Brian Zhan

Partner

Brian is a Partner at Striker, where he partners with technical founders building on the pathway to superintelligence.

His journey to venture began at Facebook's Presto team, where he witnessed how the venture ecosystem systematically overlooked exceptional technical talent. After watching his former Facebook colleagues who founded companies that are now unicorns struggle to raise at inception despite their obvious technical excellence, Brian recognized a fundamental market failure: the world's best technical minds building at the research frontier were often invisible to traditional capital markets. He realized he could amplify his impact by bridging this gap.

At Striker, Brian seeks founders working on the critical technical problems between current systems and artificial super-intelligence. His investment philosophy centers on being the first believer when conviction matters more than consensus, partnering at inception when small directional shifts can fundamentally alter trajectories. He helps founders architect technical roadmaps, navigate the transition from research breakthrough to product reality, and build founding engineering teams who can execute at the frontier.

Prior to Striker, Brian was a Principal at CRV where he collaborated early with Reflection AI, Skild, Periodic Labs, Dyna Robotics, Lepton AI, and Voyage AI. He partnered as a board observer at many of these portfolio companies.