We support early stage, AI-native companies that are shaping the future of how we live and work
Announcing Principal Venture Partners
Retrofitting doesn’t work, as history has proven again and again. Steam engine trains couldn't compete with gas-fueled automobiles, and few companies from the industrial era could thrive in the network economy. Just look at the NASDAQ top 10—most of them started after broadband became available and consumers fully embraced digital technology. Despite incumbent companies investing trillions of dollars in “digital transformation,” the winners of the internet era were digital-native companies. The same will be true for AI.
I am thrilled to announce the launch of Principal Venture Partners with an inaugural $100M fund. We invest in early stage, AI-native startups that are poised to become the next wave of generational businesses—enterprises that fully embrace new technological capabilities to build lasting impact for decades to come.
Our Investments
We invest in early stage AI startups building next-generation foundation models, dev tools, middleware, applications, consumer technology, games, and more.
Aalo Holdings
Academic-grade nuclear microreactors that are both safe and powerful enough to power data centers.
Lambda
On-demand GPUs for AI training, fine-tuning, & inference in a public cloud.
Laurel.ai
Time management software that helps knowledge workers understand productivity and manage their time.
Liquid.ai
Liquid neural network-based LLMs for enterprise solutions.
Operative Games
Story-driven, immersive games with AI-powered characters.
TaxGPT
AI tax assistant for research, writing and tax documents.
Upstage
State-of-the-art, pre-training, open-source LLMs for enterprises.
Our Team
A company's business, technology, and talent work together synergistically—not just as separate components. Our team combines together deep technical knowledge of AI’s defining concepts and the latest research and advances with decades of experience scaling up and operating AI-first enterprises, managing international businesses, and applying technology to solve real business challenges.
Songyee Yoon
Songyee Yoon is a visionary leader, investor, and author with over 20 years of experience in AI and gaming. As President and Chief Strategy Officer at NCSOFT, Songyee scaled the company from 200 employees into a global gaming giant. Today, she is a longstanding member of South Korea’s Presidential Advisory Council for Science and Technology and an advisory board member of the Center for Asia Pacific Policy at RAND, where she explores the social impacts and ethics of AI. She was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, elected to the National Academy of Engineering of Korea, and identified as one of the 50 Women to Watch in Business by the Wall Street Journal.
MANAGING PARTNER
Jeremy Nixon
PARTNER
Jeremy Nixon is a pioneering technologist and entrepreneur, known for his groundbreaking work in machine learning and AI. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in Applied Mathematics, he founded Omniscience, where he developed Omni, an LLM-powered real-time information retrieval system. Then, as a researcher at Google Brain, he made significant contributions to measures of uncertainty, concept discovery, and automated curriculum learning. Most recently, he started NeoGenesis with Andrej Karpathy in Hillsborough—which evolved into AGI House SF, a cultural hub for AI in Silicon Valley that fosters thousands of innovative projects.
Angela Dalton
Angela has been an influential leader in the technology and media sectors, serving as managing director at UBS, Guggenheim, and Evercore Partners, before becoming the CEO and Founder of Signum Growth, which invests and advises at the intersection of culture and new economies that are bubbling up in video games, entertainment, blockchain, and AI. Signum Growth acts as Lead Advisor to ARK Invest, and Angela recently served on the corporate board of FaZe Clan and as Lead Advisor to Web3 Foundation on the launch of the Polkadot network.
PARTNER
Daniela L. Rus
ADVISOR
Daniela Rus is a decorated professor at MIT with research interests in robotics, autonomy, and artificial intelligence. She is the co-author of the books The Heart and The Chip (March 2024) and The Mind’s Mirror (July 2024) and aspires to help build a world where robotics and AI systems assist people in performing physical and cognitive work, accelerate scientific discovery, and enable solutions to the grand challenges facing humanity. She has served as an AI expert for a plethora of globally minded organizations, including as a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) and on the Defense Innovation Board, and is a MacArthur Fellow and recipient of the Engelberger Award for robotics.
Dawn Song
ADVISOR
Dawn Song is a serial entrepreneur and professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley, where she researches AI, deep learning, security, and privacy. She is ranked the most cited scholar in computer security (AMiner Award) and has appeared on the Female Founder 100 List by Inc. and Wired25 List of Innovators. Additionally, she has received the MacArthur Fellowship, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the NSF CAREER Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the MIT Technology Review TR-35 Award, ACM SIGSAC Outstanding Innovation Award, and numerous Test-of-Time Awards and Best Paper Awards from top conferences in Computer Security and Deep Learning.
Benjamin Painter
CFO
Ben started his career as an auditor for Pricewaterhouse Coopers in San Jose, CA working primarily on venture capital firms and life science startups. While working there, he developed a love of the investment management industry, which led him to joining a startup firm called Virgo Investment Group. After Virgo, Ben joined Goodwater Capital as their CFO. While there, he helped the firm scale to several billion in AUM. After Goodwater, Ben started a fractional CFO business called IJL Advisory, which is designed to provide managers with CFO support on an as-needed basis.
David Park
Chief of Staff
David Park has over 15 years of experience in strategic planning, corporate development, and operations management. Most recently, at NCSOFT, he collaborated with top management on major initiatives, including managing a global corporate identity renewal project and establishing a corporate venture capital subsidiary in Silicon Valley. He also spearheaded efforts in investment research, corporate development, and business development, driving significant growth for the company. At PVP, David oversees the firm’s operations and strategic initiatives.
Karthik Sagar
Principal
Karthik Sagar is an early-stage investor with roots in the public markets. Most recently, he guided investments in transformative consumer and enterprise companies at Chamaeleon VC. Prior to venture, he was an Equity Analyst at Mirae Asset Global Investments, where he contributed to long-only, growth-oriented, TMT investments. He began his career in equity research at Nomura (Financials) and H.C. Wainwright & Co (Healthcare). Karthik studied Economics & Philosophy at The College of New Jersey, where he graduated as the program Valedictorian.
