Asylum Ventures

Inception / pre-seed venture firm, founded 2024, based in Brooklyn, NY.

Profile

Fund I: $55M.
Stage: inception / pre-seed → seed. Check sizes roughly $550 K -$ 5.5M (≈$1–2M typical pre-seed/seed).
Thesis: back founders “as artists, not assets.” Generalist across geography and sector.
Team of three (firm describes itself this way):
- Nick (Nicholas) Chirls — founder; previously co-founder of Notation Capital.
- Mackenzie Regent — COO / founding partner; also ex-Notation Capital.
- Lola Wajskop — Partner (the init.inc point of contact).

One secondary source named a “Jon Wu” as a co-founder; this conflicts with the firm’s consistent “team of three” (Chirls / Regent / Wajskop) and is not corroborated — treated as likely error. ^[ambiguous]

init.inc’s contact at Asylum is Lola Wajskop — see her page for the connection chain and conversation log.