Sacks’ Craft Targets $1 Billion in First Fund Since White House Stint

Craft Ventures, the VC firm helmed by former White House AI czar David Sacks, is raising its first fund since Sacks stepped away from the Trump Administration role earlier this year, according to a securities filing and two people with knowledge of the effort. The firm is targeting around $1 billion for the new fund, one of the people said.

The fundraise would bring the total amount of cash the firm has raised from its limited partners to over $4 billion. It would mark a shift for Craft away from its two-fund structure to just one vehicle, which will focus on companies Series A and later, the other person said.

The firm last raised a total of $1.3 billion for two funds—a $712 million early-stage fund and a $608 million growth fund—in late 2023.

Sacks, a former tech executive and founder who also served as the COO of PayPal, co-founded Craft Ventures in 2017 with crypto entrepreneur Bill Lee. The firm invested in a number of sectors, including consumer and crypto. It was a backer of BitGo, a digital asset platform co-founded by Lee that went public earlier this year.

In 2009, Sacks and Lee had also invested in SpaceX, when it was only valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The firm’s early funds held shares in the rocketship company, whose June IPO paved the way for other SpaceX investors to raise new funds.

Craft has also backed AI medical startup OpenEvidence, coding assistant Replit, developer platform Supabase and defense tech shipbuilder Saronic.

Sacks has garnered attention through his tech podcast, All-In, and after President Donald Trump named Sacks as his AI and crypto czar in late 2024. Sacks’ rising stature from his government affiliations could potentially help the firm attract new investors and woo founders, especially those looking to sell their tech to the government.

The government role, however, prompted Sacks and the firm to divest over $200 million of digital asset investments to avoid conflicts of interest. He and Craft sold all their liquid crypto assets and stocks in Coinbase and Robinhood before the start of Trump’s second term in early 2025.

Sacks still ran the firm while serving in the White House, a position he started that January. That spring, Craft Ventures laid off half a dozen employees who helped startups recruit talent in an effort to focus more heavily on later-stage investments, The Information reported.

In his government role, Sacks became one of the most visible boosters of Trump’s hands-off approach to tech regulation, touting the administration’s agenda and accomplishments on X and All-In, where he remained a host. Sacks helped shepherd action plans in both AI and crypto.

In March, he stepped down from his special employee position, which limits an official to 130 days of service per year, though Sacks has still influenced Trump’s decision-making. When the White House considered an executive order that would create a voluntary framework for AI companies to share their models with the government before releasing them, Sacks lobbied behind the scenes to push for less onerous requirements for industry. Trump decided against signing the order, though a watered-down version was finalized shortly after.

Sacks now serves as the co-chair of a presidential council on science and technology that includes other tech and venture executives including Marc Andreessen, Sergey Brin and Jensen Huang.