Saga Ventures (sagavc.com)
$125M seed-stage VC, Fund I closed March 2024. Co-founded by Ben Braverman (ex-Flexport CRO/CCO/Flexport Ventures), Max Altman (Sam Altman’s brother), and Thomson Nguyen.
Profile
- Fund I: $125M, closed Mar 2024 (inaugural fund).
- Check size: typically 2.5M per company.
- Pacing: plans ~30 investments.
- Focus areas: AI, logistics, climate impact, financial services.
- Style: seed-stage; experienced operator/founder backgrounds among partners (esp. Ben’s Flexport-scaling experience).
- General contact:
hi@sagavc.com
Partners
- Ben Braverman — Co-founder & Managing Partner; live POC for init.inc (
ben@sagavc.com). Ex-Flexport (9yr): CRO → CCO → led Flexport Ventures. - Max Altman — Co-founder & Managing Partner (
max@sagavc.com). Co-founded Alt Capital with brothers Sam & Jack Altman. - Thomson Nguyen — Co-founder & Partner.
- Amy Abaday (EA,
amy@sagavc.com) — scheduling.
Fundraise Relationship (init.inc) — LED THE SEED ROUND ✅
🏁 LEAD SIGNED — 2026-06-05. Saga leads init.inc’s seed; the round came in oversubscribed (multiple competing term sheets — Saga was chosen as lead). Instrument: post-money YC SAFE (valuation-cap-only) + standard YC pro-rata side letter, into Init Intelligence, Inc. (Max Altman led; SAFE + pro-rata sent by Thomson Nguyen, signed 6/5; wire expected the following Monday.) Exact cap/ownership are recorded in the private Investor Pipeline CRM + log.md (held out of the published wiki — unannounced terms).
A strategic-angel allocation remains OPEN. Saga took the lead position; init reserved a slice for strategic angels, which is still being filled — no angel has closed yet. Sazzad is actively working the angel list with Ryan Carlson (6/6: “getting the angel email in your inbox by Monday morning”). See the live angel target list: competitor-angels-and-init-targets-2026-06.
Arc to the lead:
- 2026-05-29 — first offer (Max, cc Ben Braverman, subject “Offer / let’s do this”): an opening structure of Saga + angels (Max floated Sam Blond as an angel-fill idea). Sazzad replied excited, asked for portco-founder refs + angel names. Max: “we want to be in business together. This is a winning idea and the team is great.”
- 2026-06-01 — Max’s angel ideas (verbatim): Dylan Field, Howie Liu, Immad Akhund, Laks Srini, Matt Plank, and his brother Jack Altman.
- 2026-06-05 — Saga upsized to lead the round at a higher cap → signed. Sazzad to Ryan: “round got oversubscribed… we decided to let [Saga] lead.”
- 2026-05-28 2pm — coffee with Ben Braverman (Amy, EA, sent the invite 5/27); 2026-05-29 10am — call “Max / Sazzad.”
- Intro source not determined from available sources ^[ambiguous] — scheduling came from the Saga side; an iMessage group thread with Ben Braverman exists (5/26).
Best data channels
- sagavc.com — firm site
- Venture Unlocked podcast (Saga interview on raising Fund I)
- Ben’s LinkedIn for thesis