Donald Trump introduced on Monday that J.D. Vance could be his strolling partner for the 2024 race. Vance, J.D. Background Information JD Vance, the writer of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which debuted at the top of the New York Times bestseller listing, resigned from his long-status activity at a project capital corporation to run for Senate in 2022.
Early Career and Education Vance
When he finished Yale Law School in 2013, Vance relocated to San Francisco, where he worked as a principal at Mithril Capital, a venture capital firm founded by Ajay Royan and Peter Thiel. Mithril raised two funds in 2013 ($540 million) and 2017 ($850 million). Trump’s first presidential campaign received public support from Thiel in 2016; during this time, he donated money to Vance’s running for Senate but said that no Republican candidates would be given any donations next election cycle.
Transitioning into Revolution
As a managing director, Vance began working at Revolution (Steve Case’s Washington, DC-based firm) in 2017. He made this career change because his wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, took on a position clerking for an associate justice who sits on the Supreme Court of the United States.
While there, among other things, I helped launch Rise of the Rest with Case (the strategy revolves around investing in startups outside major American tech hubs), led deals into Aatmunn (a Michigan-based developer of software and wearable devices that enhance construction site safety), and sat on the board of AppHarvest (a Kentucky indoor farming startup that went public via SPAC merger in 2021 but declared bankruptcy two years later).
Narya Capital Vance
However, Narya didn’t actively participate in Revolution’s second Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. When it closed on $150m of commitments in 2019, around this same period (but earlier). Vance was busy raising his pool of capital for Cincinnati-based fund manager Narya Capital. In early 2020, the vehicle closed on $93m out of a $125m target, with LP commitments from Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Eric Schmidt, among others; according to Axios records show that biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy – who later joined the race for Republican presidential nominee and was widely seen as a frontrunner for Trump’s VP pick – also backed Narya as an LP.
Like Rise of the Rest, Narya is focused on backing companies in underserved areas across the US. However, it remains unclear if Case supported Narya’s first fund. AOL co-founder has distanced himself publicly from Vance’s political career and conservative views.
“I haven’t spoken to him since he announced his campaign for Senate last year. I haven’t been supportive,” Steve Case told TOPCLAPS in September 2022.
Current Position & Fund Management Vance
Once the Senate seat was enacted, new management took over day-to-day operations at Narya (the firm is run. Its co-founder Colin Greenspon, a former partner at Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and ex-MD from Mithril). Per the SEC filing submitted in late 2022, the company is now trying to raise its $125m second vehicle.
