OpenAI alums have been quietly investing from a new fund, which could be worth $100M

A new venture capital fund with deep ties to OpenAI has closed first on its $100 million goal, founders told TechCrunch. Partners have already written several checks.

This money is called Shooting Zero (a play on AI training time) and its co-founding team includes several OpenAI OGs who turned out to be VCs almost peacefully.

Three of the co-founders came from OpenAI. Evan Morikawa, formerly the engineering lead for implementing DALL·E and ChatGPT through Codex, is now on the robotics startup Generalist. Andrew Mayne, the original engineer of OpenAI, is known as the lead OpenAI software. Mayne also started MediumAI deployment consultant. And Shawn Jain, engineer and former researcher at OpenAI, turned VC and co-founder of GenAI startup Synthefy.

The alums are joined by VC Kelly Kovacs, a former founding partner at 01A, A growth-share company founded by Dick Costello and Adam Bain. The fifth founder of the fund is Brett Rounsaville, formerly of Twitter and Disney, who is also the CEO of Mayne’s Interdimensional.

The OpenAI alums have “been friends for years,” Mayne told TechCrunch, having worked closely with the prototype developer since before it launched ChatGPT in its heyday.

After they left, they both found themselves constantly bombarded with questions from VCs about AI technology, as well as with fellow startups seeking advice. This is what led Mayne to start his own consulting firm.

“Some of our partners were coming out of OpenAI and wanted to go corporate,” Mayne said.

Alums saw gaps between what many AI startups were offering and what the market needed.

“Maybe we should do our fund, because we think we have a good idea of ​​where things are going, and we have access to people who we think are amazing builders,” Mayne said, recalling the decision.

After negotiating with corporations and family offices and closing the first $20 million, the team looked at the first $100 million fund. He has already written several checks.

Zero Shot supported OpenAI product manager Angela Jiang with her startup Worktrace AI. The startup is developing AI-based management software to help businesses create jobs by identifying what needs to be automated. Worktrace AI has raised $10 million in seed funding from celebrities like Mira Murati and OpenAI’s Fund, Pitchbook estimates.

The group also invested in Foundry Robotics, a startup working on next generation, AI factory robotics. Recently raised $13.5M in seed fundingled by Khosla Ventures. Zero Shot has already invested in three startups, which are still under wraps.

AI bets are jumping

The founders of Zero Shot say they understand AI management better than most VCs. This helps them to choose the background, and to identify the ideas to avoid.

Mayne, for example, is a regular in many of the coding vibes because he foresees that modelers, with their coding expertise, will quickly sign up for platforms as unnecessary.

Morikawa tells TechCrunch that, with his deep knowledge of AI and robotics, he’s not a fan of “the ergo-centric video industry right now in robotics.” These are the startups that are working on robotics training solutions.

“There’s a lot of hope and prayer going on right now that someone in the research world will figure out how to change the gap,” Morikawa said of such videos, but “that’s not possible.”

Mayne is also suspicious of many startups practicing “digital twins.” He has done due diligence on a few, including developing a conceptual framework for testing, and determined that the traditional LLM model works, he said.

“There’s a real skill in predicting where these colors will go, because they’re unpredictable. There’s no line,” Morikawa said.

In addition to the founders, Zero Shot has some famous names who have agreed to be advisors, and will receive a portion of the “interest” that the fund returns. Advisors include Diane Yoon, former chief public officer of OpenAI; Steve Dowling, former head of communications at OpenAI and Apple; and Luke Miller, former head of product at OpenAI.