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Paypal cofounder Peter Thiel.
- JD Vance, the bestselling author of "Hillbilly Elegy," has launched a new venture-capital fund as part of his continued efforts to restore prosperity to America's heartland.
- The fund, Narya Capital, is targeting $125 million and has already raised $93 million from Silicon Valley royaltly like Marc Andreessen, former Google exec Eric Schmidt, and Peter Thiel.
- The firmwill provide Series A investments in the $5 million to $10 million range to science and tech startups in cities outside of the coastal tech hubs, like Salt Lake City or Atlanta, that are often-overlooked by the vast poool of venture funding.
- Vance was previously working with ex-AOL exec Steve Case on a similarly focused investment vehicle, the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.
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JD Vance, the bestselling author of "Hillbilly Elegy," has launched a new venture-capital fund with backing from billionaire Peter Thiel and other Silicon Valley investment elites as part of his continued efforts to restore prosperity to America's heartland.
Vance's new Cincinnati, Ohio-based fund Narya Capital is looking to raise as much as $125 million to cut checks to entrepreneurs focused in science and technology pursuits, Bloomberg reported.
The firm has already raised $93 million, according to a regulatory filing, thanks to backing from the likes of Marc Andreessen, former Google exec Eric Schmidt, and Thiel, whom Vance has teamed up with on VC investing in the past.
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Narya will provide Series A investments in the $5 million to $10 million range focused on cities outside of the coastal tech hubs, like Salt Lake City or Atlanta, that are often-overlooked by the vast pool of venture funding, Axios reported.
Until recently, Vance had been working with former AOL head honcho Steve Case on a similarly focused $150 million investment vehicle called the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. It secured backing from dozens of high-profile investors, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio, and the powerful Koch and Walton families.
Before that, he'd worked at Thiel's Mithril Capital investment fund.
Vance's chart-topping 2016 memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" chronicled his white working-class upbringing in America's Rust Belt, laying bare the social and economic struggles facing large swaths of the country that typically garner little outside attention.
The themes resonated across the country and dovetailed with political currents that catalyzed the 2016 presidential election cycle and helped produce Donald Trump's upset bid to win the White house.