Published: October 7, 2026 · Last updated: October 7, 2026
TL;DR: Sriram Krishnan, who spent roughly a year and a half as the White House’s senior policy adviser for AI before stepping down in June, is reportedly raising close to $500 million for a new fund targeting growth and later-stage US AI companies. The pitch to investors leans hard on national security, and the report traces back to The Information, surfaced via Techmeme, with no public filing confirming the number yet.
Sriram Krishnan spent the better part of two years inside the Trump administration helping decide which AI policies the federal government would bless. Now he’s on the other side of that table, asking investors to back a fund that leans on exactly the kind of government relationships he just walked away from.
According to The Information’s Leo Schwartz, whose reporting surfaced on Techmeme today, Krishnan is targeting roughly $500 million for a new fund focused on growth- and later-stage American AI companies, with national security framing driving the pitch to limited partners. No fund name or SEC filing has surfaced publicly yet, and the number itself comes from unnamed sources rather than an on-record confirmation from Krishnan, so treat the exact figure as a reported target rather than a closed deal.
Krishnan’s resume is what makes this notable rather than routine. Before the White House job, he was a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and before that he worked on product at X during Elon Musk’s 2022 takeover of the platform. Trump named him senior policy adviser for AI in December 2024, putting him in the room for the administration’s AI Action Plan and its broader approach to chip export rules, data center buildouts, and model safety standards. Krishnan left that post this past June, and multiple outlets reported at the time that he was already hinting at a new venture.
He also co-founded Kearny Jackson, an early-stage venture firm, with Sunil Chhaya back in 2023. That firm has stayed considerably smaller than what’s reportedly in motion now: its Fund III closed at $65 million in mid-2024, backed again by Marc Andreessen and Sequoia. A $500 million vehicle would be close to eight times that size, and it’s a different kind of bet entirely, later-stage AI companies instead of seed checks, with national security as the explicit organizing idea rather than straightforward growth multiples.
That framing matters more than it might sound. Branding a fund around national security isn’t just a marketing line, it’s a way to widen the pool of money willing to write the check. It can bring in limited partners who don’t normally touch early-stage venture: sovereign wealth funds, defense-adjacent capital, institutions that need a policy rationale before they’ll approve an allocation. It also mirrors how the Trump administration itself has talked about AI funding all year, from compute deals wrapped in strategic language to the new “Super Intelligence Force” task force meant to coordinate AI policy under one office. Krishnan isn’t just raising money, he’s selling the idea that AI investment and national security policy are now the same conversation, and few people can make that case as directly as someone who was setting that policy himself five months ago.
That resume cuts both ways, though. It raises the obvious question of how much of this fund’s pitch is about picking the AI companies that win on merit, and how much is about who still has Krishnan’s number in Washington. That’s not a knock unique to him, the policy-to-venture pipeline is well-worn in defense tech and getting more common in AI specifically, but anyone writing a check into a $500 million fund branded around national security is presumably buying access as much as returns.
Related: Krishnan’s old office isn’t done shaping how Washington frames AI either. Trump recently named an AI czar to run a new “Super Intelligence Force” coordinating federal AI policy, and the kind of capital this new fund is chasing looks a lot like what’s fueling Lambda’s reported $4 billion raise at a $14.5 billion valuation, another AI infrastructure bet built on concentrated, strategically important customers.
Bottom Line: A $500 million fund is a serious number for anyone, but the real story here is what it signals: the people who just finished writing AI policy in Washington are now the ones positioned to profit from it, and they’re doing it openly, with national security as the selling point instead of something to downplay. Worth watching whether this fund actually closes at that size, and worth watching even more closely who ends up as an LP.
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