Benchmark is creating its first-ever growth fund as part of a $2 billion capital raising.

Benchmark Capital, the Silicon Valley VC firm known for early investments in eBay, Snap, Uber and Twitter, is breaking with one of its own traditions of keeping its funding at about $425 million and backing only young startups. After more than two decades of keeping its vehicles below that amount, the company closed on $2 billion in commitments across two new funds, including a $1.25 billion vehicle dedicated to late-stage investments, according to the Wall Street Journal.

While the funding of many venture capital firms has ballooned into the billions of dollars over the past decade, Benchmark has stuck to the strategy that helped make it legendary. It has maintained a model designed to maximize limited partners’ huge profits by being rigorously selective and taking a large stake (usually 20%) in every startup the company supports.

But Benchmark’s relatively small fund size has likely prevented the company from investing in capital-intensive AI startups, especially foundational modelers, where round sizes often run into the hundreds of millions. As a result, the company has not invested in Anthropic, OpenAI, or other capital-intensive AI labs such as Periodic Labs, Reflection AI, or Recursive Superintelligence.

When benchmarks made AI bets, the results were mixed. The company led a $75 million round in Manus, a Singapore-based AI agent platform that achieved $100 million in annual recurring revenue within eight months of launch. When Meta agreed to acquire Manus for about $2 billion late last year, it looked like it would be another benchmark winner. But Chinese regulators blocked the deal in April, claiming the company, which was incorporated in China before moving to Singapore, violated export control laws, putting the benchmark’s shares in an awkward position.

Benchmark’s new $750 million early-stage fund will give the company more flexibility to write checks in an environment where early-stage valuations have soared. The company has traditionally backed companies at the Series A stage, but Benchmark has recently given it more flexibility to invest in companies in other early development stages.

In recent months, Benchmark has backed two Series B startups: Gumloop, a platform that allows businesses to create AI agents without writing code, and Monaco, an AI-powered sales and CRM platform.

Benchmark general partner Everett Randle previously told TechCrunch that the company “looks to build meaningful, deep relationships with entrepreneurs, and that can happen early in the company’s lifecycle, i.e. seed, (Series) A, (Series) B.”

As TechCrunch previously reported, the company dipped its toes into late-stage investing, raising a $225 million special purpose vehicle (SPV) to participate in Cerebras’ $1 billion pre-IPO round. Benchmark first led the chipmaker’s Series A in 2016. Cerebras held an IPO last month, returning $3.25 billion to Benchmark at its IPO price.

This windfall prompted the company to establish a dedicated growth fund. The new vehicle will make five to six large investments in both existing portfolio companies and new startups, according to a person familiar with Benchmark’s strategy.

The two new funds aren’t the only changes to the benchmark. Over the past two years, the firm has seen significant changes to its general partner.

In 2024, Miles Grimshaw left the company and rejoined Thrive Capital. Then last year, Sarah Tavel, Benchmark’s first and only female general partner, took on a less involved venture partner role, and Victor Lazarte left to start his own VC firm.

Benchmark, which traditionally operates with four to six general partners, has added two new high-profile investors to its team to replenish its ranks. Randle, recruited from Kleiner Perkins, and Jack Altman, brother of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. These moves suggest that even benchmarks long defined by their resistance to growth now see the AI ​​era as requiring a different playbook: more capital, more steps, and new blood at the partner table.