Noa Khamallah grew up without a microwave or a car, dropped out of school, and did time in prison before he ever wrote a check to a startup. When he wanted access to Yann LeCun, the researcher widely credited as the godfather of modern AI, he skipped the warm intro and cold-emailed him instead, subject line: “former convict, street kid, turned IPO, turned VC.” LeCun replied within hours: “You are a statistical anomaly. Welcome in.” He used the same tactic cold-writing to rapper Fetty Wap and former NFL player Penny Hart, who is a supporter of his fund.
That anomaly is now a $10 million fund with real numbers behind it. Khamallah’s Don’t Quit Ventures announced the second close of Fund I, Fortune learned exclusively, marking the fund at 2.5 times what investors put in. Three of its 17 investments are now valued above $1 billion, with nearly one in five of his bets becoming unicorns, versus roughly one in seventy for the industry at large.
