OpenAI alums have been quietly investing from a new, potentially $100M fund

A new venture capital fund with deep ties to OpenAI has made its first close on its $100 million goal, the founders tell TechCrunch. The partners have already written a couple of checks.

The fund is called Zero Shot (a play on the AI training term) and its co-founding team includes several OpenAI OGs who found themselves becoming VCs almost by serendipity.

Three of the founding partners hail from OpenAI. Evan Morikawa, the former head of applied engineering during the launch of DALL·E and ChatGPT through Codex, is now at robotics startup Generalist. Andrew Mayne, OpenAI's original prompt engineer, is well-known as the host of The OpenAI podcast. Mayne also founded Interdimensional, an AI deployment consultancy. And Shawn Jain, an engineer and former researcher at OpenAI, who then became a VC and is a founder of his own GenAI startup, Synthefy.

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

The OpenAI alums have "been friends for years," Mayne told TechCrunch, having worked together at the model maker from before it released ChatGPT through its wildest growth years.

After leaving, they all found themselves constantly being hit up to consult for VCs about emerging AI tech, and by founder friends wanting advice. That's what propelled Mayne to start his consulting company.

"Some of our friends were coming out of OpenAI and interested in doing companies," Mayne said.