Brian Zhan (@brianzhan1) / X

Brian Zhan

587 posts

Brian Zhan

@brianzhan1

Partner @strikervp. Seed @ElorianAI, @SkildAI, @PeriodicLabs, @Reflection_AI, @DynaRobotics, @RicursiveAI, @humansand (angel), @LeptonAI (acq), @VoyageAI (acq)

Joined April 2016

Pinned
Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
Nov 24, 2025
After three years at CRV, I am stepping onto Striker Venture Partners' founding team, leading the firm's AI investments. Thanks to @BusinessInsider for covering the move.
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
Jul 25, 2023
The dbt of Facebook, is now available in private beta! This is a Typescript to Javascript moment for SQL. It fixes all the gaps in SQL to enable data engineers to build data applications using SQL. Check it out 👇
dbt Labs Blog | Learn from the experts | dbt Labs
From getdbt.com
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
Sep 15, 2025
Thrilled to see @DynaRobotics announce their $120M Series A. I’ve had the privilege of partnering with the team since the seed round, and it’s been remarkable to watch their pace: • Shipped DYNA-1, the first generalized robotics foundation model • Deployed real pilots in <90
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Dyna Robotics
@DynaRobotics
Sep 15, 2025
Excited to announce that we have raised $120M in our Series A to advance the frontier of general-purpose high-performance robots. 🤖 The new funding will accelerate progress towards our mission of bringing foundation-model powered robots to everyone, everywhere. Read more 👇
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
Oct 9, 2025
Excited to have backed @reflection_ai from the seed. Today’s $2b raise pushes frontier open intelligence, with open models + advanced RL at scale, accessible to all. And most importantly, with @nvidia as their key partner. It’s a big day for open AI. Thanks NYTimes for covering
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
Jun 6, 2024
Databricks bought Iceberg for more than $1B. There's a lot of valid concern about whether Iceberg will still be a truly open source data format. For those in AI, Lance is the new table format you should pay attention to. It's already used by MidJourney, Character AI, and more.
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
Mar 7, 2025
🚨 Excited to share 🚨 @CRV's partnership with @reflection_ai from the Seed and Series A, and to join them on their journey. Founded by @MishaLaskin, @real_ioannis, and a team of former DeepMind and OpenAI pioneers behind ChatGPT, Gemini, AlphaGo, and AlphaZero, Reflection AI is
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
Jul 16, 2025
Excited to see @reflection_ai ship Asimov, the code-research agent. Why it matters: - Engineers waste ~70% of their week re-reading code, not writing it. - Most AI tools chase code generation and choke on real-world repos. - Lost context = stalled roadmaps and runaway burn.
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
Jul 9, 2024
📣 Excited to share @CRV's investment in the @SkildAI Series A round! When I was building robots ~10 years ago for Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, one of the biggest challenges was having robotics perform extreme parkour. Two researchers @pathak2206 and @gupta_abhinav_
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
May 9, 2024
Lots of insights from my sister @stephzhan on @sequoia's approach to AI investing!
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
Apr 29, 2025
Robotics' trillion-dollar promise stalled on sustained reliability. Most "AI-powered" robots fail after hours (sunrise glare or crumpled napkin? Done). @DynaRobotics solved it with DYNA-1: ✅ 24hr operation, 850+ tasks, 99.4% success ✅ 60% human speed, 4.3/5 client-rated
Jason Ma
@JasonMa2020
Apr 29, 2025
Introducing Dynamism v1 (DYNA-1) by @DynaRobotics – the first robot foundation model built for round-the-clock, high-throughput dexterous autonomy. Here is a time-lapse video of our model autonomously folding 850+ napkins in a span of 24 hours with • 99.4% success rate — zero
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
Sep 24, 2025
Robots excel in lab videos but fail in reality due to controllers overfitting to one body, like memorizing test answers. When motors jam, limbs break, or bodies change, these policies fail. @SkildAI trains one brain across 100,000 virtual robot bodies for a millennium, forcing
Skild AI
@SkildAI
Sep 24, 2025
We built a robot brain that nothing can stop. Shattered limbs? Jammed motors? If the bot can move, the Brain will move it— even if it’s an entirely new robot body. Meet the omni-bodied Skild Brain:
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
May 15, 2024
1/2 We kept hearing about @lancedb from companies like MidJourney that were using its open-source Lance table format for AI data. They saw orders of magnitude improvement in latency, storage costs, and more. A quick experiment confirms why: replit.com/@BrianZhan/Lan….
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
Jan 18, 2023
I just joined @CRV, the VC firm that backs amazing early-stage seed and Series A startups. CRV has invested in 500+ companies like @Airtable @DoorDash @Vercel. Working on an early stage infrastructure software company? Let's grab coffee and chat! crv.com/team/brian-zhan
GIF
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Brian Zhan
@brianzhan1
Mar 28, 2025
Had a fantastic time co-hosting a panel on creative AI with @gloria_zwq, JP Morgan, and Rachel Lu, featuring amazing speakers like Amit Jain at @LumaLabsAI, @gorkem from @FAL, @ZhitingHu from UCSD, and Coco Mao from @openart_ai. Video generation has come a long way, now
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