Like the rest of Silicon Valley, Iconiq Capital’s founding partner Michael Anders was caught off guard by the sudden arrival of the Chinese A.I. company DeepSeek earlier this year. “I think everybody was surprised,” said Anders at the Bloomberg Invest conference in New York today (March 5). Iconiq Capital is a multi-family office managing wealth for prominent tech founders including Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
DeepSeek’s advanced models, which Anders described as “a very real deal,” showcased that scrappy startups are rapidly catching up to established A.I. developers like OpenAI. “The key takeaway was they can make this technology for cheaper,” said Anders, who described DeepSeek’s efficiency as a “big wake-up call.”
The firm’s progress also shined a light on the increasingly global nature of A.I. innovation—something Anders has embraced over at Iconiq Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm that has more than $80 billion worth of assets under management. About a quarter of its native A.I. investments are in international businesses, Anders revealed.
Co-founded by Anders in 2011, Iconiq Capital has a made a name for itself through an impressively elite client roster. In addition to Zuckerberg, who was one of its first customers, the firm reportedly serves major tech players like Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Its clientele has expanded in recent years to include “as many non-tech founders and CEOs as tech founders,” Anders said.
What A.I. companies does Iconiq invest in?
When it comes to investments, Iconiq Capital isn’t so interested in A.I. language model developers like DeepSeek but is instead focused on application layer opportunities. “We’re looking at businesses that are actually creating product that’s going to allow business to be more efficient, to optimize, to create revenue, to enhance the customer experience,” said Anders.
Take the London-based ElevenLabs, which offers a range of A.I. products that turn text into realistic audio. The startup was recently valued at $3.3 billion following a $180 million round in January co-led by Iconiq Capital. The firm’s A.I. investments also include the likes of Writer, a San Francisco-based startup that allows users to create first-draft presentations with A.I.
Iconiq Capital is picky about which A.I. businesses it deems worth backing. Despite having “looked at a couple thousand in the last two years,” the firm has only “written 12 checks to native A.I. companies,” Anders said.
The firm said it’s keeping an eye on A.I.’s social implications through its philanthropic arm Iconic Impacts, which raises money to fund projects in various areas such as economic mobility and women’s health. A.I. will be key to addressing challenges like climate change going forward, according to Anders, who noted that Iconic Impact’s work in ocean health has already funded an organization using the technology to monitor coral reefs. “A.I. is going to play a very prevalent role in helping solve some of these problems,” he said.