Xfund is the early-stage venture capital firm built to back entrepreneurs who think laterally and experiment across disciplines. We are a pioneering partnership between some of the country’s most successful venture capital firms and some of the world’s best research universities in the United States and abroad. Whether you’re a student, faculty member, staff, alumni — or perhaps you’re entirely self-taught — so long as you have a curious mind and an ability to execute, we’re interested. Born of a unique cross-pollination between top venture firms and universities, Xfund believes that technical talent is necessary — but not sufficient — to build the world’s most durable companies. We seek out entrepreneurs with multidisciplinary abilities whom we know will make more insightful innovators and entrepreneurs. We don’t limit ourselves to traditional sector or industry lines: we’ve invested in a musical headset that primes your neurons; data analytics firms that put massive informational power into the hands of ordinary people; a company that’s making TV social; and the world’s leading personal genomics company, among many others. Once we find entrepreneurs who share our commitment to a growth mindset, we welcome them to our family of leading venture capital investors, university faculty, and industry advisors. This can mean helping to place a Nobel laureate on your board, brokering a key strategic partnership, or just sharing a beer and tackling your problems as a team. Our unique structure and unparalleled network enable us to deliver value that few other firms can. Come partner with us.
External link for Xfund
390 Lytton Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301, US
We are so proud of Brandon for conceiving, designing, and leading the Stanford University Xfund Ethics Fellowship!
"Move fast and build wisely.” Stanford alum and VC Brandon Farwell is helping student founders lead with integrity through classroom case studies, role-plays, and deep mentorship rooted in lived experience. Explore how Brandon’s journey from BASES to Xfund is fueling a new model for ethical entrepreneurship at STVP, through the Xfund Ethics Fellow program. https://lnkd.in/eMe4uGFU
We’re honored to have been AirOps’s first investors. Well before the world got to this point, Alex Halliday and his team saw where we’d be today and built the company with a single-minded, efficient, and cheerful intensity that we have been lucky to witness for years. It’s a dream to work with all of you! ❤️ https://lnkd.in/eUSYv5VD
One of Xfund’s greatest honors is to have backed the archetypal liberal arts founder Daniel Nadler twice -- in his first company Kensho Technologies upon his graduation from Harvard; and now, at OpenEvidence. https://lnkd.in/gCEGPyDm
We are so fortunate to call Jim Breyer a co-founder of Xfund: he helped us conceive the idea for a venture firm partnered with the world’s best research universities, and made that idea a reality. As Jim writes below, “Each company I've backed has taught me something about the nature of generational companies. They arise when founders confront entrenched systems, and when capital is willing to support long-term, high-conviction building. Building on those experiences, my focus today is on what lies ahead, particularly in healthcare and life sciences.”
Today, Forbes released a story on Breyer Capital, revisiting some of the early investments that shaped my career (Dell, Etsy, Facebook, Legendary Pictures, Marvel, Spotify, and Walmart) and highlighting some of our more recent successes (Circle and OpenEvidence). The article also covers our focus on artificial intelligence, a thesis we’ve been driving forward since 2016 — bringing ideas at the intersection of AI, healthcare, and life sciences into practice. https://lnkd.in/g_EHq6ui Each company I've backed has taught me something about the nature of generational companies. They arise when founders confront entrenched systems, and when capital is willing to support long-term, high-conviction building. Building on those experiences, my focus today is on what lies ahead, particularly in healthcare and life sciences. If you are building, investing, or exploring this frontier, I would welcome the opportunity to collaborate. Morgan Cheatham, MD Daniel Breyer Ted Breyer
Xfund reposted this
THE LIBRARY OF MINDS: Episode 1 - starring Keith Rabois. An OG member of the PayPal mafia, Co-founder & board chair at Opendoor, managing director at Khosla Ventures, an investor in 15+ companies that have gone public, and one of Delphi's earliest believers. We discuss: - Lessons learned building PayPal, LinkedIn, Square, Opendoor & more - Early career inflections: from litigation to Silicon Valley operator - Why joining great teams is underrated, especially vs. starting your own company - The new physics of AI startups (and org design mistakes to avoid) Plus: What makes a winning office culture, advice for scaling from 20 to 100, building moats in AI, how stretching & Slack are actually bad for you, and why vacations might be overrated. Listen to the full conversation: https://libraryofminds.com
Xfund reposted this
Just announced: our most recent investment is Sphere Semi, using generative AI for analog, RF and mixed-signal circuit design. In the 80’s I did analog chip design at HP, and I’ve been looking for an automated design solution for over 20 years now, as it beautifully fits the framework of a vast design space + good verification tools for RL loops. And it can routinely outperform the best human designers. As with generative design of antennae and structures, the creative output can feel like intelligent design but done by aliens. Now hiring: https://www.SphereSemi.com
Big news at Sphere Semi: We've raised $12M led by Acme Capital and co-led by Future Ventures, bringing total funding to $20M. We also are thankful to our early backers Construct Capital, Abstract, Xfund, Generational Partners, and Village Global. Mitchell Nahmias and I started Sphere Semi as a new kind of chip company. We design, validate, and fabricate. The result is production-ready chips and IP. We are making AI-designed chips the default. We are starting where automation has resisted the longest, in analog, proving that AI widens the design space, cuts iteration time, and delivers real performance at scale. We are hiring across bizops, AI, and chip design.
