Khosla Ventures Nears $3B For Funds Even As Venture Slows

Khosla Ventures, the firm which has backed such companies as OpenAI, DoorDash and Block, is closing in on raising $3 billion across a trio of funds even as the venture market continues its slowdown, per a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Khosla will raise $500 million for a seed fund and $1.6 billion for its main fund to back startups. Both amounts are bigger than their predecessors raised in 2021 that totaled $1.4 billion, per the report.

The firm is also raising a $900 million growth fund to back larger startups, up from $550 million from its last fundraise. Many of Khosla’s rivals have shrunk the size of similar funds given the market contraction.

The fundraise was initially reported earlier this year by Axios based on regulatory filings.

According to the WSJ report, Khosla will focus on backing startups in research-intensive areas including nuclear fusion, humanoid robots and, of course, AI, which has been a favorite of all investors this year.

That’s not all

Khosla is not the only firm closing large funds recently. Just last week, San Francisco-based Craft Ventures raised $1.3 billion across two funds as the firm continues to focus on early- and growth-stage enterprise software startups.

These new funds have been raised despite a market in which venture investing is down, and some large firms have even had to change fundraising plans.

Earlier this year, both San Francisco-based Founders Fund and New York-based Tiger Global announced cuts to their new funds.

Nevertheless, some VCs obviously still see significant opportunities emerging in the market, especially as generative AI captures most people’s imagination.