Zero Prime Ventures (previously Data Community Fund) is a venture firm that invests in zero engineer-founders at the early stage. It recently closed a $48 million second fund and announced the addition of a new partner, Yang Tran.
Tran previously worked as a principal at Germany-based Speedinvest. Tran relocated to San Francisco to work at Zero Prime’s home office. Founded by serial entrepreneur, engineer, and Data Council founder Pete Soderling, Zero Prime’s Fund II will emphasize generative AI tooling, along with the firm’s core data infrastructure and machine learning focus.
This $48 million fund will be used to continue investing at data-oriented companies launched by intelligent founders at the very earliest stages. And Fund II has attracted a number of prominent VCs and data experts such as Olivier Pomel (CEO of Datadog); Jordan Tigani (CEO of Motherduck); David Aronchick (co-creator of Kubeflow); Wes McKinney (co-founder of Voltron Data and co-creator of Apache Arrow); and firms like AngelList, Bain Capital Ventures, and Foundation Capital. Zero Prime also brought in Founders Fund to its roster of investors. So far, the firm put its money to work in top companies across the data and AI landscape like Hex, Motherduck, Hightouch, Anomalo, Dagster, Acryl Data, Decodable, HoneyHive, and many more.
Zero Prime founder Peter Soderling also launched a popular global event series called Data Council Austin 2024, which connects data and AI talent communities. This year, over 700 people will attend, and it is a three-day event featuring over 100 speakers.
Another interesting aspect of Data Council Austin 2024 is that it will feature the first AI Launchpad. Engineer-founders of startups at the pre-incorporation or pre-seed stages that has raised between $0 and $1 million and are building AI-related B2B companies at the application or infrastructure layer can apply to demo their technology or concept on stage. From there, six companies will be selected to present in front of the Zero Prime team and additional investors.
KEY QUOTES:
“A whole new world of tooling is emerging to help teams build AI-based applications that are based not just on text, like Large Language Models (LLMs), but that are multi-modal and use video, audio, speech, and images together to create novel and immersive experiences. In fact, we’re in the thick of it already. The most interesting thing about this particular platform shift is that developers are still in the throes of figuring out what the new ‘AI stack’ looks like which is creating a whole new wave of infrastructure investing opportunities.”
– Pete Soderling, founder of Zero Prime and the Data Council community
“In a sea of emerging managers, Zero Prime stands out because of the tight-knit Data Council Community. Pete has developed an unparalleled network of technical founders, and he’s part of the earliest conversations on data advances. He’s also an entrepreneur himself, so he can identify which engineers are best suited to lead and can connect talent to create a successful business. We have made several investments in Zero Prime companies and look forward to deepening our relationship.”
– Joanne Chen, General Partner at Foundation Capital
“My co-founder and I met Pete through Data Council, and by the end of our first conversation, he’d made introductions to several people that could take our concept to the next level. Pete offered to write our first check because he believed in what we were doing, effectively jump-starting our earliest funding round. This removed significant pressure and numerous pain points in our early days, and Zero Prime has been there every step of the way.”
– Todd Persen, CEO and co-founder of Era Software (acquired by ServiceNow)
“Pete believes in engineers and their ability to change the world. He was there with us from the beginning of the company and has been instrumental to our success.”
– Jordan Tigani, CEO of Motherduck
