For most startup investors, seeing a seed-stage portfolio company go on to launch the hottest IPO of the year would make for a pretty exciting week.
Closing in on leading a multibillion-dollar round for the world’s second-most valuable AI unicorn would also be a pretty happening development.
And leading the week’s largest venture funding round might also qualify as an action-packed couple days.
But what about all three?
That’s actually what last week looked like for Iconiq Capital, the storied startup investor known for managing assets of some of the world’s wealthiest families. The San Francisco-headquartered firm managed to outdo even its own reputation as active and heavy hitter in the space.
Here are the highlights of Iconiq’s big week, roughly in chronological order:
Leading Anthropic’s latest mega-round
First, news broke last Tuesday that generative AI unicorn Anthropic is in talks to raise between $3 billion and $5 billion in a funding round led by Iconiq. The deal would reportedly set a $170 billion valuation for the San Francisco-based company.
Anthropic was last valued at $61.5 billion when it raised $3.5 billion in March, compared to an $18.5 billion valuation in February 2024. So in fewer than 18 months, Anthropic will have increased its valuation by 9x.
It’ll also be moving up the unicorn ranks. If the reported deal comes to fruition, Anthropic would be the second-most-valuable venture-backed AI company after OpenAI, which was last valued at $300 billion.
Ramp and Quince
Iconiq also kept busy with a couple of other less enormous but still really big rounds.
Most notably, the firm led the No. 1 round in last week’s 10 biggest funding rounds, a $500 million financing for fintech unicorn Ramp. The round sets a staggering $22.5 billion valuation for the New York-based company.
Founded in 2019, Ramp provides financial products and tools for businesses to automate finance tasks. Its biggest revenue generator is earning interchange fees from its cards, but it also makes money through transaction fees on bill payments, SaaS revenue and other sources.
Quince, an online retailer of affordable luxury brands, also reportedly raised a considerable round last week. The San Francisco company was said to have bagged $200 million in a financing led by none other than Iconiq. The round reportedly set a valuation of over $4.5 billion for 7-year-old Quince.
Figma flourishes
For Iconiq’s investors, meanwhile, the big event of the week was the IPO of design software provider Figma.
Iconiq was a longtime investor in the company, beginning at seed stage. Will Griffith, a general partner at Iconiq recalled: “We met Dylan and Evan (founders Dylan Field and Evan Wallace) in 2013 when Figma was just an idea being developed in their Palo Alto apartment.”
That was the same year Iconiq launched its first fund, per Crunchbase data, a $500 million investment vehicle.
Even so, it’s unclear what size stake Iconiq holds. The firm is not named among the biggest stakeholders, a list that includes Index Ventures (16.8% of Class A shares pre-IPO), followed by Greylock (15.7%), Kleiner Perkins (14%) and Sequoia Capital (8.7%).
That said, it doesn’t take much to be worth a fund-returning sum, considering Figma’s recent market cap of around $47 billion. The company saw share values triple in first-day trading Thursday. More recently, the stock was trading about 20% down from that level.
Ultra-wealthy clientele
When Iconiq flourishes, returns make their way back to a client base already replete with ultra-wealthy names. The firm is known for its ties to family offices, offering advisory services as well as access to its investment funds.
Iconiq doesn’t publicly disclose its client list. However, it has been associated with a raft of famously wealthy individuals and families, including Mark Zuckerberg, former LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner (credited with introducing Iconiq to Figma’s founders), and Block CEO and serial entrepreneur Jack Dorsey.
All taken together, the broad picture that emerges is that Iconiq won’t be running out of capital any time soon.
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Illustration: Dom Guzman
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