Like other parts of Silicon Valley, Michael Anders, founding partner of ICONIQ Capital, was caught off guard by the sudden arrival of Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek earlier this year. “I think everyone is surprised,” Anders said at the Bloomberg Investment Conference in New York today (March 5). ICONIQ Capital is a multifamily office responsible for the wealth of renowned tech founders including Meta (Meta) CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
DeepSeek’s advanced model (which Anders calls “very real deal”) shows that Scrappy Startups is quickly catching up with AI developers like Openai. “The key point is that they can make this technology for something cheap,” Anders said.
The company’s advancements also shed light on the increasingly global nature of AI innovation – Anders accepted it at ICONIQ Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, which has over $80 billion in managed assets. Anders revealed that about a quarter of local AI investments are in international business.
ICONIQ Capital was co-founded by Anders in 2011 and named itself through an impressive roster of elite clients. In addition to one of Zuckerberg, one of its earliest clients, the company reportedly serves Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Anders said its clients have expanded in recent years, including “many non-tech founders and CEOs as tech founders.”
What AI company does ICONIQ invest in?
In terms of investment, ICONIQ Capital is not very interested in AI language model developers like DeepSeek, but focuses on the opportunity to the application layer. “We are looking at businesses that are actually creating products that will make businesses more efficient, optimize, generate revenue to enhance the customer experience,” Anders said.
Take London’s Elevenlabs as an example, the list provides a range of AI products that convert text into realistic audio. The startup was recently worth $3.3 billion after a $180 million round co-led by Iconiq Capital in January. The company’s AI investments also include writers like The Writer, a San Francisco-based startup that allows users to use AI to create their first work presentations
Iconiq Capital is picky about the AI business it believes is worth supporting. Anders said that despite “seeing thousands of people over the past two years,” the company “wrote 12 checks to local AI companies.”
The company said it focused on the social impact of AI through its charity’s iconic impact, which raised funds to fund projects in various areas such as economic mobility and women’s health. According to Anders, AI will be key to addressing challenges such as climate change, noting that the work on ocean health has funded an organization that uses the technology to monitor coral reefs. “AI will play a very common role in helping solve some of these problems,” he said.
