Former OpenAI Executives Launch $100 Million Fund to Invest in AI Startups

A group of former employees from OpenAI, the organization responsible for the global popularization of language models like ChatGPT, has just announced the creation of Zero Shot, a venture capital fund seeking to raise $100 million to invest in innovative startups. With an initial closing of $20 million already secured, the fund positions itself as a strategic player, leveraging its founders' network and deep technical expertise to identify opportunities that often go unnoticed by traditional investors.

The Genesis of the Fund and the OpenAI DNA

Zero Shot, whose name is a direct allusion to a fundamental technique for training AI models, was founded by a team that experienced the dizzying growth of the technology in recent years. Among the founding partners are Evan Morikawa, who led applied engineering during the launch of DALL·E and ChatGPT; Andrew Mayne, OpenAI's first prompt engineer and host of the company's official podcast; and Shawn Jain, an engineer and researcher who became a venture investor and founder of Synthefy. The team is completed by Kelly Kovacs, a former partner at 01A, and Brett Rounsaville, an executive with stints at Disney and Twitter, who also serves as CEO of the consultancy Interdimensional.

The Technical Approach and Investment Filter

The great differentiator of Zero Shot lies in its partners' ability to perform rigorous technical curation, which they believe is a blind spot for other investors. According to the founders, the current AI market is saturated with superficial promises. For instance, Andrew Mayne expresses skepticism regarding the concept of vibe coding, arguing that model creators themselves will natively integrate these features, rendering third-party platforms obsolete. Similarly, Evan Morikawa questions the viability of startups focused on video data for robotics training, pointing out that bridging the gap of physical embodiment remains a scientific challenge far from being solved.

Strategic Impact and Initial Portfolio

Although the fund is still in its expansion phase, Zero Shot has already begun operations in the market with investments in select companies. Among the portfolio companies is Worktrace AI, founded by former OpenAI product manager Angela Jiang, which focuses on intelligent corporate process automation. Another notable investment is Foundry Robotics, aimed at the next generation of industrial automation. The strategy is clear: support founders who possess a solid technical vision and are solving real infrastructure and automation problems, avoiding the fleeting trends that often attract speculative capital without sound foundations.

Competitive Context and Differentiation

Unlike generalist venture capital funds, Zero Shot operates with an advantage in access and technical discernment. The founders' consulting network, established after their departures from OpenAI, allowed them to observe closely the gaps between what startups propose and what companies actually need to integrate AI into their workflows. By conducting due diligence processes that involve creating their own reasoning models to test the technological validity of each startup, the fund ensures its capital is allocated to solutions with proven practical utility, distancing itself from technologies that, in their view, offer no real competitive advantage over what can already be achieved with conventional language models.

The Future of Artificial Intelligence According to Zero Shot

The roadmap for the coming steps involves not only raising the full $100 million but also strengthening an ecosystem composed of high-level advisors, including former executives from strategic areas of OpenAI, such as human resources and communications. The fund's long-term vision is based on the premise that AI model development is not linear. For the Zero Shot partners, success in the future of AI will not come from the generic application of models, but from the ability to predict the technical trajectory of major labs and build layers of value that are resilient to constant updates in APIs and fundamental model architectures. With this stance, the group aims to be more than just a financier: it seeks to be a technical mentor to the architects of the next wave of technological innovation.