Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital is sitting on one of the best-performing venture funds of the decade, and two names are doing most of the heavy lifting: OpenAI and Cursor. According to The Information, Thrive’s 2022 fund has surged in value on the back of those AI bets, turning a vintage that many firms would consider mediocre into a standout.
Here’s why that’s worth your attention.
What happened
The Information reports that Thrive’s 2022-vintage fund has climbed sharply, driven by its early positions in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and Cursor, the AI coding tool built by Anysphere. Both companies have seen their valuations explode as demand for generative AI and AI-assisted software development took off.
For a fund raised in 2022, that timing was close to perfect. Thrive deployed capital right as the AI wave was building, and before ChatGPT turned the whole category into a gold rush.
Why 2022 matters
Venture funds get judged by their vintage year, the year they start investing. And 2022 was a rough one to be handed.
Markets were falling. Interest rates were climbing. Startup valuations that had ballooned in 2021 were getting cut in half. Most funds raised that year are still underwater or crawling back to break-even.
That’s what makes Thrive’s result stand out. While peers nursed markdowns on late-stage bets from the boom, Thrive’s concentrated AI positions ran the other way.
The OpenAI and Cursor engine
Two companies are carrying this fund:
- OpenAI. Thrive has been one of OpenAI’s most aggressive backers, reportedly leading recent rounds and building a large stake. OpenAI’s valuation has climbed into the hundreds of billions, and every step up flows straight to early holders like Thrive.
- Cursor (Anysphere). The AI coding assistant became one of the fastest companies to hit major revenue milestones, and its valuation followed. Cursor has been in the news lately as one of the hottest tools in developer workflows.
When a fund’s returns concentrate in a handful of winners, a couple of breakout companies can define the entire vintage. That’s exactly what’s playing out here.
Why this matters for the AI industry
This is a signal, not just a scoreboard update.
What stands out to me is the message it sends to limited partners, the pensions, endowments, and family offices that fund venture. For two years they’ve watched AI valuations climb and wondered whether the returns were real or just paper markups. Thrive’s fund is early proof that concentrated AI bets can deliver, at least on paper.
That has knock-on effects:
- More capital chases AI. Strong marks make it easier for firms like Thrive to raise their next fund and write bigger checks into AI.
- Concentration becomes the strategy. The old venture playbook spread bets wide. The AI era rewards going deep on a few winners, and Thrive is the case study.
- Pressure on rivals. Other firms that hedged or missed the early OpenAI rounds now have to explain why.
The caveat worth remembering
These gains are largely unrealized. A fund can look brilliant on paper and still disappoint if the companies never exit at those prices, through an IPO or acquisition, or if AI valuations cool before that happens.
OpenAI and Cursor are private. Their marks reflect the last round’s price, not cash in hand. If the AI market corrects, those numbers can move down as fast as they moved up.
Still, being early and concentrated in the two hottest names in AI is a strong place to sit.
What to watch next
Expect Thrive to lean harder into this thesis, and expect rivals to copy it. Watch for the next OpenAI round, any move toward a Cursor or OpenAI liquidity event, and whether other 2022 funds start reporting similar AI-driven recoveries.
The bigger question hanging over all of it: when do these paper gains turn into real money? For now, Thrive’s 2022 fund is the clearest sign yet that the AI investment boom is producing winners, not just headlines.
More details are available in the original report from The Information.