Max Gazor

Striker Venture Partners (@strikervp) launches today with $165M. Targeting just 10 companies per fund. We back companies pre-revenue, mostly at inception. @airtable. @cribl_io. @reflection_ai. @dynarobotics. Technical Focus: AI. Cybersecurity. Infrastructure Software.

Marked today's partnership between @reflection_ai and Shinsegae with a signing at the Department of Commerce's National AI Center opening with Secretary @howardlutnick - a fitting backdrop 🇺🇸🇰🇷

This is what allied Al sovereignty at scale looks like. A U.S. company, a trusted Korean partner, 250 megawatts of sovereign compute—owned by the nation that needs it, built on the alliance that makes it possible. The countries that will define the future of AI governance are the ones building the infrastructure now. America's job is to make sure our allies are building it with us. The AI Export Program is on a roll. 🇺🇸 🇰🇷

Building open intelligence matters because it democratizes the model weights for all and they can be inspected as well as customized independently. Today Reflection is proud to share that its partnership with Shinsegae Group to build a 250-megawatt AI factory for South Korea; sovereign AI infrastructure that Korean government and enterprises can own, control, and build on. This partnership is that belief made real. Excited for what's ahead.

Dear God, please give me the confidence of a 30 year old VC who has only lost money and blogs about conviction.

@guruchahal 💯 The strategy of VC has never been more interesting

The talent velocity in venture right now is unlike anything I’ve seen. New firms launching. Cross-firm moves that were rare a decade ago. When I first joined VC in 2012, the norm was you stayed with a firm forever. VC is becoming as dynamic as the founder ecosystem it serves.

@jaltma Congrats @jaltma!

I’m really excited to share that I’m joining Benchmark. The past two years as a full time investor have been the most rewarding of my career. I really love venture capital, which is not something I ever imagined I’d say when I was kid, but here we are. I love new ideas and being part of a team with a mission. I love getting to be there for people who are struggling towards goals they really care about. I love learning from people who are better CEOs than I ever was. I love the texture of the work, the competition, and the way the job lets you invest in relationships. I love it so much that I’ve even turned into a little venture nerd with a podcast who goes around harassing great investors and founders, trying to learn as much as I can as fast as possible. I’ve certainly learned what I care most about, and what kind of investor I want to be. What I’ve realized is that I love investing at the Series A, when there’s enough going on that an investor can be useful but not so much that you can’t have an impact. I think there are many amazing ways to practice venture, it’s just the way that most speaks to me. And as I came to realize that, I started to think about how to best set myself up to do that craft as well as possible. It became clear to me there is nowhere better for this than Benchmark; the way they’re structured, their principles, their overall approach to investing, and their track record all create an environment that I believe will let me do my best work as an investor and help founders the most I possibly can. As I’ve gotten to know the team at Benchmark I’ve come to admire so much about each of them. Peter is truly playing his own game. A lot of what he says sounds like poetry at first, but as the ideas roll around in your head for a while you realize how much depth they have. I first heard about Eric many years ago from my friend Saji at Benchling while I was building Lattice, who described him as the most amazing board member and attributed him with a lot of the company’s success. That’s the kind of partner I want to be one day. Chetan is brilliant and truly thinks for himself; I’ve realized over time what a courageous guy he is. And then there’s my friend Ev, whose skills complement mine and who I just love to be around. I can’t wait to have him as a partner in crime. When given the chance to work with this group I just knew I had to go. One of my motivating north stars with Alt Capital was to build a firm and be a partner that I most would have wanted as an entrepreneur. Although I haven’t gotten everywhere I want to be yet, I’m proud of the work so far. And now I’m excited to build on that work at Benchmark, where I hope to increase my rate of learning and get armed with the power of a partnership so I can help founders reach their dreams even more. Thank you to the companies who’ve let me invest with them at Alt Cap. I’m keeping all my board seats and supporting everyone just the same as before. Thank you to the LPs who’ve backed me as well. I am so excited about the portfolio we have and am grateful I can stick with all those companies. And finally thank you to my teammates, Bala, Vivek, and Nate. Bala took a bet on me and started investing with me before it was remotely obvious, and we’ve been able to grow so much figuring it out together as investors. I credit Nate with helping Alt start feeling like a firm. He joined us from First Round over a year ago and made everything run smoothly. And while Vivek joined just a little while ago, even in the short time we’ve worked together he’s had a meaningful impact on how we think and invest. They’re all joining Benchmark with me. So pumped for this chapter.

