OpenAI stagers launch Zero Shot, a$ 100M AI adventure fund targeting bold bets in robotics and enterprise AI. Meet the platoon and see where they are investing.
A new adventure capital fund erected by OpenAI interposers is still making swells and checks. Called Zero Shot, the fund has formerly hit its first close on a$ 100 million targets, with a founding platoon that reads like an OpenAI reunion.
Who is Behind Zero Shot?
Three of the five founding mates come straight from OpenAI’s early days.
Evan Morikawa, former head of applied engineering during the launches of DALL · E, ChatGPT, and Codex, now works at robotics incipiency Generalist. Andrew Mayne, OpenAI’s original prompt mastermind and host of The OpenAI Podcast, also runs Interdimensional, an AI deployment consultancy. Rounding out the OpenAI triad is Shawn Jain, and mastermind- turned- VC who innovated GenAI incipiency Synthefy.
They are joined by Kelly Kovacs, preliminarily a founding mate at 01A — the growth- stage establishment erected by Twitter’s Dick Costello and Adam Bain — and Brett Rounsaville, a Disney and Twitter stager who serves as CEO of Interdimensional.
From Advisers to Capital
The origin story is unexpectedly organic. After leaving OpenAI, the group set up themselves constantly contending calls — from VCs wanting AI perceptive, and from author musketeers seeking advice.
” Some of our musketeers were coming out of OpenAI and interested in doing companies,”
Mayne told TechCrunch.
That demand sparked an idea. Rather than just advising, why not back those builders directly?
” Perhaps we should do our own fund, because we suppose we’ve a enough good sense of where effects are headed,” Mayne recalled.
After raising a original$ 20 million from institutions and family services, Zero Shot set its sights on$ 100 million. The fund is formerly planting capital.
Early Bets Where Zero Shot Is Investing
Zero Shot’s first bared investment is in Worktrace AI, innovated by former OpenAI product director Angela Jiang. The incipiency builds AI- powered operation software that helps enterprises discover and automate workflows — and it pulled in a$ 10 million seed rounds backed by Mira Murati and OpenAI’s Fund.
Their alternate bet is Foundry Robotics, a coming- generation AI- enhanced plant robotics company that lately closed a$ 13.5 million seed rounds led by Khosla gambles. A third investment remains in covert.
The AI Bets They are Skipping
Knowing where not to invest may be Zero Shot’s sharpest edge.
Mayne is bearish on utmost vibe rendering platforms, prognosticating that model makers will make them spare presto. Morikawa is skeptical of pride- centric videotape data companies in robotics, advising that the so- called” personification gap” is nowhere near being answered.
Digital halves are also on their skip list. After running due industriousness including erecting a logic model to stress- test the conception — Mayne concluded a standard LLM works just as well.
” There’s a real skill in knowing how to prognosticate where these models are going next, because it’s extremely not egregious,” Morikawa said.
Advisory Bench with OpenAI Roots
Zero Shot’s counsels include Diane Yoon (OpenAI’s former head of people), Steve Dowling (ex-comms lead at OpenAI and Apple), and Luke Miller (former OpenAI product leader) — all taking a share of carried interest in return
