Welcome to AI-native VC: A $50M fund claims it can do what used to take $500M

Photo courtesy of Dr. Phillip Alvelda,
Brainworks venture.

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AI has rewritten the economics of company building, and therefore, the venture capital model that funded the last 20 years is no longer fit for the next 20. AI-native companies may be built more quickly, often with leaner teams and more efficient resource use, enabling them to pursue outcomes that historically required larger teams or longer timelines in traditional models. Brainworks Ventures, which officially announced its launch, was explicitly created for this new era. 

The company recognizes that the traditional venture capital playbook that has guided Silicon Valley for the past 20 years is no longer effective. Brainworks Ventures’ initial fund will focus on AI applications, infrastructure, tooling, healthcare and life sciences, enterprise productivity, and education. Investment sizes will range from $250,000 to $2M, with a geographic focus on North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Brainworks aims to identify and support the best AI-native founders, wherever they are building.

What is Brainworks Ventures?

Brainworks Ventures is an AI-native venture capital fund investing in pre-seed, seed, and Series A companies that leverage artificial intelligence to solve global challenges. Operating as an AI-native fund with AI-powered operations, Brainworks partners with AI-native startups worldwide to build the next generation of technology companies. With deep expertise spanning AI research, company building, and venture investing across four continents, the Brainworks team brings valuable experience to the AI venture landscape.

Co-founded by Dr. Phillip Alvelda, who has been working in AI since 1987, Brainworks Ventures draws upon his immense experience and expertise. As he describes it, “I’ve watched every hype cycle, every ‘AI winter,’ every false dawn. I’ve built companies applying machine learning when computing didn’t exist to make it work and watched the same ideas succeed two decades later when infrastructure caught up. That pattern recognition, knowing when technology is genuinely ready versus when it’s still laboratory research, is what 37 years in the field teaches you.”

AI-focused vs. AI-native

The most common misunderstanding Brainworks Ventures had to overcome from the start was the conflating of “AI-focused” with “AI-native.” Most funds today are AI-focused, investing in AI companies but operating with 1990s processes. 

Conversely, Brainworks Ventures is genuinely AI-native; they use artificial intelligence to automate deal flow, portfolio design, diligence, and operations internally. More than mere marketing language, it’s a clear structural differentiation for the company.  

Brainworks Ventures highlights what they describe as a “new math,” suggesting that AI-native companies may reach meaningful milestones with significantly lower capital requirements and shorter development cycles than traditional startups.

A bright future

Moving forward, Brainworks Ventures is excited to spearhead further innovation with AI in the sector. In 5–7 years, success for the company would ideally see the validation of its overarching thesis. As Dr. Alvelda says, “If AI-native companies really do reach exits in four years instead of fourteen, with $6 million instead of $150 million, our portfolio should demonstrate that dramatically. We’ll know we’re right if 3–5 portfolio companies achieve DARPA-portfolio-scale outcomes. 92x isn’t the goal, but proving those multiples are possible at early stages is.”
Beyond returns, the team strives for Brainworks Ventures to become the fund AI founders think of first when building something genuinely ambitious.