Nellie Levchin started at PayPal in a junior office-manager role and grew into a key early employee, then served as Chief Risk Officer at Peter Thiel's global macro hedge fund Clarium Capital Management before joining SciFi VC. Max Levchin has publicly credited her as the person who discovers and drives a large share of SciFi's deals, and she appears as a featured expert in fintech lending discussions, bringing a practitioner's depth in risk management and underwriting to early-stage investing.
What they've been talking about across their social media accounts

- Deep interest in specific verticals within financial technology, particularly B2B payments and infrastructure. She actively engages with content regarding the value of Buy Now Pay Later models and celebrates startups that aim to make managing third-party API spend or business transaction experiences more delightful and efficient.
- Focus on the emotional resilience and endurance required for entrepreneurship. She validates the personal struggles of founders, such as the difficulty of maintaining a sense of self while running a company, and praises leaders who show vulnerability and authenticity rather than just focusing on business metrics.
- Strong emphasis on the value of long-term professional networks and character. She frequently highlights the importance of integrity and generosity in business partners, noting how early career friendships often shape professional success decades later, and publicly thanks co-investors and former colleagues for their work ethic.
- Commitment to San Francisco civic engagement and local leadership. She uses her platform to advocate for competent city management, endorsing candidates with executive backgrounds to lead the city, while also amplifying community efforts to support vulnerable populations during difficult times.
About their Fund
Sectors
Fintech, AI, Deeptech / Hardware, Health, Marketplaces
Rounds
Pre-Seed - Series B+
Avg Check Size
$100K - $1M
Notable Investments
SciFi VC is the personal venture fund of PayPal cofounder Max Levchin and his wife Nellie, built on Max's hands-on operating history in fintech and payments to give founders a specific "PayPal/Affirm playbook" operator-turned-VC rather than a purely financial sponsor. The fund focuses on companies whose competitive advantages come from hard technical feats, network effects, and complex highly regulated industries, positioning itself at the intersection of frontier science and financial engineering rather than as a standard fintech fund.
Other partners at the fund
Notable Fund
Investments
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Popular Investors
investor name
Active in
Rounds
Avg. Check
Links
Deeptech / Hardware
Robotics
Biotech
+
12
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Seed
Unknown
$400K - $2M
Unknown
Defense
Deeptech / Hardware
Energy
+
7
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Series A
Unknown
$100K - $5M
Unknown
Defense
Deeptech / Hardware
Energy
+
7
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Series A
Unknown
$100K - $5M
Unknown
Biotech
Health
Deeptech / Hardware
+
2
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Seed
Unknown
$250K - $2M
Unknown
Climate
Deeptech / Hardware
Materials
+
4
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Seed
Unknown
$400K - $1.5M
Unknown
Deeptech / Hardware
Robotics
Biotech
+
7
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Seed
Unknown
$400K - $2M
Unknown
Deeptech / Hardware
Robotics
Biotech
+
2
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Seed
Unknown
~$750K
Unknown
Fintech
Deeptech / Hardware
Devtools
+
2
View more in profile...
Unknown
Pre-Seed - Series A
Unknown
$250K-$1M
Unknown
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