Hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen has started efforts to raise his first private-markets fund, a venture that will test whether his decades of experience investing in public companies will translate to private markets.

The fund — Cohen’s first client offering that isn’t a hedge fund — has been pitched to investors as a hybrid venture and private-equity fund called Point72 Hyperscale, according to people familiar with the matter. The fund would back early-stage technology companies focused on artificial intelligence. It would also buy majority stakes in operating companies that could benefit from those technologies and marry the investments, the people said.