This venture capital firm just raised $33 million

For many venture capital firms, issues such as misinformation and surveillance, user privacy, and online property rights are incidental to startup investment strategies. For the new fund manager Zoe WeinbergThey are everything.

her background, Previous/PreviousLifted 33 million dollars To focus on Proxy technologyIt is an emerging term that the Fund defines as technology related to agency and human rights in the digital age.

It originated from Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic venture arm of the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Pre-investment in startups at the pre-seed and seed stage. It already has the backing of other important players in the sector, such as Cendana Capital, Marc Andreessen, the Ford Foundation, and Union Square Ventures.

Weinberg, 32, a former contributor to a Brooklyn NGO and policy expert with degrees from Harvard, Stanford and Yale, has taken a proactive stance on challenging global problems, from internet-based threats to democracy and intellectual property in the age of… Deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence. .

“I like to think of it this way: What are the tools that can be built that will promote a positive worldview?” he said.

Weinberg’s partner in the background is… Michael Mosiera former senior advisor at cryptocurrency companies Espresso Systems and Chainalogy and a former official in leadership positions at the US Treasury and Department of Justice.

The duo seeks to grant Checks from $500,000 to $1 millionare able to participate in leadership rounds at companies that often also fall into more traditional categories, such as AI, cybersecurity, data infrastructure, digital identity, fintech and web3.

To date, ex/ante has made nine investments, including deepfake detection startup Reality Defender, consumer identity company Lockr, and self-deposit business Webacy.

“I’ve known Zoe since 2018, and from the beginning our conversations have always struggled with this question of how new technology will address this moment of geopolitical turmoil,” Schmidt wrote. Forbes It’s a statement.

The technology of the next era must protect and promote democratic values. “We are proud to incubate and support the launch of the ex/ante fund, an investment fund that will pioneer this future and have a profound impact on the world,” he added.

Weinberg was working as an aid worker in Mosul, Iraq, when he visited one of the country’s first Bitcoin mining operations in a small white building near the Iranian border in 2017. All of the participants were displaced or refugees from the Islamic State, or ISIS, and he later said that no He still controls parts of the country.

“I remember one of the guys said, ‘Look, ISIS could take over tomorrow, and I could leave the country and still have assets,’” he recalls. “Suddenly they were able to have a degree of financial security and freedom that never existed before.”

This experience joined with others abroad and at home to help shape Weinberg’s worldview. The daughter of art-world parents, she volunteered in Senegal while in high school, won several thesis awards at Harvard, and then worked for a stint at Goldman Sachs. She spent two years at the International Finance Corporation’s World Bank Group, work that took her to Kenya with stops in Somalia, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

While working in developing countries, Weinberg was amazed at how technology was used to both benefit and constrain local citizens: some tools were monitored and controlled, others allowed access to outside information and financial opportunities.

Returning to the United States, Weinberg worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and earned more degrees: a JD from Yale University, where she received several scholarships, and an MBA from Stanford University, where she was a Knight-Hennessy Fellow.

In 2019, he briefly joined Google’s AI team in a research position. In his next position, working on policy at the Congressional Homeland Security Committee on Artificial Intelligence in Washington, D.C., he met Schmidt, the head of the task force.

In early 2020, he joined his and his wife Wendy Schmidt’s public benefit corporation, Schmidt Futures, to incubate the precedent-setting idea. The approach is to build an investment vehicle capable of accelerating the pace of technology, while at the same time “making democracies stronger and more resilient.”

Schmidt, whose net worth is Forbes It is worth about $19 billion, and recently raised $600 million for its own venture fund, Innovation Endeavors, according to Venture Capital Journal. In October, Forbes reported that Schmidt had committed at least $100 million to an accelerator whose CEO was in a romantic relationship.

Weinberg and ex/ante branched out on their own last year, taking with them three family office investments; Mosier joined in March 2023, several months after its official launch.

With an initial goal of $25 million, the group of former partners expanded beyond Schmidt Futures, eventually attracting Andreessen and his a16z partner Chris Dixon, USV and its founders Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham, Cendana and the Ford Foundation, as well. Such as Protocol Labs, the Klarman Family Foundation, and Midas List investor Kirsten Green.

Burnham was so impressed with Weinberg and his approach that he volunteered to attend previous investment committee meetings as an advisor, something he only does for the firm, his own firm (where he has now returned to the role of venture partner) and another fund. . On Weinberg’s approach to investing, the veteran investor said it reminds him of his and Wilson’s work building Union Square Ventures into a prominent venture capital firm.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Zoe and Michael are right,” Burnham said. “But there is a question as to whether they came too soon.”

Ex/ante means “before the event,” and it remains to be seen whether the firm takes a riskier approach by backing companies that are not traditionally considered drivers of venture capital funds.

Weinberg pointed to companies founded outside the fund’s portfolio, such as Signal, a nonprofit messaging company, search engine DuckDuckGo, web browser Brave, and decentralized storage network Arweave as examples of companies focused on privacy, security, and protection of users that have achieved significant scale; He said that big technology companies have acquired other companies, which has prompted them to be more aware in these areas.

However, Weinberg said she is realistic about how these tools will become priorities for large numbers of users. “I arrive at LaGuardia Airport and suddenly Google knows it’s time to get a boarding pass,” he said. “It’s a little scary, but also comforting. I get it.”

He noted that other technologies, such as data “passports” that could allow users to voluntarily sell their personal data, or watermarking tools that designate ownership of digital content, could lead to inequality and abuse.

However, he said, it is precisely these types of conversations that make Weinberg extraordinarily valuable at the leaders’ table. Daniel Mason, CEO of Anona startup that is creating an infrastructure for AI agents to perform tasks in different services and applications, such as posting to several social networks at once, or finding and booking a plane ticket autonomously.

In product strategy meetings, Weinberg urged Mason to store as little user data as possible; He added that he also made presentations to clients and other investors.

“Zoe is truly an expert in data security, data privacy and identity,” Mason said. “She amazed me with that and the people she met. She was an incredible source of trust for us.”

That’s an advantage — and a calling card — for early adopters: For mission-driven founders who take your money, they gain an “ideological ally,” Weinberg said. The investor hopes that these political positions – pro-privacy, civil liberties, digital sovereignty and American-style democracy – will gain followers across the ideological spectrum of the tech sector.

“In many ways, what we are doing is inherently political,” Weinberg concluded. “But it is not inherently partisan.”

Note published in Forbes USA.