Nova

⚠️ DISAMBIGUATION (critical — “Nova” is an extremely common firm name). Our Nova is Nova / Nova Global / “Nova Nexus” (nova.nexus, LinkedIn nova-global-llc), HQ 575 Market St, San Francisco, the young AI/frontier seed fund run by Carlo Agostinelli + Armando Shashoua. It is NOT:

• xNova VC (xnova.vc, “xNova VC Fund I (Aries) L.P.”, San Jose — RoboForce, CDimension; separate SEC CIK 2127489) — different firm.
• Nova Venture (novaventure.it, Italy — Giuseppe Chiellino & Nicola Verzura) — different firm.
• Any “Nova Global” described as a 2021 shipping/logistics company (a data-aggregator conflation on startupintros). The reliable identity anchors are: the SEC Form D for “Nova Venture Fund II, LP” (Carlo Agostinelli listed as Director) and the Midas funding press (Carlo quoted “as founder of Nova Global”). ^[ambiguous — verified against SEC + press]

Firm Profile

Brand-new, solo-/duo-GP-style early-stage fund, HQ San Francisco (575 Market Center / 575 Market St #1900, 94105). Nova is one of the newest, smallest, and youngest funds in init.inc’s pipeline — and one of the most idiosyncratic, because of who runs it.

• Vehicle & vintage. The legal entity is Nova Venture Fund II, LP (SEC Form D filed 2026-02-27, exemptions 06b / 3C / 3C.1 / 3C.7; “Reported Sold: Yet to Sell / $0” — i.e. a freshly-formed fund still actively raising, not yet drawn down at filing). Directors of record: Carlo Agostinelli, Nova Venture Fund II GP, LLC, and a third director rendered by the scraper as “Endmoor Xsu” (likely a garble of a team member’s name — possibly “Koko Xu”). ^[SEC Form D] The “Fund II” label implies a Fund I exists/preceded it ^[inferred]; a clean Fund-I filing was not located (COULDN’T-GET below).
• Fund size. Not public. “Yet to sell” at the Feb filing means no committed-capital figure is disclosed. PitchBook/startupintros show no AUM/valuation. Given the team’s age and stage this is plausibly a small first institutional vehicle / SPV-adjacent structure ^[inferred — UNVERIFIED]. Carlo also runs a personal vehicle, AV1 (see below), which muddies “what check came from where.”
• Thesis (in their own words). “At Nova Global, we focus on backing founders with the potential to become historical figures” — Carlo Agostinelli, Midas announcement. Stated focus is AI / disruptive & frontier technology, very-early-stage, founder-first (“we invest in people who can execute”). A sports/athlete-network angle recurs (the team’s roots — see Partners). ^[press + startupintros]
• Style. Leads small early rounds (led the $10MMidas\ast \ast round)\ast \ast andparticipates\ast \ast inlargerfrontierroundsalongsidetop-tierleads(a\ast \ast participant\ast \ast inFlappingAirplane{s}^{\prime }\ast \ast$180M Sequoia/Index/GV seed). Writes conviction-driven, founder-relationship checks rather than running a structured process — consistent with init.inc’s own experience (the “preempt then go quiet” pattern; see Fundraise Relationship). ^[inferred from deal set + our CRM]
• Geography. SF-based; deals so far span NYC (Midas) and US frontier AI. (citybiz oddly called Nova “Warsaw-based” — ⚠️ contradicts SF; treat as an error.)

Partners

(Nova is a small, young team. Only Carlo is in init.inc’s roster / has a page; others are plain text.)

• Carlo Agostinelli — co-founder; init.inc’s point of contact and the person who preempted our soft commit. Quoted as “founder of Nova Global.” Also founder/GP of his own vehicle AV1.
• Armando Shashoua — co-founder (joined Feb 2025). Former professional footballer (Tottenham youth → Atlético Baleares / UD Ibiza / Córdoba CF in Spain), Harrow School alum (same school as Carlo); retired from football July 2024 and moved to SF for Nova. Brother of footballer Samuel Shashoua. Personal site armandoshashoua.com. ^[Wikipedia + own site] ^[needs-page]
• Benedict Wolff — investor at Nova since ~Jan 2025; ex-Accel, sports-industry background; X @benebwolff. ^[needs-page]
• Koko Xu and Henry Lien — also named as part of the Nova team. ^[single-source: Armando Shashoua Wikipedia] ^[needs-research]

Recent pre-seed/seed activity (Pass-1 sketch — ≤5 deals; exhaustive 18–24mo pull is Pass 2)

Full source-tagged data → /Users/sazzad14/seed-market-scan/firms/nova.csv.

• Midas — $10M seed, LED by Nova (Feb 2026). NYC AI-verification lab founded by 11 IMO/IOI medalists (CEO Renzo Balcazar). Co-investors: SV Angel + Z Fellows — both in init’s own network. This is the cleanest proof of Nova’s identity (Carlo quoted) AND a direct network overlap. ✅
• Flapping Airplanes — participated in the **$180Mseed\ast \ast (Feb2026;co-ledbySequoia(DavidCahn)+IndexVentures+GoogleVentures;$1.5B val). Data-efficient-AI lab by Ben/Asher Spector + Aidan Smith. Nova credited via PitchBook + Carlo’s own X post celebrating the founders. ⚠️ minor participant, not lead.
• Terra Industries — ❓ UNVERIFIED attribution ($22M, Lux-led, Feb 2026). Listed under “Nova Global” only by startupintros, which also misdescribes Nova as a shipping company → likely a namesake conflation. Do not trust without a primary source.

