Thrive Capital’s new buy-and-operate arm, Thrive Holdings, is pushing deeper into IT services.
The firm said Monday it has hired Palantir veteran Jim Siders as CEO of Shield Technology Partners, a newly created business focused on IT services and managed service providers.
Siders spent more than a dozen years at Palantir, where he most recently served as chief information officer, overseeing global IT operations, business applications, and infrastructure. He originally joined the company as an IT helpdesk engineer and worked his way up.
What Shield Technology Partners is building
Thrive Holdings launched in April as a platform designed to own and operate companies it believes can benefit from major technology shifts. Shield followed in June, created with ZBS Partners and backed by more than $100 million in initial funding.
Shield’s model is straightforward: it buys ownership stakes in IT services businesses, then tries to accelerate their growth by pairing operational expertise with frontier AI, plus product and engineering support.
Why now: AI, incentives, and a tighter OpenAI partnership
The announcement arrives as Palantir remains one of the standout stocks of the AI boom—up roughly 29x since the end of 2022, depending on the exact comparison date.
It also lands shortly after OpenAI said it took an ownership stake in Thrive Holdings, with plans to embed research, product, and engineering teams inside Thrive’s portfolio companies—starting with IT services and accounting.
Shield’s structure is designed to keep incentives aligned, too: the IT services organizations it backs retain equity in their businesses, encouraging participation rather than a simple roll-up dynamic.
Scale so far, and what’s next
As of December, Shield says it works with seven (or “over seven”) partner companies and primarily serves small and mid-sized businesses, with plans to expand its portfolio. CNBC reported Thrive expects Shield to generate more than $100 million in revenue this year.
Siders starts his role as CEO on Monday. He said his initial focus will be learning Shield’s current partner network and scouting for new acquisition targets as the platform ramps up.