The Firm Behind Groq Wants $10 Billion — and Is Giving Up the Deal-by-Deal Model That Made It

Disruptive, a Dallas venture firm that backed Groq before Nvidia’s $20 billion licensing deal, is raising up to $10 billion for a new fund and has $7.5 billion committed, The Wall Street Journal reports. The size puts it among a handful of megafund managers. The more telling detail is the structure: a firm that raised money one deal at a time, through special-purpose vehicles, is moving to a single pool — just as the hottest startups shut the door on those vehicles.

The Setup

According to The Wall Street Journal (October 7, 2026), Disruptive is raising up to $10 billion for a new fund and has secured commitments of $7.5 billion so far, citing people familiar with the matter. It plans to invest in roughly 10 late-stage companies over the next two years.

Founded in 2012 by Alex Davis, grandson of oil and media billionaire Marvin Davis, the Dallas firm gained prominence after Nvidia’s $20 billion licensing agreement with Groq late last year. Its other bets include open-source model maker Reflection AI, Databricks, defense-tech company Shield AI and voice-AI startup ElevenLabs. The WSJ notes that PitchBook defines a megafund as anything above $500 million, and that Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz have each raised more than $10 billion for new funds this year.

Until recently, Disruptive invested largely through special-purpose vehicles (SPVs), pooling investor money deal by deal. That approach has lost favor: Anthropic, Anduril and OpenAI have sought to limit certain secondary transactions, which often run through SPVs.

The Concept

An SPV is one deal; a fund is a promise. In an SPV, investors see the company first and commit money to that single deal. In a commingled (“blind-pool”) fund, they commit upfront to a manager who picks the companies later. SPVs give investors choice; funds give the manager speed and certainty of capital.

Who controls the cap table decides which works. When a company is happy to take money from a vehicle, SPVs are flexible. When companies restrict who can buy their shares — and especially who can buy them secondhand — a manager needs a direct, pre-committed check that the company will accept. A fund is that check.

The Read

This is a move toward where the shares are, not just a bigger raise. The WSJ ties the SPV model’s decline to companies like Anthropic, Anduril and OpenAI limiting secondary sales. For a late-stage specialist, that is existential: if the most sought-after companies won’t take money from deal-by-deal vehicles, the only way to stay in those rounds is to show up with committed capital and a single signature.

The math says concentration. $7.5 billion across roughly 10 companies is about $750 million per company, rising to $1 billion each if the fund reaches $10 billion. Those are lead-check sizes in the largest late-stage rounds. Investors in this fund are not buying a diversified venture portfolio; they are buying about ten concentrated positions chosen by one firm over two years.

The track record being sold is a short list of large wins. Groq, which Nvidia’s licensing deal made a headline outcome, is the anchor. Reflection AI, Databricks, Shield AI and ElevenLabs are the rest of the shop window. Commitments of $7.5 billion before a final close suggest investors are paying for access to that kind of deal flow more than for a long, audited fund history — which, for a firm that used to raise deal by deal, is the history it largely does not yet have as a blind pool.

Late-stage capital keeps concentrating. Disruptive joins Thrive and Andreessen Horowitz in raising at this scale. More large, pre-committed pools chasing a small number of AI companies is one reason late-stage marks keep stepping up between rounds — and one reason, as we noted on the cooling IPO window, that so much of the gain accrues before the public can buy.

The Action

If you are an LP weighing a megafund, underwrite it as a concentrated, roughly ten-position portfolio: ask how many of those positions are already identified, what entry valuations look like, how the fund prices follow-ons into names it already owns through older SPVs, and what the fee load is on capital that may sit undeployed while waiting for the right rounds.

If you invested through SPVs, check the transfer terms and information rights on each vehicle. As companies tighten secondary rules, the exit route from an SPV can narrow, and the manager’s attention moves to the new fund.

If you are a late-stage founder, expect more single-check, high-certainty offers from a small set of large pools — and weigh what one investor holding a large concentrated stake means for governance and future rounds.

What to Watch Next

The final close. Whether commitments reach the $10 billion target, and when.
The first deployments. Which of the roughly 10 companies the fund backs first, and at what valuations.
Overlap with existing positions. Whether the fund buys more of companies Disruptive already owns through earlier vehicles.
More secondary restrictions. Further limits from top private companies would accelerate the shift from SPVs to funds across the industry.
Other SPV-heavy managers. Whether similar firms follow Disruptive into blind-pool vehicles.

The Counter

The figures come from people familiar with the matter, not a closing announcement, and the fund has not hit its target. A $7.5 billion commitment can still shrink or slip if markets turn. And a strategy of about ten late-stage positions in two years carries real concentration risk: one or two disappointments, or a single bad entry price at the top of a cycle, would weigh heavily on returns.

There is also a case that the shift is less dramatic than it looks. Plenty of large managers run funds and SPVs side by side, and the WSJ does not say Disruptive will stop using vehicles. The restrictions from Anthropic, Anduril and OpenAI target certain secondary trades rather than every SPV, so deal-by-deal capital will not disappear — it may simply lose access to the most sought-after names.

Key Terms

Megafund: a very large venture fund; PitchBook’s threshold is anything over $500 million.
Special-purpose vehicle (SPV): an entity set up to pool investors’ money for a single deal, so each investor chooses deal by deal.
Blind-pool (commingled) fund: a fund whose investors commit capital before the manager chooses the companies.
Secondary transaction: a purchase of existing shares from current holders rather than new shares from the company.
Commitments: capital investors have pledged to a fund, drawn down later as the manager invests.
Final close: the point at which a fund stops accepting new commitments and its size is fixed.

Primary Sources

The Wall Street Journal — Venture Firm Behind Chip Startup Groq Targets $10 Billion Megafund (Kate Clark, October 7, 2026; fund size, commitments, strategy, portfolio and SPV context)
QuantLogix investor profile — Disruptive (tracked portfolio companies and fund record)

QuantLogix is not a registered investment advisor, broker-dealer, or financial planner. This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice, investment recommendations, or solicitations to buy or sell securities. Fund size and commitment figures are as reported by The Wall Street Journal citing people familiar with the matter; the fund has not announced a final close and terms may change. Past performance does not guarantee future results.