How Ricursive Intelligence raised $335M at a $4B valuation in 4 months techcrunch.com/2026/02/16/how…

Generational companies all start as a few founders with a big vision. Congrats to @cribl_io on your 2027 Sales Kickoff and the unstoppable momentum.

⭐ Cribl has SURPASSED $300 MILLION in ARR in 2025, marking a major milestone from $200 million ARR in December 2024! ⭐ Now, as we enter our next fiscal year, we are focused on equipping customers with an architecture for an #AI-first world. Read the news and boldly go with us into the future — the AI frontier: bit.ly/464fniV

I was asked to provide thoughts on the latest piece from @WIRED on founder loyalty in Silicon Valley. At @strikervp, our focus is straightforward: partnering with exceptional technical founders from inception to help build generational companies. It's all we've done for 15 years. As I noted in the article, we're vetting founding teams “for chemistry and cohesion more than ever.” wired.com/story/model-be…

@tmrohan LPs don't sign up for 2x funds. GP/LP information asymmetry exists and not always obvious until several funds in.

VCs earn more with a $1B fund that returns 2x (poor) than a $200m fund that does a 5x (exceptional). That is the root of everything that is wrong with VC today.

I remember this weekend vividly. Congrats @mamoonha, you’ve done something remarkable. A true embodiment of skill, class, and kindness. Wishing you continued success.

@airtable enters the arena with Superagent. Multi-agent AI, done right. Never bet against @howietl.

You don’t need a big fund to deliver big returns. You just need to be good.

@stephzhan @RicursiveAI @annadgoldie @Azaliamirh Congrats for seeing the vision and going in with conviction. Founders are lucky to have you.

Excited to share @RicursiveAI's Series A 🚨as we build towards @annadgoldie and @Azaliamirh's vision to create a virtuous circle where chips & AI evolve together “The first phase of the company is to accelerate chip design. But if we have the ability to design chips very quickly, why not just use that ourselves? Why not build our own chips? Why not train our own models? Why not co-evolve them?”

@giliraanan @upwindsecurity @StephenCurry30 @AmiramShachar @saammotamedi Congrats guys!

@upwindsecurity is a unicorn! read more at wsj.com/articles/upwin… @StephenCurry30 @AmiramShachar @saammotamedi

Congrats to Striker portfolio company @RicursiveAI and founders @Azaliamirh and @annadgoldie on this milestone $300m Series A at $4b valuation, led by @lightspeedvp. Big vision, elite team. We're proud to be in your corner.

One of the most underrated strengths of the best startups is governance. Quite evident today in frontier lab conflicts. Friends don’t let friends join companies without strong board governance.

@MillionInt Let’s go Jerry

Neural networks, they just want to learn

@EdLudlow @strikervp Demis thinks 18-24 months to robotics breakthrough. We predict an independent multimodal frontier model and advancements will arrive this year and accelerate the time to breakthrough. All of the above you list could consume and benefit from such.

@maxgazor @strikervp We are told 1x, Nvidia, Figure, Skild and… Tesla? Have solved for that.

Demis Hassabis, founder of Deepmind, believes robotics is on the cusp of a breakthrough moment within 18 months. We @strikervp believe that advancements in multimodal frontier models will be on the critical path for physical intelligence. 2026 will be the year of multimodal.