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Ali Partovi’s Neo Revolutionizes Venture Capital with Talent First Approach

Prime Highlights:

  • Ali Partovi’s Neo venture firm has funded 175 startups valued at over $33 billion since 2017.
  • Neo’s approach focuses on identifying exceptional individuals early, often while they’re still in college, and nurturing their potential through mentorship.

Key Facts:

  • Neo was the first institution outside of Twitter to invest in the decentralized social network Bluesky, which was reportedly valued at $700 million in a January funding round.
  • Neo’s partnership with Michael Truell, co-founder of Anysphere and founder at AI-powered code editor Cursor, is a prime example in its development and talent-spotting strategy.

Key Background:

Ali Partovi, an Iranian-born individual, has been an asset to the technology industry. A founding member at LinkExchange, the company in 1998 was acquired by Microsoft for $265 million. He co-founded iLike, in 2009 sold to MySpace for $20 million, and founded educational nonprofit Code.org along with his twin brother Hadi. Together, they were among the earliest to invest in Facebook, Airbnb, and Dropbox, to name a few.

Partovi founded Neo in 2017, a venture capital firm that aims to disrupt the traditional model for venture capital. Instead of chasing fashion in the marketplace or winning teams, Neo goes out hunting good talent, often before they’ve graduated from university. The company trains this talent under mentorship, so that they can find their potential. That approach has had Neo backing 175 startups whose collective value is over $33 billion.

Neo’s best strategy is its recruitment of Michael Truell. Truell is a 2019 MIT freshman, whom they recruited to interview Partovi when he was working as an intern at Google. Partovi provided Truell with a coding challenge during their encounter, which he finished in just 15 minutes. This was Truell’s professional debut, and after the guidance of Partovi, Truell and Partovi co-founded Anysphere, the corporation responsible for the award-winning AI-powered coding editor Cursor. The company is worth almost $10 billion today and will undoubtedly be one of Neo’s greatest investments. The method of Neo towards mentoring people with exceptional talent has been the turning point to its success.

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