Jake Paul's Anti Fund Manages $180M With Stakes in OpenAI

Jake Paul's venture firm, Anti Fund, now manages more than $180 million and holds stakes in OpenAI, Anduril, The Boring Company and Polymarket, along with more than three dozen other companies.

The 29-year-old laid out his thesis over lunch in Los Angeles last week, in an interview with Natalie Jarvey's Like & Subscribe newsletter: "If you own the attention and you own the distribution, then the rest is history."

Paul launched Anti Fund in 2021 with entrepreneur Geoff Woo. The firm writes checks ranging from $250,000 to $30 million, according to Jarvey's reporting. Beyond the headline portfolio names, the fund's reach spans defense tech, prediction markets and infrastructure ventures — a striking arc for someone who built his fame as a teenage Vine star and spent years dismissed as an internet provocateur.

That reputation, Jarvey reports, has become an asset in a media economy turned upside down. Paul's brash path — from YouTube to the boxing ring to the Trump White House, with a massive audience following each step — now functions as deal-making leverage. Woo describes the underlying philosophy in blunt terms: "To build a world-changing company, you need to have the arrogance — or the confidence — to say, 'Hey, everyone else is wrong.'"

Paul frames his commitment in total terms. "I live and breathe, eat, and sleep this," he told Jarvey. "It's pretty much nonstop every single day since I was 18 years old."

The celebrity premium is measurable. Woo says Paul delivered a $50 million lift to one portfolio connection tied to OpenAI, the standout example of how his audience translates into value for the companies he backs. Jarvey's reporting also covers how that fame can occasionally backfire, what Paul's access to Trump, Saudi Crown Prince MBS and Silicon Valley actually buys him, and the bets he believes everyone else is missing.

Creators chasing equity

Paul is not alone in trying to convert fleeting attention into durable ownership. Earlier this month, Diary of a CEO host Steven Bartlett announced a partnership with Authentic Brands Group — owner of more than 50 retail brands including Reebok, Eddie Bauer and Drake's OVO — to invest up to $400 million in creator businesses.

The same evening, Jarvey attended a private dinner in Beverly Hills hosted by Cherub, the two-year-old investing platform founded by Create & Cultivate's Jaclyn Johnson. The theme: helping creators turn their audiences into ownership. Creators, Johnson told the crowd, have "the power, the distribution and the trust" that startups often look for.

The strategy carries obvious risk. More than half of all early-stage investments fail, as Jarvey notes. But a single bet on the right business can amount to what Johnson describes as a retirement plan.

The flywheel

Paul's machine runs on an integrated flywheel, according to Jarvey's sit-down: sports promotion, betting, content creation and venture funding, with Hollywood ambitions layered in. His business plan, she reports, treats spectacle and outrage as currency — the raw material that feeds a billion-dollar strategy rather than a distraction from it.

For the broader creator economy, the signal is clear. The industry's biggest names are moving beyond brand deals and ad revenue toward balance sheets — and Paul's $180 million fund is the template they will either replicate or reject.