Hustler Words – A formidable new venture capital entity, Zero Shot, boasting deep connections to the foundational architects of OpenAI, has successfully completed its initial close on an ambitious $100 million target. The fund’s partners have already initiated their investment activities, deploying capital into promising early-stage ventures, as confirmed by sources close to the firm to Hustler Words.
Zero Shot, a name cleverly referencing a key concept in AI training, is spearheaded by a quintet of co-founders, three of whom are distinguished veterans from OpenAI. This collective found themselves transitioning into the venture capital landscape almost organically. Among them is Evan Morikawa, who previously led applied engineering efforts at OpenAI during pivotal launches like DALL-E, ChatGPT, and Codex, and is now contributing his expertise to robotics startup Generalist. Andrew Mayne, recognized as OpenAI’s original prompt engineer and host of The OpenAI podcast, also founded Interdimensional, an AI deployment consultancy. Shawn Jain, another former OpenAI engineer and researcher, has since become a venture capitalist and is the founder of his own generative AI startup, Synthefy.
Complementing this OpenAI lineage are seasoned VC Kelly Kovacs, a founding partner at 01A (the growth-stage firm established by Dick Costello and Adam Bain), and Brett Rounsaville, an alumnus of Twitter and Disney, who also serves as CEO of Mayne’s Interdimensional.
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These OpenAI alumni, who Mayne shared with Hustler Words, have cultivated a long-standing camaraderie, having collaborated at the forefront of AI innovation from before ChatGPT’s public release through its explosive growth phases. Post-OpenAI, they were consistently sought out by venture capitalists for insights into emerging AI technologies and by fellow founders for strategic advice. This persistent demand ultimately spurred Mayne to establish his consulting firm. "Many of our friends emerging from OpenAI were keen on launching new companies," Mayne elaborated, highlighting a key driver behind their collective endeavor.
The founders observed significant voids between the multitude of AI startups receiving funding and the genuine market demands. This realization crystallized their decision. "We felt we possessed a unique foresight into the trajectory of AI and had unparalleled access to exceptional builders, leading us to consider establishing our own fund," Mayne recounted, reflecting on the genesis of Zero Shot. Following initial discussions with institutional investors and family offices, and securing the first $20 million, the partners are now poised to reach their full $100 million fund objective.
Zero Shot has already made strategic investments, backing Worktrace AI, a startup led by early OpenAI product manager Angela Jiang. Worktrace AI is developing an AI-driven management software platform designed to help enterprises identify and automate tasks. This startup recently secured a $10 million seed round, with notable participation from figures like Mira Murati and OpenAI’s own fund, according to PitchBook estimates. Another investment includes Foundry Robotics, a company focused on pioneering next-generation, AI-enhanced factory robotics, which recently closed a $13.5 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures. A third investment remains under wraps, currently operating in stealth mode.
Crucially, Zero Shot’s founders emphasize their superior grasp of AI’s evolutionary path, which not only guides their investment choices but also informs their decisions on which concepts to bypass. Mayne, for instance, expresses skepticism regarding most iterations of "vibe coding," anticipating that the underlying model developers, with their inherent coding prowess, will swiftly render subscriptions to such platforms redundant.
Morikawa, leveraging his profound expertise in AI and robotics, voiced his reservations to Hustler Words about the current proliferation of "ergo-centric video data companies" in the robotics sector. These startups focus on embodiment training data for robotics, yet Morikawa cautions, "There’s a lot of hopeful speculation that research will bridge the embodiment gap, but that’s currently far from feasible." Mayne shares a similar skepticism towards the majority of "digital twin" startups, noting that his due diligence, including developing reasoning models to test them, often concludes that standard large language models (LLMs) can achieve comparable results.
"Predicting the future direction of these models requires a distinct skill set, as their progression is profoundly non-obvious and non-linear," Morikawa underscored, highlighting the unique advantage of their collective experience.
Beyond the investing partners, Zero Shot has garnered the support of several prominent advisors who will partake in the fund’s carried interest. This distinguished advisory board includes Diane Yoon, OpenAI’s former head of people; Steve Dowling, who previously led communications at both OpenAI and Apple; and Luke Miller, a former product leader at OpenAI. Their collective expertise further solidifies Zero Shot’s strategic positioning at the cutting edge of AI investment.
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