Nurzhas Makishev

Nurzhas Makishev is a Kazakh-born investor, technologist, and entrepreneur who has been active in Silicon Valley venture capital for over a decade. He was raised in Kazakhstan, where he was valedictorian at the National Physics and Mathematics School and received a National Gold Medal. He became one of the first Kazakh students to win a full scholarship to MIT, where he earned dual bachelor's degrees in Economics and Computer Science and Engineering (2009). He later received an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (2015), where he was elected Managing Director of Wharton Venture Partners, and an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School (2016).

Makishev began his career developing peer-to-peer and AI systems in Andy Lippman's research group at the MIT Media Lab, followed by investment banking stints at J.P. Morgan and Bank of America in New York. He then moved into venture capital as an early-stage investor at Venrock, where he partnered with industry-changing entrepreneurs in NYC tech, and at IP Group, where he invested in science-driven startups. He also served as a Venture Partner at Peregrine Ventures. Prior to founding NKM Capital, he held roles at Google and Oracle as a product manager and engineer, giving him over 12 years of combined experience across the technology industry as an investor, entrepreneur, product manager, engineer, and researcher.

Beyond investing, Makishev is a mentor at Alchemist Accelerator, a judge for Startup Chile, and serves on the Board of Governors of Haileybury Almaty, a British international school in Kazakhstan. He is deeply connected in the Silicon Valley ecosystem and maintains relationships with prominent investors including Josh Kopelman (First Round Capital), Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures), and Chian Gong (Reach Capital).

NKM Capital is a San Francisco-based, thesis-driven early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2013. The firm invests in extraordinary entrepreneurs building revolutionary technologies to solve the world's most difficult problems. Makishev makes deeply-researched, thesis-driven investments in breakthrough companies at the earliest stages, with fundamentally aligned investment terms.

Core sectors of focus include:

• Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
• Financial Services / FinTech
• Decentralization / Web3 / Blockchain
• Space Technology & Aerospace
• Consumer Internet / Millennial Consumer
• Transportation Technology
• Gaming & eSports
• Data Services & Infrastructure
• Quantum Computing

| Company | Sector | Outcome | |---|---|---| | Robinhood | FinTech | IPO (unicorn) | | Lyft | Transportation / Ridesharing | IPO (unicorn) | | Cruise | Autonomous Vehicles | Acquired by GM | | Carta (fka eShares) | FinTech / Cap Table Mgmt | Unicorn | | Ripple | Blockchain / Crypto | Exit | | Astranis | Space Technology | -- | | Boom Supersonic | Aerospace | -- | | Relativity Space | Aerospace / 3D-Printed Rockets | -- | | Hyperloop One | Transportation | -- | | Deepgram | AI / Speech Recognition | -- | | Truebill | FinTech / Personal Finance | Acquired | | BlueQubit | Quantum Computing | Seed (Jul 2024) |