Social Capital

Social Capital (Social Capital Management ) is a prominent U.S. venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California (Silicon Valley), founded in 2011 by Chamath Palihapitiya (prominent and controversial Silicon Valley investor; previously VP of User Growth at Facebook where he led the company's growth acceleration 2007-2011; early Facebook executive), alongside Co-Founders Mamoon Hamid (later left to join Kleiner Perkins), Ted Maidenberg, and Arjun Sethi (who later co-founded Tribe Capital spin-out, covered earlier). Social Capital invests in healthcare, education, financial services, climate technology, and adjacent technology sectors. The firm originally operated as a traditional LP-backed institutional VC fund, raising multiple institutional funds (Social Capital I, II, III), but underwent a significant transformation in 2018 when Palihapitiya announced Social Capital would stop taking external LP capital and instead operate as a permanent-capital vehicle deploying Palihapitiya's personal wealth and retained returns. Social Capital was prominently associated with a wave of SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) listings in 2020-2021 through the ''IPOA / IPOB / IPOC / IPOD / IPOE / IPOF'' series SPAC sponsorships that took private companies public including Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE), Opendoor (NASDAQ: OPEN), SoFi (NASDAQ: SOFI), and Clover Health (NASDAQ: CLOV) aEUR" with highly variable post-merger outcomes. Notable earlier portfolio exits include Slack (NYSE: WORK, acquired by Salesforce for approximately USD 27.7 billion in 2021), Box (NYSE: BOX), Glooko, and many others.