Disruptive Founder
DALLAS, Oct. 28, 2026 | Disruptive, a Dallas venture firm, has closed a $10 billion fund to invest in AI, defense and software companies, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, according to The Next Web's account. The firm plans to back about 10 late-stage companies with roughly $1 billion each.
How Disruptive Plans to Use the $10 Billion
The fund roughly doubles the firm's assets under management. Most of the money will go into new funding rounds, with some used to buy shares from existing investors. The structure is also a change in approach: Disruptive had raised money deal by deal through special purpose vehicles, which pool backers' cash for a single investment, and is now running one large fund that picks its own investments.
Founder Alex Davis told Bloomberg that startup leaders had grown frustrated with SPVs, which often do not reveal who is behind them. "The best companies in the world are basically picking who they want to have invest in them," he said. He also argued that successful companies now stay private longer, so large cheques are necessary: "We can't write small checks."
Who Disruptive Has Already Backed
The firm, founded in 2012 by Davis, has about 30 staff, and its backers include sovereign wealth funds, endowments and universities. Its portfolio includes ElevenLabs, Databricks, Shield AI and Groq, which The Next Web describes as its best-known bet. Late last year, Nvidia agreed to a $20 billion deal to license Groq's technology and hire much of its staff, which gave Disruptive an early return. You can see how ElevenLabs stacks up in our ElevenLabs statistics guide.
Analysis: What the Numbers Imply
Ten companies at roughly $1 billion each add up to the full $10 billion ($10 billion divided by 10). In a letter to investors earlier this year, the firm said it had returned more than $6 billion on about $1.9 billion invested, according to documents Bloomberg saw. That works out to roughly 3.2 times invested capital ($6 billion divided by $1.9 billion). The figure comes from a private investor letter that Disruptive declined to discuss, and the reporting does not say how much of it was realized cash versus paper value, so it should be read as the firm's own claim. The fund's size also fits a wider pattern: Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz have raised multibillion-dollar funds this year, and Bedrock Robotics raised $600 million the same week, according to The Next Web.
Concentrated bets of this size are part of why late-stage valuations get so much attention. Our top AI startups of 2026 list tracks which companies are drawing the largest rounds.
Frequently Asked Questions
How big is Disruptive's new fund?
Disruptive closed a $10 billion fund, according to Bloomberg as reported by The Next Web. It roughly doubles the Dallas firm's assets under management.
What will the fund invest in?
It plans to back about 10 late-stage companies in AI, defense and software with roughly $1 billion each, mostly through new funding rounds and partly by buying shares from existing investors.