Max Novendstern, co-founder and former CEO of Worldcoin, has left the high-profile startup to launch a new venture, according to sources and regulatory filings and a set of investors obtained by TechCrunch.
A spokesperson for Worldcoin confirmed that Novendstern is no longer with the startup, but said he continues to advise the firm. Novendstern did not respond to a message on Twitter Wednesday.
His new venture is called Mana and is building “an AI venture capitalist that will operate autonomously on-chain,” or “Blackrock for a new economy,” according to the investor deck. The startup has engaged Tribe Capital, Multicoin Capital, Dragonfly and Variant to raise funds, according to sources familiar with the matter.
“Their goal is a common Al that can analyze any company and then fund it with one click. The goal is a risk model that scales like software—no marginal cost: anyone in the world can collect; anyone can invest; and as Al gets better with scale, the system improves as a flywheel. The core of their system is the “programme deal note,” a source describes Mana’s business.
“For each investment criterion (eg team, product, strategy, etc.), Al predicts the analyst’s judgment. Predictions are derived from data feeds split between neural networks and human markers. Analysts use the tool to work faster; using the tool, they train Als (“GitHub Copilot for Investors”). Success means beating every fund in the world in terms of velocity of capital and cost of capital in an exponential market. The enterprise is no longer limited to early capital checks in bay moonshots. Rather, the new market involves taking on all asset classes—debt, equity, and tokens—in all cities and industries simultaneously, as software globalization hits the ‘second half of the chessboard’.”