Thrive Capital Bets $100 Million on Shopify’s AI Commerce Push

Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital has taken a roughly $100 million stake in Shopify, a rare public-market bet from a venture firm best known for backing private giants like OpenAI and Stripe. The move signals a belief that artificial intelligence can reignite growth for the e-commerce company, whose stock has fallen about 40% this year.

Thrive told stakeholders the investment is a bet on how AI could drive gains in commerce, according to a Bloomberg report. The firm is framing the purchase as an extension of the same thesis that led it to back foundational AI companies, applying it to a public company whose shares have been punished for slowing growth.

The investment comes after Shopify’s stock slumped following its latest earnings report. While first-quarter revenue grew a strong 34.3% year-over-year to $3.17 billion, its guidance for the second quarter implied a deceleration to around 27.5% growth. That outlook, combined with lower-than-expected operating profit forecasts, sent shares tumbling. Thrive appears to see this sell-off as a buying opportunity, reminiscent of its profitable $522 million trade on the distressed online car retailer Carvana in 2022.

For investors, Thrive’s bet is a test of whether the market is mispricing Shopify's potential. The risk is that the growth deceleration is the start of a structural trend as competition from Amazon, Temu, and new AI-native platforms intensifies. The potential reward is that Thrive’s $100 million is an early stake in a company on the verge of a new growth cycle powered by AI.

The Crossover Play

Thrive is part of a growing cohort of top-tier venture firms, including Accel and Andreessen Horowitz, that are crossing over into public markets. These firms, registered as investment advisers, can use the same funds for both private and public positions. This strategy has become more common as startups take longer to go public, with private valuations for companies like OpenAI soaring to levels that limit near-term upside.

In this environment, a publicly traded company like Shopify, whose stock has been discounted by nearly 46% from its 52-week high, can present a more attractive risk-adjusted return than a private unicorn valued in the hundreds of billions.

Shopify's AI Thesis

The investment underwrites Shopify’s push into what it calls “agentic commerce.” The strategy is centered on integrating merchants directly into AI chat platforms, allowing consumers to discover and purchase products through conversations with AI assistants.

Shopify has reported that AI-driven orders on its platform grew 15 times year-over-year in 2025. The company is betting that as consumer behavior shifts from traditional search engines to AI interactions, the infrastructure connecting merchants to these new platforms will become critical. Thrive’s investment is a vote of confidence not in Shopify’s current growth rate, but in the potential for this AI-driven shift to fundamentally reshape the economics of online retail.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.