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Peter Thiel's Founders Fund reportedly raising $600 million fund

This would be Founders Fund fourth fund, coming amid during a brutal time for venture capital.

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Paul Sloan is editor in chief of CNET News. Before joining CNET, he had been a San Francisco-based correspondent for Fortune magazine, an editor at large for Business 2.0 magazine, and a senior producer for CNN. When his fingers aren't on a keyboard, they're usually on a guitar. Email him here.
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Founders Fund, the venture firm started by Peter Thiel that has backed such companies as Facebook and Spotify, is raising up to $600 million for its fourth fund, according to Bloomberg, which is citing anonymous sources.

Bloomberg says that the San Francisco firm is raising the money to invest in both early stage and more established startups. Founders Fund plans to close the fund this month. It comes after the slowest quarter for venture capital in eight years.

This fund would dwarf the previous Founders Fund, which closed in July and raised $250 million to invest in Internet and engineering startups.

Thiel, 44, co-founded PayPal in 1998 and led as CEO before selling to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. He used his winnings to launch hedge fund Clarium Capital Management. Later launched Founders Fund with PayPal alums Ken Howery and Luke Nosek. They raised their first fund in 2005.

Thiel was Facebook's first outside investor and director.