OpenAI-backed Thrive Holdings buys ADT in $15.3 billion deal

Thrive Holdings, the holding company spun out of Josh Kushner's venture firm Thrive Capital, is buying home security company ADT for $10 per share, about $7.6 billion in equity, the companies announced on Thursday.

ADT put the total enterprise value of the deal, a measure that counts debt alongside equity, at $15.3 billion. The purchase places a large home security business inside a group that counts OpenAI as both an investor and a partner, and that aims to rebuild the companies it owns around AI.

Thrive Holdings says it holds more than 75 companies, with a mission to keep them long term and revitalize them with AI, according to TechCrunch's report. As its partner, OpenAI supplies models, technology and forward-deployed engineers, staff placed inside the portfolio companies to build with its tools.

Neither company named the AI-powered security products it plans to release, though both said they intend to invest in and launch new ones. “ADT will form the foundation of Thrive Holdings’ smart home security business,” the companies said in their press release. ADT already partners with Apple and Google and is expected to keep doing so, TechCrunch reported.

The deal follows a run of consumer launches in the same market. Apple on October 13 announced Apple Home Collection, a lineup of indoor and outdoor cameras, a video doorbell and a door lock designed with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric, due in stores starting in December. Amazon on October 28 introduced new Alexa devices, including an Echo Studio speaker with a home camera and an Echo Show 16 with night vision.

Thrive Capital, which Kushner founded in 2009, is also one of OpenAI's investors, and Thrive Holdings was set up to own operating companies rather than take minority venture stakes.