This top young VC reunited with his former colleague to deploy an unusually bold strategy for investing in AI startups (www.businessinsider.com)

Brian Zhan, a 29-year-old ex-CRV investor known for early bets on Skild AI, Dyna Robotics, Periodic Labs and Reflection AI, has reunited with veteran Max Gazor at Striker Venture Partners to run a $165M fund that will make unusually large seed bets—just 10 companies per fund, with checks up to $30M. Zhan argues seed investing is moving earlier and that putting late-stage-sized capital into “kernels” of ideas is necessary to secure category-defining AI startups. He points to Reflection AI — a seed co-led at a reported $200M valuation that later raised $2B at an $8B valuation — as proof that paying up early can pay off. The strategy signals a broader shift in VC: technical literacy and research-first evaluation are becoming decisive as many frontier AI startups lack conventional business metrics. Zhan and Gazor spend mornings reading papers (curated by a custom AI assistant), take few meetings, and target founders working on AI for science and robotics — areas like Periodic Labs’ automation of discovery. The approach concentrates risk into fewer, bigger bets but could capture outsized upside on thesis-driven, research-heavy startups that traditional metrics-focused investors might miss.