New Era Ventures
Early-stage venture firm. HQ: Fargo, North Dakota (with Murtaza Bandukwala based in SF). Mission: “early-stage partners of choice for the best and brightest tech entrepreneurs.”
Origin story
Co-founders Murtaza Bandukwala + Carter Steffes met online in the “Gen Z VCs” Slack group while both were student investment scouts. Shared deals back/forth ~18mo before meeting in person at a NYC fireside chat. Both were scouting for funds + family offices on nights/weekends → frustrated by lack of decision-making power → started their own syndicate to build track record → became fund.
Partners
- Murtaza Bandukwala — General Partner, SF. RIT alum. Live POC for init.inc (
murtaza@neweraventures.com). - Carter Steffes — Managing Partner, Fargo ND. (Co-founder; not yet involved in init thread.)
Fundraise Relationship (init.inc)
- 2026-05-28 1pm — first meeting (45 min). Murtaza sent the invite Wed 5/27. No prior thread surfaced — cold relationship or intro outside Gmail.