Xfund reposted this
Proud to finally announce Generational Partners' early investment in Sphere Semi! We often debate chips for AI but we rarely bring up the merits of AI for chip design! Analog chips are the backbone of our infrastructure in communications, energy, mobility and national security - all designed by humans! Historically, analog chip users resort to commercial off-the-shelf options and compromise application-specific performance in response. We believe Sphere Semi, and specifically their AI engine, is the key to unlock this at scale. We're proud to back Steven Glinert & Mitchell Nahmias alongside Construct Capital, Abstract, Xfund, Village Global, and now ACME Capital & Future Ventures as Sphere Semi raises $12M in fresh capital. This is just the beginning. Link to Steven's announcement of the raise on TBPN today! https://lnkd.in/gJqcbg2r cc. Asher Kraut, Denver Yu
Big news at Sphere Semi: We've raised $12M led by Acme Capital and co-led by Future Ventures, bringing total funding to $20M. We also are thankful to our early backers Construct Capital, Abstract, Xfund, Generational Partners, and Village Global. Mitchell Nahmias and I started Sphere Semi as a new kind of chip company. We design, validate, and fabricate. The result is production-ready chips and IP. We are making AI-designed chips the default. We are starting where automation has resisted the longest, in analog, proving that AI widens the design space, cuts iteration time, and delivers real performance at scale. We are hiring across bizops, AI, and chip design.
We are so thrilled to have been Steven Glinert and team’s first partners in Sphere Semi -- today the company announces its Series A to make AI-designed chips the default. If you’re in business operations, AI, and chip design: get in touch. We’re hiring!
Big news at Sphere Semi: We've raised $12M led by Acme Capital and co-led by Future Ventures, bringing total funding to $20M. We also are thankful to our early backers Construct Capital, Abstract, Xfund, Generational Partners, and Village Global. Mitchell Nahmias and I started Sphere Semi as a new kind of chip company. We design, validate, and fabricate. The result is production-ready chips and IP. We are making AI-designed chips the default. We are starting where automation has resisted the longest, in analog, proving that AI widens the design space, cuts iteration time, and delivers real performance at scale. We are hiring across bizops, AI, and chip design.
We are so thrilled to have been Delphi’s seed investor. As co-founders Dara Ladjevardian and Sam Spelsberg write, “Delphi is like a living Library of Alexandria—not just for famous thinkers, but for anyone with wisdom to share.” Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/efuGWDQ6.
Big news! We’ve raised a $16M Series A led by Sequoia Capital to allow anyone to create a digital version of their mind to scale their time and expertise. One month before the launch of ChatGPT, Sam and I started Delphi. At the time, most people thought it was a crazy idea, or “just another chatbot.” But what we’ve created is an entirely new form of media, conversational media, that combines the scalability of traditional media and the personalization of a 1:1 conversation. Under the hood, our Digital Mind Architecture organizes a person's knowledge into a network of concepts, beliefs, experiences, and heuristics - enabling genuine reasoning that mirrors how a person thinks, not just how they write. Since our beta launch in December 2023, thousands of digital minds have been created, all organic and word of mouth, by authors, coaches, consultants, founders, investors, and creators so they can scale themselves, answer repetitive questions, surface key insights from their audiences, and even monetize their knowledge in an entirely new way. Now we’re excited to pour fuel on the fire with a $16M Series A led by Sequoia Capital, with incredible new investors including Menlo Ventures & Anthropic's Anthology Fund, Proximity Ventures (Olivia Wilde and Santigold), Crossbeam Venture Partners (Michael Ovitz), Abstract, Lux Capital (Shahin Farshchi), Parable, 49Palms, Gokul Rajaram, Soleio, and founders of incredible companies like Zoom, YouTube, Doordash, and Lyft. In the world we are creating, you can connect with your role models, learn from top experts, and even talk to your great grandparents - across any language, geography, and time zone. The future of Delphi is like a living Library of Alexandria—not just for famous thinkers, but for anyone with wisdom to share. Parents, teachers, founders…every mind matters. Sam and I are growing our all-star team in SF. To learn more, check out our careers page & blog post below. Reply "MIND" for access to our new free tier.
We are so thrilled to welcome our new batch of Xfund Ethics Fellows at Stanford University, and to help them materialize their incredible visions! Our partner Brandon Farwell conceived and led the creation of this amazing program.
This new cohort of 18 Xfund Ethics Fellows is beginning its journey to explore what it means to lead ventures with purpose, integrity, and impact. Over the next quarter, they’ll explore real-world ethical challenges in entrepreneurship, building a values-based toolkit through mentorship, peer connections, and honest conversation. We’re excited to see where this journey takes them. Read more about them and congratulate them in the comments! Welcome to: Anavi Baddepudi Andrew Bempong Keira Cornwell Nubia Correa Shizhe He Austin H. Isha Jain Michelle Jin Andrea Kitahata Han L. Steven Liu Obianauju Anita Mlemchukwu Gabriel Nagel Hakeem Shindy Anika Turcotte Aarav Wattal Michael Zhang Sasha Zhang