OpenAI-backed Thrive Holdings agrees to buy ADT for $15.3 billion including debt

ADT agreed on October 29 to be acquired by Thrive Holdings for $10.00 per share in cash, a deal that values the home security company at about $7.6 billion in equity and $15.3 billion in enterprise value. According to ADT's announcement, filed with the SEC, the price is a 45.6% premium to the unaffected closing price of $6.87 on October 27 and 52.1% above the 30-day volume-weighted average. ADT's board approved the agreement unanimously. Funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management are the sole source of financing commitments, and the deal has no financing condition. The companies expect it to close in the first quarter of 2027, subject to stockholder approval and US antitrust clearance, after which ADT's stock will stop trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

A holding company built around AI buys a legacy operator

Thrive Holdings is a permanent capital holding company spun out of Thrive Capital, the venture firm led by Josh Kushner. TechCrunch reports that it holds more than 75 companies and aims to keep them for the long term while revitalizing them with AI. OpenAI is a partner and investor in Thrive Holdings and supplies models, technology and forward-deployed engineers to its companies, per TechCrunch.

The announcement itself does not mention AI or OpenAI. It says Thrive's engineering teams will work with ADT staff to find ways technology can improve ADT's products and services, and that ADT "will form the foundation of Thrive Holdings' smart home security business." Kareem Zaki, a partner at Thrive Holdings, said: "We intend to build on that foundation by strengthening ADT's technology and product capabilities." The release also states that ADT's data and privacy policies will remain unchanged and that no new data sharing will happen without customer permission.

The agreement includes a 30-day go-shop period, ending at 11:59 p.m. New York time on November 28, during which ADT and its advisers may seek competing proposals. Parties that bid in that window can qualify for a 10-day extension.

Why it matters

Most AI money reaches ordinary businesses as software they buy. This deal is a large example of the other route: an investor with a model maker behind it buying an established service company outright and putting its own engineers inside. For a business that relies on a provider owned this way, the practical effects are product changes, new data uses and new pricing, usually arriving after the close. ADT's written data commitment is a useful baseline to hold a vendor to. The go-shop also means the buyer and price are not final until late November.