Best data channels for this firm

• SEC EDGAR / formds.com — the ONLY authoritative anchor for the vehicle (“Nova Venture Fund II, LP”); use to confirm new closes / fund size as it raises.
• Founder-side press for specific deals (citybiz, TechCrunch) — Nova is small enough that it appears mainly in portfolio-company announcements, not its own PR.
• Carlo’s + Benedict Wolff’s X accounts (@carloagostinel2, @benebwolff) — where this team actually announces/celebrates deals (with ✈️ emoji for Flapping Airplanes).
• ⚠️ Avoid aggregator “Nova Global” profiles (startupintros, and PitchBook with care) — they conflate multiple unrelated “Nova” entities. Verify every aggregator row against a primary source.

Fundraise Relationship (init.inc)

• Status: Nova is init.inc’s 2nd SOFT COMMIT — Carlo preempted to give us money on 4/24 (rare, high-intent signal) then went cold. The soft commit rests entirely on one young, enthusiasm-driven GP. See the conversation log below for the engagement history (including the earlier “wait for Alex” plan and the 5/26 re-engagement).
• Conversation log (newest first, from CRM):
  • 2026-05-26 — Raise-open message sent to Carlo Agostinelli (against earlier wait-for-Alex strategy; principal opted to re-engage at raise launch).
  • 5/1/2026 (evening) → present — cold. No follow-up since Friday 5/1 evening. Status: Soft Commit (stalled).
  • 5/1/2026 4:00 PM — walking meeting with Carlo. Sazzad’s post-meeting read: “was a little more excited than warranted; process is stagnant.”
  • 4/28/2026 — Carlo went silent (first cooling).
  • 4/24/2026 — first meeting; very excited, preempted to offer money.
• Mutual connections / warm path: intro’d via Alex + Kushal. Strong secondary warm paths through shared portfolio co-investors: SV Angel (Andrea Wang) and Z Fellows (Cory Levy) both co-invested with Nova in Midas — either could vouch for Nova / nudge Carlo. Carlo was also on the Human Capital (Human Capital) investment team in 2023 (another network thread).
• Personal & rapport notes: see Carlo’s page — the team is very young, athlete-rooted, founder-romantic (“historical figures”). Speed and conviction-by-relationship are the levers; bureaucratic process is not how they move.
• Live stage: tracked in the CRM (Google Sheet) — Soft Commit (stalled / cold).

Cross-check vs existing wiki

• The connector edge-stubs Alex and Kushal already list “Nova / Carlo Agostinelli — Soft Commit” — consistent. ✅
• SV Angel, Z Fellows, Human Capital, Andrea Wang, Cory Levy pages already exist; the Midas co-invest + Carlo’s 2023 Human Capital stint are net-new edges surfaced here (added as plain mentions; no contradictions). ✅
• ⚠️ The citybiz “Warsaw-based” descriptor contradicts SF (SEC + LinkedIn + PitchBook all SF) — flagged, SF treated as correct.

Related

Carlo Agostinelli · Alex · Kushal · SV Angel · Andrea Wang · Z Fellows · Cory Levy · Human Capital

Pass 2 deal pattern (2026-05-25)

Verified 18–24mo deal list (Nov 2024 → May 2026): 2 confirmed Nova Global deals — Midas ($10Mseed,\ast \ast LED\ast \ast ,Feb2026)and\ast \ast FlappingAirplanes\ast \ast ($180M seed, participated as a small check, Jan 2026). Net-new this pass: 0 new companies, but 1 upgrade — Flapping Airplanes’ Nova participation went from Pass-1 ⚠️ to ✅ because the company’s own LinkedIn announcement explicitly names “Nova Global” among its ~12 investors (primary-source confirmation). Terra Industries remains ❓ unverified (likely namesake collision; kept as a flag, not a deal).

Pattern / cadence / check. Genuinely tiny, brand-new book — the near-empty deal set is real, not a recall gap (two independent sweeps, Exa + WebSearch, surfaced no additional verified Nova Global leads; the SEC Form D for Nova Venture Fund II, LP is “yet to sell” as of Feb 2026 = still raising). The shape: lead one small early round (Midas, $10M,theonlyknowncheck-anchor)and\ast \ast participatewithasmallcheckalongsidetop-tierleads\ast \ast inafrontiermega-round(FlappingAirplanes,intoaSequoia/Index/GV$180M). Conviction-by-relationship, founder-romantic (“historical figures”), athlete-network-rooted — consistent with init’s own “preempt then go quiet” experience. Fund/check sizes are not public.

Best data channel. Nova rarely issues its own PR → it surfaces inside portfolio-company announcements (citybiz / BusinessWire for Midas) and portfolio founders’ + Carlo’s own LinkedIn/X (@carloagostinel2; Carlo’s posts celebrate deals, Flapping Airplanes used the ✈️ emoji). SEC EDGAR / formds.com is the only authoritative anchor for the vehicle (use to catch a future close / fund size). ⚠️ Avoid aggregator “Nova Global” profiles (startupintros; PitchBook with care) — they conflate multiple unrelated “Nova” entities.

⚠️ New Pass-2 disambiguation traps: (1) “Henry Lien / @novaholdings” is a separate vehicle (Henry Lien is on the Nova team but runs his own “Nova Holdings”; he led a $5.7MraiseforVigilLabsandbackedGeneralAgents/FDM—\ast \ast doNOTattributethesetoNovaGlobal\ast \ast ).(2)\ast \ast "NovaIntelligence"\ast \ast (EmmaQian,ex-DeepMind;$31.5–40M Accel/Chemistry SAP-migration round, May 2026) is a different company. (3) Also distinct: Nova Threshold, Nova Ventures Group, xNova VC, Nova Venture (Italy), NovoaGlobal. The “Warsaw-based” descriptor is a single-outlet (citybiz) error vs SF (SEC + LinkedIn + PitchBook).