'Hillbilly Elegy' author is launching a $125 million VC fund in America's heartland with backing from Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen

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'Hillbilly Elegy' author is launching a $125 million VC fund in America's heartland with backing from Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen
Peter Thiel

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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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'Hillbilly Elegy' author is launching a $125 million VC fund in America's heartland with backing from Peter Thiel and Marc AndreessenHarper Paperbacks

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.

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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.

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