Throughout 2025, I spent several days inside Kleiner Perkins, interviewing partners, portfolio companies, and firm leads Mamoon Hamid and Ilya Fushman about the legendary VC firm’s unlikely turnaround. 

I was the first journalist they’d opened up to in the better part of a decade. The history of venture capital is filled with firms that mattered once, but failed to enter a new era. Generally speaking, VC firms don’t turn around—they fade. Not so for Kleiner. During the course of reporting, I caught wind that Kleiner was out raising more capital, something that they confirmed this week, revealing the firm has raised a new $3.5 billion. 

As I wrote then: The firm has raised more than $6 billion in capital across several funds in the Hamid-Fushman era, and is currently raising more capital, a source familiar with the matter says. (Kleiner declined comment.) The rumored new round is expected to be slightly larger than Kleiner’s last round in 2024, which included the $825 million KP21 fund focused on early-stage investments and the $1.2 billion KP Select III, aimed at “high-inflection deals” (basically, follow-ons and deals with startups Kleiner has built relationships with).

Since I was reporting at the beginning of this year, things have apparently been going even better on the fundraising side for Kleiner than I was hearing back then. $3.5 billion is certainly more than “slightly larger” and obviously geared towards backing the AI boom. (Some of Kleiner’s AI investments include Harvey, Vlad Tenev’s Harmonic, Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence, Anthropic, and Applied Intuition.)

It’s a long way from where this all started for Hamid, who was met with spectacular skepticism when he decided to join Kleiner about nine years ago. It went something like this, as I wrote back in January: 

Independently and immediately, a flood of people reached the same conclusion: This had to be a mistake.

​​It was the summer of 2017, and as word spread that Mamoon Hamid was joining venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, some people wondered if it was a joke, or “fake news.” And they didn’t hold back. 

“I got calls from friends in the venture business, other GPs [general partners] asking: ‘Are you sure this is happening? Is this real?’” Hamid recounts. “People kept asking: ‘What are you doing?’” 

It’s proof that no matter how much history you may have, there sometimes is, in fact, more story to be told. Read the full feature here.

See you Monday,

Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com

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VENTURE CAPITAL

- Shield AI, a San Diego, Calif.-based developer of AI systems for the defense industry, raised $1.5 billion in Series G funding. Advent and JPMorgan Chase led the round.

- Steno, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based court reporting platform, raised $49 million in Series C funding. Savano Capital Partners led the round and was joined by First Round Capital, The Legal Tech Fund, and others.

- Thesis Care, a New York City-based AI-powered care team designed for scalable clinical capacity, raised $45 million in Series A funding. Oak HC/FT led the round and was joined by CRV, Black Opal Ventures, and others.

- Blossom Health, a New York City-based AI operating system for psychiatry, raised $20 million across Series A and seed rounds. Headline led the Series A round and was joined by Village Global, TA Ventures, Operator Partners, Correlation Ventures, and angel investors.

- Scalvy, an Austin, Texas-based power delivery company, raised $13.9 million in Series A funding. From Silicon Badia, Azolla Ventures, Climate Capital, Skyriver Ventures, and others.

- Grand, a Dublin, Ireland-based AI platform designed for trade partner intelligence, raised $5 million in pre-seed funding. 20VC led the round and was joined by NAP and Firedrop.

PRIVATE EQUITY

- Allvia, backed by Trinity Hunt Partners, acquired HR Pals, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based human resources solutions company. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- Bonaccord Capital Partners acquired a minority stake in Prime Finance, a Chicago, New York City, and San Francisco-based real estate lender and investor. Financial terms were not disclosed.

EXITS

- Ecolab agreed to acquire CoolIT Systems, a Calgary, Canada-based liquid data center cooling company, from KKR for $4.75 billion.

- Henkel agreed to acquire OLAPLEX, a New York City-based hair care brand, from Advent International for $1.4 billion.

FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS

- Forward Consumer Partners, a Greenwich, Conn.-based private equity firm, raised $500 million for its second fund focused on branded consumer businesses.