Announcing our new early stage venture fund, Saga, led by Max Altman, Thomson Nguyen and Ben Braverman. We'll back founders at the beginning their heroic quests, leading and co-leading pre-seed and seed investments. If you or your smartest friend is starting something new, we'd love to hear from you.
News: Max Altman has launched a VC firm, Saga Ventures, with ex-Flexport exec Ben Braverman and 2x founder Thomson Nguyen. Altman, the middle brother to Sam and Jack Altman, plans to invest $125 million in seed-stage checks into startups building for "every American," not other techies. “The low hanging fruit today is using technology, which today is AI, and applying it to really hard problems that are going to affect every American,” Altman told Forbes. “You have to build a tool that someone in Houston or Minneapolis is going to be able to use.” In an interview, Altman also noted he was conscious of the advantages his name has provided, but noted its constraints, too. Getting away from the social climbing of San Francisco, where Sam runs OpenAI, was one reason he moved to Austin; he's motivated to be his own standout investor. Saga general partners Braverman and Nguyen got endorsements from Founders Fund partner Trae Stephens and Kleiner Perkins partner Ilya Fushman, who have worked closely with each of them. Khosla Ventures' Keith Rabois said he'd once tried to hire Max Altman himself. We also spoke with Ripping's Parker Conrad and startup founders Lawrence Lin Murata and Vignan Velivela about working with Saga's Investors. "They genuinely care, and that really stands out," Velivela said. https://lnkd.in/ekP_MGk4