A group of OpenAI veterans has quietly built a new venture capital fund called Zero Shot, closing its first $20 million toward a $100 million target. The fund is already writing checks โ and drawing hard lines around AI trends its partners consider overhyped. As detailed by TechCrunch, the partners say they spotted gaping holes between the AI startups getting funded and what the market actually needs.
The OpenAI Alumni Venture Capital Fund Built on Insider Pattern Recognition
Zero Shot’s name is a reference to the AI training concept of performing tasks without prior examples. The five co-founding partners โ Evan Morikawa, Andrew Mayne, Shawn Jain, Kelly Kovacs, and Brett Rounsaville โ all worked at OpenAI during the period spanning pre-ChatGPT development through the company’s fastest growth years.
Morikawa served as head of applied engineering at OpenAI. Mayne was the company’s original prompt engineer and helped ship products including DALLยทE and ChatGPT via Codex. Jain was a researcher at OpenAI and has since founded GenAI startup Synthefy. Kovacs previously served as a founding partner at 01A, and Rounsaville โ who earlier worked at Twitter and Disney โ is now CEO at Interdimensional, the AI deployment consultancy founded by Mayne.
The fund also carries a strong advisory bench: Diane Yoon, former head of people at OpenAI; Steve Dowling, former head of communications at both OpenAI and Apple; and Luke Miller, former product leader at OpenAI.
Mayne described the fund’s origin as almost accidental: “Maybe we should do our own fund, because we think we have a pretty good sense of where things are headed, and we have this great access to people who we think are incredible builders.” The partners remain active operators โ Morikawa also works at robotics startup Generalist โ which shapes how they evaluate deals.
First Checks Written, and a Clear List of What They Won’t Touch
Zero Shot has already backed Worktrace AI, a startup building AI-based enterprise management software. Worktrace was founded by Angela Jiang, an early OpenAI product manager, and has raised approximately $10 million in a seed round according to PitchBook estimates. Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati is also among Worktrace’s investors.
The fund also invested in Foundry Robotics, which is developing AI-enhanced factory robotics. Foundry raised a $13.5 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures.
The partners are equally specific about what they will avoid. Mayne argues that vibe coding platforms โ tools that let non-developers build software through natural language โ will become redundant as model makers develop stronger native coding capabilities. He holds a similar skepticism toward digital twins startups, pointing to limitations in current large language models as a structural barrier.
On robotics, Morikawa goes further. He sees ergo-centric video data companies โ those collecting first-person human movement data to train robots โ as fundamentally flawed. “There’s a lot of hoping and praying going on right now that someone in the research world will figure out how to transfer the embodiment gap,” he said, adding that current solutions are “nowhere near possible.” His broader point on model forecasting: “There is a real skill in knowing how to predict where these models will be going next, because it’s extremely not obvious. It’s not linear.”
The Macro Backdrop: Sovereign Capital, Soaring Costs, and OpenAI’s IPO Moves
Zero Shot is entering a market flooded with capital. According to Pitchbook and the National Venture Capital Association, AI deals pushed total U.S. venture deal value to $267.2 billion in Q1 2026 alone โ roughly double year-prior levels.
Sovereign and institutional investors are repositioning aggressively. Abu Dhabi recently acquired a stake in Insight Partners, the New York-based VC firm valued at $90 billion, as reported by Forbes. The UAE’s $100 billion MGX fund, controlled through a network of companies linked to Sheikh Tahnoon, has become a significant backer of both OpenAI and Anthropic.
OpenAI itself is making deliberate moves ahead of a planned IPO. The company announced its shares will be included in several exchange-traded funds offered by ARK Invest, the firm led by Cathie Wood. CFO Sarah Friar framed the access push in mission terms, telling Axios: “We are really trying to take to heart our mission, which is AGI for the benefit of humanity and thinking about access.”
Amazon’s remaining $35 billion commitment to OpenAI is contingent on the company completing an IPO before the end of 2028, according to Axios. Meanwhile, An Inside Look at OpenAI and Anthropic’s Finances Ahead of Their IPOs from the Wall Street Journal identifies the core financial pressure facing both companies: the soaring costs required to train new AI models.
On the policy front, OpenAI released a 13-page industrial policy memo outlining its vision for managing the AI transition. The proposal includes a “startup-in-a-box” initiative โ using AI to automate the overhead that blocks most workers from starting companies, including accounting, marketing, and procurement, paired with microgrants. The memo also calls for a public wealth fund: a government vehicle that would take equity stakes in AI companies and distribute returns directly to citizens.
A separate disclosure has drawn scrutiny. Reporting by the San Francisco Standard and the Wall Street Journal revealed that OpenAI secretly funded the Parents and Kids Safe AI Coalition to back California’s Parents and Kids Safe AI Act, without disclosing its involvement to other advocacy groups. Critics point to a direct conflict: CEO Sam Altman’s company sells age-verification services โ the exact category the legislation would promote.
What to Watch: Four Unresolved Questions
Zero Shot’s contrarian robotics thesis will be tested quickly. If the embodiment gap cannot be bridged through ergo-centric video data, a significant portion of the current robotics startup cohort may find itself without a viable product path โ and without institutional backing from funds that share Morikawa’s view.
The fund’s broader impact on the AI sector depends on how far its $100 million target stretches in a market where a single OpenAI funding round can distort quarterly deal statistics. Whether Zero Shot can consistently identify the non-linear trajectory of model development โ before larger, slower-moving funds do โ is the core bet its partners are making on themselves.
On the OpenAI side, two questions remain open. The covert coalition funding raises the question of how regulators and the public will weigh the company’s stated mission against its commercial interests as IPO scrutiny intensifies. And the structure of Amazon’s $35 billion conditional commitment creates a hard deadline: if the IPO slips past 2028, the terms of that deal become a material variable for OpenAI’s finances.
Finally, OpenAI’s proposed public wealth fund โ if pursued โ would place the U.S. government as a direct competitor to sovereign AI vehicles like MGX. How that interacts with existing international capital flows into American AI companies is a question neither Zero Shot nor OpenAI has yet answered.
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
How will Zero Shot’s investment strategy evolve as it approaches its $100 million target?
As Zero Shot nears its target, it’s likely to expand its focus to include more diverse AI applications, potentially including healthcare and education, where the partners have expressed interest. The fund may also consider investing in companies that develop AI-specific hardware. This could help differentiate Zero Shot from other VC firms focused solely on software.
What specific criteria do Zero Shot’s partners use to evaluate the potential of AI startups?
Zero Shot’s partners assess AI startups based on their ability to address real-world problems, their technical innovation, and the strength of their founding teams. They also consider the startups’ potential for scalability and their alignment with emerging AI trends. The partners’ experience at OpenAI gives them a unique perspective on what makes an AI startup successful.
How does Zero Shot’s connection to OpenAI influence its access to emerging AI talent and technologies?
Zero Shot’s connection to OpenAI provides the fund with a unique pipeline to emerging AI talent, as many OpenAI alumni are now founding or joining AI startups. The fund’s partners also maintain relationships with current OpenAI researchers and engineers, giving them insight into the latest AI developments and potential breakout technologies.
Last Updated on April 7, 2026 6:54 pm by Laszlo Szabo / NowadAIs | Published on April 7, 2026 by Laszlo Szabo / NowadAIs
