While his older brother Jared is at the heart of US politics, alongside President Trump, Joshua Kushner has in his own way become a different kind of dominant figure as a venture capitalist who prefers to work behind the scenes rather than in the media limelight. As the founder of the venture capital firm Thrive Capital, which he established in 2009, and which currently manages assets worth about $25 billion, the younger Kushner has quietly built one of today’s major venture capital empires. Under his leadership, Thrive has transformed New York into a genuine alternative to Silicon Valley, encouraging the shift of a new generation of entrepreneurs from the West Coast to the East Coast.
Thrive has made early investments in companies that have become huge, including AI giant OpenAI, Databricks, fintech company Stripe, GitHub, Instagram, Spotify, and the list goes on. At the same time, Thrive has also been active in Israel, including investments in cybersecurity company Wiz, which has recorded the biggest-ever exit in Israel, as well as investments in Melio and Lemonade, as well as in Omri Casspi's venture capital fund Sheva and in Swish Ventures, which the former NBA player founded. In a world of noise and self-promotion, Kushner operates almost in a whisper. He rarely gives interviews and prefers to let actions speak for him. He has also chosen an independent line in his public positions: unlike his family, which is affiliated with the Republican Party, Kushner has reportedly donated to the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Changing the rules
Kushner was born in 1985 to a US Jewish family in New Jersey. and grew up in a household where business, politics, and community were intertwined. His father, Charles, was a real estate developer and politically influential. His older brother, Jared, later married Ivanka, the daughter of Donald Trump. Unlike his brother, Joshua chose to distance himself from the family's political center and focus his energy on entrepreneurship and innovation. He studied at Harvard, where he completed a bachelor's and master's degrees in business administration (MBA). He began developing ventures while still in college.
After completing his bachelor's degree, he worked for a short time in the Goldman Sachs investment group, where he first encountered the world of finance and venture capital. In 2009, when he was only 24, he founded Thrive Capital, with modest initial capital of about $10 million. In less than a decade, Thrive became one of the main venture capital firms in the US, then managing assets worth about $16 billion. In parallel with his activities as an investor, in 2012 Kushner founded Oscar Health, a digital health insurance company, which was floated on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in 2021 and currently has a market cap of $5 billion.
Belief in the entrepreneur above all
Wiz cofounder and CEO Asaf Rappaport says, "He’s brilliant. One of the most interesting people I've ever met." Thrive invested in Wiz at the height of the war in Israel. Rappaport describes Kushner as someone driven by intuition and a sense of mission. "They (the fund) are very determined, but when they come in, it's with all their might. They lead rounds of hundreds of millions of dollars, aggressively, mainly because they simply believe in their entrepreneurs."
Vince Hanks, a partner at Thrive, also described the same approach in an interview. He said, "You need an almost dogmatic belief that it will work. We don’t write a billion-dollar check before we feel we know the company inside out." The fund invests in a relatively small number of companies, but it is deeply involved in each one. This month, Thrive led a $500 million round in Tempo, a new blockchain developed in collaboration with Stripe. The funding is at a valuation of $5 billion.
Thrive was born in a city that was hardly considered a tech hub when it started. While Silicon Valley dominated the industry, Kushner chose to establish a fund in New York, a decision that became a symbol of a generational change. "Josh put New York on the investment map," says Rappaport. "A lot of funds opened offices in the city after him."
Israel at the heart of its strategy
As mentioned, Thrive led the investment round in Melio in 2021, invested in Lemonade and led huge rounds in Wiz, as well as participated in the fundraising of the Israeli venture capital fund Sheva VC, founded by David Citron and Omri Casspi.
"Josh is like the Michael Jordan of the venture capital world," says former basketball player Casspi, now an investor and founder of the venture capital fund Swish Ventures, in which Kushner has also invested. "He built a business that crosses countries, stages and industries, and Thrive is now on par with the best funds in the world. What he has done in 16 years is prodigious. Anyone who is in venture capital or startups knows Thrive. He has a very high-quality team around him, good, professional people. He has a famous saying: 'I invest in Fifth Avenue real estate' - meaning, in terms of the parallel, he invests in companies that he knows will yield returns and continue to grow. You just need patience. That's something I also strongly believe in."
Just weeks after October 7, "When no investor wanted to land in Israel, he just came," Rapaport recalls. Rapaport also talks about the conversation with Kushner before the decision to sell Wiz. "He said: 'Whatever you want, I'm with you. You want to sell, I'm with you. You want us to invest another $1 billion and move forward, we'll do it.'" Rappaport adds, "There is no doubt that he loves Israel very much. He saw an opportunity here when others were afraid. He believes in it for the long term." Some say that Kushner observes Shabbat and keeps kosher.
Kushner (40) lives in New York with his wife, model and entrepreneur Karlie Kloss, and they have three daughters. Although his wife is a well-known celebrity, he himself keeps a low profile, but his influence is noticeable. Investors say that Sam Altman, Satya Nadella and others are stored among his mobile phone contacts.
"Thrive has led, among other things, the most significant and largest investments in a variety of companies, when people even thought it was crazy," concludes Rappaport. "It's a fund that is very pro-entrepreneur and that's their secret. That's why entrepreneurs really like working with them and are very close to them."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 26, 2025.
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