SciFi VC

About

SciFi VC is the personal venture fund of PayPal co-founder Max Levchin and his wife Nellie Levchin, based in San Francisco, California ¹². The firm was originally established as HVF Investments, the investment arm of Levchin’s startup studio HVF (which stands for “Hard, Valuable, Fun”) ³⁴. In February 2017, Levchin announced the rebranding from HVF Investments to SciFi VC ⁵.

Max Levchin is simultaneously the Founder and CEO of Affirm, the publicly traded buy-now-pay-later company, making him one of the rare active public company CEOs who also runs a venture fund ³. Nellie Levchin, a Founding Partner, was an early employee at PayPal where she served as a Financial Systems Product Manager, and later served as Chief Risk Officer at Clarium Capital Management ⁶.

Brooks Hosfield joined as Partner after spending 6.5 years at Affirm as Chief of Staff to Max Levchin, where he helped scale the company from approximately 200 employees through its IPO and founded Affirm Ventures, the corporate venture arm ⁷. Matt Therian serves as Partner of Finance and Operations, bringing a background in investment banking at WR Hambrecht and equity research at Renaissance Capital, with an MBA from Berkeley Haas ⁸.

As of mid-2025, SciFi VC has invested in approximately 82 companies, with 12 unicorns, 9 IPOs, and 5 acquisitions in the portfolio, including Uber, Opendoor, and Peloton ⁹. The firm’s fund size has not been publicly disclosed, and typical check sizes range from $100K to $1M ²¹⁰.

Stated Thesis

SciFi VC publicly describes itself as “an early-stage generalist firm emphasizing fintech, artificial intelligence, and science” that partners with “exceptional founders tackling difficult problems” requiring “intense curiosity, intellectual depth, and often, science” ¹.

The firm organizes its investment focus into four categories ¹:

1. Fintech — Credit, infrastructure, insurance, payments, and real estate
2. Artificial Intelligence — Infrastructure and application-layer innovations
3. Science — Commercialization of breakthrough technologies including machine learning, CRISPR, robotics, and quantum computing
4. Everything Else — Enterprise software, healthcare, and security in hard or regulated markets

The firm’s philosophy, carried over from HVF, is to bring “unprecedented intellectual rigor to early stage investing, and deep domain expertise to supporting portfolio companies through critical product, strategy, and fundraising decisions” ³. Levchin has described his approach through the HVF framework: problems must be “Hard” (technically difficult), “Valuable” (massive market opportunity), and “Fun” (intellectually engaging) ⁴.

SciFi VC engages at three partnership stages: brainstorm-stage seed funding for the earliest founders, seed and Series A participation for early-stage companies, and follow-on investments at the growth stage ¹.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 28 verified portfolio investments from publicly available sources:

Stage distribution: The firm invests primarily at seed and Series A, consistent with its stated focus. The portfolio includes pre-seed/seed investments (Aven, Clipboard Health, Coast, Empora Title, Nestmed) and Series A/B follow-ons (Bland AI, Virta Health, Folio). The firm also holds positions in later-stage companies (Uber, Stripe, Coinbase) that appear to be legacy investments from the HVF era or personal angel investments by Levchin.

Sector breakdown: Based on the 28 verified investments: 10 fintech (36%) — Brex, Stripe, Aven, Capchase, Coast, Wise, Blend, Opendoor, Empora Title, Anchorage Digital; 5 healthcare/biotech (18%) — Virta Health, Clipboard Health, Nestmed, Color, Collective Health; 4 deeptech/science (14%) — PsiQuantum, Bolt Threads, Zymergen, Synthego; 3 AI (11%) — Bland AI, Supergood AI, Maihem AI; 3 enterprise/marketplace (11%) — Mixpanel, Workstream, Propel; 2 defense (7%) — Anduril; 1 consumer (4%) — Uber. The remaining companies span multiple sectors.

Fintech dominance: While SciFi claims to be a “generalist,” fintech represents the largest single sector at 36% of verified investments, consistent with Levchin’s PayPal and Affirm background. The firm’s fintech investments span payments infrastructure (Stripe, Coast), credit (Brex, Aven, Capchase), real estate (Opendoor, Empora Title), and crypto (Anchorage Digital, Coinbase).

Science and deeptech commitment: Unlike many self-described “generalist” funds, SciFi does genuinely invest in hard science — PsiQuantum (quantum computing), Bolt Threads and Synthego (synthetic biology), and Zymergen (organism engineering). This validates the stated thesis.

Geographic concentration: Portfolio companies are heavily concentrated in San Francisco and the Bay Area, with some notable exceptions including Loft (Brazil), ClearTax (India), and Clipboard Health (distributed).

Co-investor patterns: SciFi frequently co-invests with Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, Ribbit Capital, and Caffeinated Capital ¹⁰¹¹.

Notable gap: The firm claims to invest in “marketplaces” as a core focus area, but marketplace-specific investments represent a small fraction of the verified portfolio compared to fintech and deeptech.

Portfolio

This table represents approximately 36 of an estimated 82 total investments (~44%). Many investment years could not be independently verified and are marked with “—”. The firm’s top activity year was 2018 ⁹.

In Their Own Words

Max Levchin on the firm’s philosophy: “In the next decades we will see huge number of inherently analog processes captured digitally. Opportunities to build businesses that process this data and improve lives will abound” ³.

On his competitive approach: “I prefer games where being harder working and being more thoughtful is an advantage as opposed to a land-grab or a better marketing slogan” ⁴.

On problem selection: “It takes effort to figure out where the entry point is, but you can actually outplay the other players by being smart” ⁴.

On persistence: “Don’t say no, there’s got to be a way. Think harder and work more hours” ⁴.

What Founders Say

Sadi Khan, CEO and Co-Founder of Aven: “Max and Alex at SciFi were critical in helping us during earliest stages…excited to be partners for a long time” ¹.

Henrique Dubugras, Co-Founder and CEO of Brex: “Brex wouldn’t be Brex without them. Max’s knowledge around fintech helped us innovate and structure the company” ¹.

Mate Pencz, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Loft: “SciFi has been a great partner…they consistently bring the value of a larger fund” ¹.

Note: These three testimonials are sourced from the SciFi VC website and therefore represent curated, firm-selected quotes rather than independently sourced founder feedback. No independently sourced founder testimonials were found through dedicated search.

Sources