Peter Thiel Starts New Venture Capital Firm: Mithril Capital Management

Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor and co-founder of PayPal, has started a new venture capital firm, called Mithril Capital Management, relocating some employees, along with some of his money, to the new company.

Mithril Capital opened its doors in San Francisco with a $401 million fund, Thiel being the largest investor. The New York Times reports that it is not clear how much of the investor’s $640 million in Facebook IPO shares he sold is a part of the new venture.

The firm joins other investment firms Thiel has already supported, including Founders Fund, which normally focuses on earlier stage investments, and Clarium Capital, which is a global macroeconomic hedge fund.

Thiel will lead the firm’s investments, along with Ajay Rojan, according to All Things D. Mithril will focus its goals on fast-growing companies who “prefer to remain private as they mature.”

Rojan has expressed that they expect a typical investment for the firm to be between $20 million and $100 million, with the majority leaning toward the $200 million mark. Peter Thiel’s new company’s intended targets will be “the non-fashionable companies,” according to Royan, who added that we should not expect social media or cloud investments.

Royan went on to say, according to The Wall Street Journal, that:

“Skype was willing to compete with telephony, and Sony redefined what personal media looked like in a previous era. We would love to find those types of companies…They will not look like Silicon Valley social media companies.”

While Mithril Capital has made no investments yet, the company supported by Peter Thiel will be using hard science and technology to solve problems in a way that disrupts current markets, according to The Wall Street Journal. This approach is similar to the way that Founders Fund currently approaches early-stage companies.