Sam Awrabi is the Founder and Managing Director (also serving as Solo GP) of Banyan Ventures. See contact routes.
Sam Awrabi is the Founder and Managing Director (also serving as Solo GP) of Banyan Ventures, a $35 million New York-based venture capital firm he founded after becoming the first technical sales hire in the experiment and model management market. His investment thesis focuses exclusively on pre-seed and seed-stage AI-native infrastructure and vertical application software, targeting startups that have achieved “escape velocity”. Typical check sizes range from $200,000 to $425,000 for a fund aiming to invest in roughly 36 startups with up to 10% ownership per company. Notable portfolio companies include Langbase, Wand AI, MultiModal, and Decompute, all of which received pre-seed or seed funding in late 2024 or early 2025. Awrabi distinguishes himself through his “Escape Velocity Investing” framework, a five-step filter to identify high-traction AI winners, and he actively shares this methodology in public talks and posts. He also serves on the advisory boards of AI infrastructure startups FlexAI, Akash Systems, and Finalis, reflecting his deep operational involvement beyond capital allocation.
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