Thrive Holdings Raises ~$2B to Buy Services Firms and Rewire Them With AI

Josh Kushner's holding company is pulling in outside capital from SoftBank, Altimeter and D1 to roll up accounting and IT firms — with OpenAI embedded as a shareholder and engineering partner.

Jul 9, 2026Source: PYMNTS

Thrive Holdings Raises ~$2B to Buy Services Firms and Rewire Them With AI

Key Points

1.Thrive Holdings, the roughly one-year-old company created by Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital, is raising about $2 billion from SoftBank, Altimeter Capital and D1 Capital Partners — its first outside capital — The Information reported this week; roughly $1 billion is committed with a second $1 billion being explored.
2.The firm buys controlling stakes in traditional services businesses — accounting and IT — and rebuilds their workflows with AI, holding them long-term in a Berkshire Hathaway-style model while local partners keep minority equity; it previously raised $1 billion from Thrive Capital's own backers.
3.OpenAI took an equity stake in late 2025 and embeds researchers and engineers on-site; its accounting platform, rebranded 'Current,' spans nearly 50 practices and processed 7,000 tax returns last season on OpenAI's Codex, cutting about a third off the time per return.

The AI-rollup thesis just attracted its biggest check yet. Thrive Holdings — the roughly one-year-old company spun out of Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital — is raising about $2 billion from SoftBank, Altimeter Capital and D1 Capital Partners, The Information reported this week. It is the firm's first outside capital, and it comes fast: about $1 billion is already committed, with a second $1 billion being explored on strong demand.

The model

Thrive Holdings doesn't build software to sell; it buys the businesses themselves. It takes controlling stakes in fragmented, people-heavy services firms — accounting, IT — and rewires their workflows with AI, then holds them for the long term. Run by Thrive partner Anuj Mehndiratta, the company frames itself explicitly as a Berkshire Hathaway-style conglomerate rather than a cost-cutting private-equity play, leaving local operators with meaningful minority equity. "We aren't here to run their business," said Steve Stagner, CEO of its accounting platform. "We want to arm the rebels."

The platforms

Its accounting arm — recently rebranded Current from Crete Professionals Alliance — has rolled up nearly 50 practices in about two years, employs 2,000-plus people, generates $500 million-plus in annual revenue, and now ranks as a top-30 US accounting firm. Last tax season it processed 7,000 returns on OpenAI's Codex, cutting roughly a third off the time per return. A second platform, Shield Technology Partners, runs the same playbook in IT services.

OpenAI in the wiring

OpenAI took an equity stake in late 2025 and supplies researchers plus product and engineering talent embedded on-site; its head of applied research, Boris Power, holds a joint role at Thrive Holdings. The arrangement has a circular quality worth noting: the same investors bankrolling this raise — SoftBank, Altimeter, D1 — are also major backers of OpenAI itself. "A year ago that would have taken us months to do," said Arnaud Fournier, describing how Codex now tests options and reaches outcomes far faster.

The company it keeps

Thrive is not alone in the trade. General Catalyst's "Creation Strategy," led by Marc Bhargava, has mapped dozens of service categories and deployed hundreds of millions into AI-powered rollups, and investor Elad Gil has spent roughly three years buying mature services firms to scale with AI. The pattern marks venture capital edging into private-equity territory — betting AI can lift margins across old-economy industries.

Why It Matters

Thrive is the clearest sign yet that the hottest AI trade isn't building models but buying the labor-intensive businesses AI can transform — turning software margins into services roll-ups. The circular financing, where OpenAI's own backers fund a vehicle that deploys OpenAI's models, deepens the concentration of the AI economy around a handful of investors, and makes professional-services jobs the front line of automation's real-world test.

Filed underOpenAI Finance AI #AI funding #AI rollups #Josh Kushner #Thrive Holdings