OpenAI Alumni Launch New Fund with $100 Million Target

The founders of a new venture capital fund with strong connections to OpenAI have informed TechCrunch that they have completed the first close toward their $100 million target. The partners have already begun making investments.

The fund, named Zero Shot—a nod to the AI training term—was co-founded by a team that includes several OpenAI veterans who somewhat serendipitously transitioned into venture capital.

Three of the founding partners are OpenAI alumni. Evan Morikawa, formerly head of applied engineering during the launches of DALL·E, ChatGPT, and Codex, is now at the robotics startup Generalist. Andrew Mayne, OpenAI's original prompt engineer, is widely recognized as the host of The OpenAI podcast and founded Interdimensional, an AI deployment consultancy. Shawn Jain, an engineer and former researcher at OpenAI, later became a venture capitalist and is a founder of his own generative AI startup, Synthefy.

They are joined by venture capitalist Kelly Kovacs, previously a founding partner at 01A, the growth-stage firm founded by Dick Costolo and Adam Bain. The fifth founding member is Brett Rounsaville, formerly of Twitter and Disney, who also serves as CEO at Mayne's Interdimensional.

Zero Shot fund founders from left to right: Evan Morikawa, Shawn Jain, Andrew Mayne, Kelly Kovacs, and Brett Rounsaville.Image Credits:Zero Shot / Zero Shot

Mayne told TechCrunch that the OpenAI alumni have "been friends for years," having collaborated at the AI model maker from the period before ChatGPT's release through its most explosive growth phases.

After departing, they found themselves frequently approached by VCs seeking consultation on emerging AI technology and by founder friends asking for advice. This dynamic prompted Mayne to establish his consulting firm.

"Some of our friends were leaving OpenAI and interested in starting companies," Mayne said.

The alumni observed significant gaps between the many AI startups receiving funding and what the market actually required.

"Maybe we should start our own fund, because we believe we have a strong sense of where things are headed, and we have exceptional access to people we consider incredible builders," Mayne recalled of their decision.

Following discussions with institutions and family offices, and after securing an initial $20 million, the partners set a target of $100 million for their first fund. They have already made several investments.

Zero Shot invested in early OpenAI product manager Angela Jiang and her startup, Worktrace AI. The company is developing an AI-driven management software platform designed to help enterprises automate tasks by first identifying what should be automated. PitchBook estimates Worktrace AI raised a $10 million seed round from notable investors including Mira Murati and the OpenAI Fund.

The team also invested in Foundry Robotics, a startup focused on next-generation, AI-enhanced factory robotics, which recently closed a $13.5 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures. Zero Shot has additionally invested in a third, still-stealth startup.

The AI Trends They Are Avoiding

The founders of Zero Shot state that their understanding of AI's trajectory surpasses that of many venture capitalists. This insight aids them in selecting startups to back and in identifying concepts to steer clear of.

Mayne, for example, is skeptical of most iterations of "vibe coding" or AI-assisted programming platforms. He anticipates that the AI model makers, with their deep coding expertise, will rapidly advance to the point where subscriptions to such third-party platforms feel redundant.

Morikawa tells TechCrunch that, drawing on his expertise in AI and robotics, he is not enthusiastic about the numerous "ego-centric video data companies" currently operating in robotics—startups focused on embodiment training data for robots.

"There's a lot of hoping and praying right now that someone in the research community will solve how to bridge the embodiment gap," Morikawa said regarding such video data, but he believes "that's nowhere near possible" currently.

Mayne expresses similar skepticism toward most startups working on "digital twins." He has conducted due diligence on several, even building reasoning models to test them, and concluded that a standard large language model often performs just as effectively.

"There is a real skill in predicting where these AI models are headed next, because it's extremely non-obvious. The progress isn't linear," Morikawa noted.

In addition to its investing founders, Zero Shot has enlisted several recognizable names as advisors, who will receive a share of the fund's carried interest. The advisory group includes Diane Yoon, OpenAI's former head of people; Steve Dowling, former head of communications at OpenAI and Apple; and Luke Miller, a former product leader at OpenAI.