The movement to restructure traditional companies through AI roll-ups, a new paradigm in M&A, is accelerating. Thrive Holdings has completed a funding round of more than $2 billion, bringing its valuation to $12 billion. With personnel dispatched by OpenAI, it owns and operates more than 70 companies.
Thrive Holdings, backed by Joshua Kushner, has raised more than $3 billion in total across its funding rounds, including more than $2 billion in its latest round, bringing its valuation to $12 billion. Thrive does not have a general-purpose large language model, nor is it an AI software company like Cursor or Lovable. Its primary business is the acquisition of traditional companies in the manner of a conventional private equity firm. After acquiring them, it integrates and redesigns their finance and operations while embedding AI into core business processes.
The company owns and operates more than 70 companies, primarily accounting firms and IT services providers. It is redesigning processes such as tax-return preparation and technical support through AI transformation. OpenAI acquired a stake last year and provided support by dispatching personnel from its research, product, and engineering teams. This is the essence of the AI roll-up model: AI drives value creation after an acquisition.
Current is the group's accounting platform. The company has disclosed that the joint development of Tax AI increased the number of tax returns it could process, cut preparation time by approximately 31%, and brought data-entry accuracy to as high as 98%. Dwelly acquired UK real estate agencies, significantly expanded the number of properties under management, and has highlighted improvements in operating efficiency through AI.
This AI-enabled roll-up model is distinguished by incorporating AI-driven productivity gains into valuation, in addition to the traditional benefits of scale. It is viewed as an attempt to replace or supplement a growth model in professional services that has traditionally depended on expanding headcount, using AI for data processing and business-process automation.
However, questions remain over whether the valuations are justified. It is still uncertain how much AI will actually increase revenue and profit, and some have noted that the companies have not yet fully demonstrated results commensurate with their acquisition prices.