kushner secured $2 billion to acquire companies that are targets of AI advancements.

      Nearly all AI companies offer a product. Someone creates a model or tool, licenses it, and relies on the customer to determine how to use it. Thrive Holdings turns this approach on its head. It acquires accounting firms and IT services companies outright, integrates its engineers, and reconstructs the work processes. Currently, it owns over 70 businesses.

      On Wednesday, it announced that it had secured more than $2 billion in new capital at a valuation of $12 billion, as first reported by The New York Times. The total capital raised since its inception has now exceeded $3 billion.

      This marks its first intake of external funding. The funding round was led by SoftBank Group, D1 Capital Partners, and Altimeter Capital. Up until now, Thrive Holdings had operated mainly on about $1 billion in commitments from its parent company, Thrive Capital, as noted by Tech Funding News. This is the first instance of external investors supporting the venture.

      Kushner established Thrive Holdings as a spinout from Thrive Capital in 2025. The parent company, which has been operating for 16 years, also supports OpenAI, Stripe, and SpaceX, and raised a $10 billion fund in February. This spinout reflects a strategic shift rather than a mere side project. Kushner already has investments in companies developing AI; this new initiative focuses on acquiring those that will need to implement it.

      SoftBank's involvement carries significance. Masayoshi Son has stated that labeling AI as a bubble is an insult.

      What the 70 businesses do

      Current serves as the accounting division, expanding to over 50 firms and more than 2,000 professionals. Shield is the IT division, encompassing about 20 companies.

      Neither sector is particularly glamorous, which is intentional. Thrive seeks out large, fragmented, mission-critical, and operationally complex markets, and both accounting and IT support fall into these categories.

      The performance metrics are notable. Current’s tax agents, branded as TaxAI, have handled over 7,000 returns with 98% accuracy and reduced preparation time by over 30%. Shield claims that its tools have increased help desk resolution speed by 36 times, and custom agent deployments have nearly doubled in the past month.

      All these figures originate from Thrive, are unaudited, and lack a public baseline. A 36-fold increase is a relative measure without an initial value, and 98% accuracy does not clarify what constitutes an error.

      The third platform concerns permits

      Part of the funding is allocated to a new vertical, which is the most intriguing aspect of the announcement. Thrive aims to address regulatory tasks related to physical assets, encompassing permits, inspections, technical documentation, and compliance tracking.

      The targeted sectors include data centers, manufacturing, healthcare, power, water, and transportation. “The US needs to build and modernize more critical infrastructure, but projects often face constraints due to local, technical, and regulatory complexities,” stated founding member Anuj Mehndiratta in an interview with TechCrunch.

      These constraints are real and worsening, with over 500 US towns having restrictions on or banning data centers. Founding member Kareem Zaki described the proposal as compression. He stated that AI alongside practitioners can “compress regulatory bottlenecks, maintain safety standards, and do so with reduced burdens.”

      Mehndiratta was cautious about the limitations, emphasizing that AI will not substitute for fieldwork, local judgment, or professional approval.

      OpenAI's involvement

      The relationship enabling this model is not happenstance. OpenAI acquired an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings in December 2025, with the deal resulting in OpenAI employees working directly within Thrive's portfolio companies. Thrive Capital is also among OpenAI’s largest supporters, meaning OpenAI has a stake in a company that spun out of a firm owning part of OpenAI.

      The AI economy consistently exhibits this structure. Lambda secured $917 million to purchase chips from a company that invests in it.

      SoftBank is also part of the cycle, being one of OpenAI’s largest investors and now investing in a business whose advantage lies in having OpenAI staff on secondment.

      Three firms, one bet

      Thrive is not unique in this model. OpenAI partnered with TPG and Bain Capital to form DeployCo, a joint venture valued at $10 billion, while Anthropic established Ode in collaboration with Blackstone.

      All three organizations embed engineers within client firms rather than merely selling licenses. The fundamental bet remains the same: profit lies in implementation rather than in the model itself.

      The roll-up approach is gaining traction too; Beacon raised $225 million for its own AI roll-up.

      What distinguishes Thrive is its ownership. DeployCo and Ode serve their clients, while Thrive owns its businesses, allowing it to retain the profit margins instead of billing for services.

      This is not about Europe

      It is important to clarify this explicitly. The announcement pertains to America, and Thrive has expressed its intention to facilitate the