EXCLUSIVE: Ex-a16z Partner Michelle Volz Launches Pax Ventures with $50 Million First Fund to Bet on 'Industrial-Scale Markets'

I talked with Volz about going solo in a world where megafirms reign supreme

It’s a hard time to be an emerging manager. But Michelle Volz loves a challenge.

The former Andreessen Horowitz investing partner is announcing in Newcomer today that she’s raised $50 million for her new venture fund Pax Ventures.

Having spent time working at Palantir, Volz is deeply knowledgeable about the defense tech sector but she’s making investments in all sorts of startups that are trying to reinvent America’s industrial base.

Volz is one of a number of investors to leave Andreessen Horowitz and start their own funds. Their ranks include Kristina Shen with Chemistry, Anne Lee Skates with Parable, Katie Haun with Haun Ventures, and Arianna Simpson.

In a conversation, Volz ticked off Andreessen Horowitz’s strengths: “wonderful place,” “biggest brand,” and “lots of power,” she said. “It’s a big firm, big company — it has lots of firepower.”

But, she said, “It’s very hard for a big firm to spend time on the earliest stages. It’s not worth the time relative to the check sizes.”

Volz started cutting checks on behalf of Pax Ventures before she even closed the fund.

• She’s a seed investor in Mariana Minerals, which is operating a facility to produce lithium.

• She’s a seed investor in Galadyne, which is using liquid propulsion in its rockets instead of solid rocket motors.

• At Andreessen, she helped cut a seed investment in Method Security, which is helping the U.S. government defend against cyber attacks. Pax participated in the Series A.

“I bet on people more than anything — people who want to work on the hardest, most important problems and actually have a mission underlying what they’re working on,” Volz said. “There are a lot of ways to make money. I want to make money on people actually doing important things rather than AI slop.”

Volz says she ultimately hopes to expand Pax Ventures beyond a one-person partnership. But for now she’s investing solo.

The Information previously reported that Volz was raising a fund.

Volz is someone I’ve gotten to know pretty well. Her husband, Ryan Solis, was my college roommate. He was an officer in the Marines and now works at Palantir — a helpful spouse to have when you make defense investments.

I attended their beautiful wedding in Tahoe. If I had to pick a word that summarized how Volz’s friends and family described her, it would be “tenacious.”

That’s a good quality for going out to fundraise when many fund managers are running into reluctant limited partners.

“It was very hard,” Volz acknowledges. “It was harder than I thought but it ended up really coming together. It was an oversubscribed fund by the end.”