Secondary scarcity.
What you cannot buy tells you what to own
What you cannot buy tells you what to own
Tier-1 fund signal.
Where the best investors are quietly concentrating
Where the best investors are quietly concentrating
Traction Club insight.
What Fortune 1000 buyers and operators are actually adopting
What Fortune 1000 buyers and operators are actually adopting
Growth venture firm
We identify generational companies before consensus forms
We back the layer leaders of the AI stack
invested
In process
On our map
Physical AI
Companies in stealth, under evaluation
Defense
Anduril
Saronic
Chaos Industries
Castelion
Shield AI
Enterprise AI apps
Cylake
Sierra
Abridge
Glean
AI Labs and Orchestrators
Fal.ai
Moonshot
Baseten
Fireworks
Data center neoclouds
Crusoe
Gimlet Labs
Marlowe AI
Lambda Labs
Silicon
Positron AI
Etched
MatX
Energy
Crusoe
Aalo Atomics
Applied Atomics
Helion Energy
Valar Atomics
What we hold now, and how it has moved
Traction entered Jan 2026
Builds AI inference chips it says are 3x more efficient than Nvidia's. Oracle has deployed them in its cloud to diversify away from Nvidia.
Entry round · Series B
Feb 4, 2026
$1B+ valuation
TechCrunch
Latest reported · Series C
Sep 2026
$5B valuation
The Wall Street Journal
Traction entered Feb 2026, between rounds*
The fastest energy-first builder of AI data centers: it secures the power first, then builds the data center around it.
Prior round · Series E
Oct 23, 2025
$10B+ valuation
Bloomberg
Latest reported
Sep 3, 2026
About $30B valuation
Bloomberg
Traction entered Mar 2026, around Series H*
The leading neoprime: a new-generation defense contractor that develops products with its own money and sells them finished, the way a technology company does.
Entry round · Series H
May 13, 2026
$61B valuation
TechCrunch
Latest reported · in talks
Jul 24, 2026
About $100B valuation
Reuters
Traction entered Apr 2026
The emerging leader in autonomous maritime systems: self-driving ships built for the US Navy.
Entry round · Series D
Mar 31, 2026
$9.25B valuation
CNBC
Since entry
Sep 30, 2026
Two new US Navy contracts
Naval Today
Traction entered Sep 2026
The fastest builder of extra modular reactors (XMRs), factory-built nuclear reactors for data centers. Its reactor reached criticality, a self-sustaining nuclear reaction, on July 4, 2026, and an active pilot with Crusoe is due for delivery in mid 2027.
Entry round · Series C
Our newest position
*
Traction entered at a premium to the valuation of the round shown. Company valuations as reported by the cited outlets on the dates shown. Not a performance claim by the fund; see disclosures.
Three steps make it work.
Fact sheet
500+
executives in our network
80+
members
3-5
year target holding period
$1M-$5M
capital deployed per investment
Prior to Traction Fund
$200M+
deployed across 30+ private technology companies
7
realized exits, including SpaceX, Figure Technologies, and Coursera
AtTraction webinars for members
Neoclouds and foundational models
Episode 01
How Crusoe’s energy-first approach gives it the competitive edge
We mapped the neocloud and foundational model layers, the companies that build AI data centers and the companies that build the models running in them, and explained why we invested in Crusoe.
Presented: Crusoe, Anthropic, Together AI, and others
Defense
Episode 02
The defense mind map: how we chose Anduril and Saronic
We mapped the sector against the Department of War's priorities and strategy, and walked through how we decided to invest in Anduril, the leading neoprime, and Saronic, a leader in maritime superiority.
Presented: Anduril and Saronic
Energy
Episode 03
The nuclear reactor race: why Aalo Atomics’day-one decisions put it ahead
We covered the companies making batteries, small nuclear reactors, extra modular reactors, and fusion, and presented our Aalo Atomics deal.
Presented: Aalo, Atomics
Request access to our videos
We keep transparent communication with LPs
We write to our partners regularly what worked in our strategy, what didn’t and what adjustments we made to enhance the strategy and results. Edited versions are published here.
Contacts
Join Traction
Executives, founders, co-investors, and LPs: together they form the Traction community. Tell us which door you are coming through and we will route you to the right person.
945 Market Street, Ste. 5126, San Francisco, CA 94103
(c) 2026 Traction Fund LLC. The information on this website is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any security or any interest in any fund or other vehicle managed by Traction Fund LLC. Any such offer will be made only to qualified investors through definitive offering documents.
References to portfolio companies are for illustrative purposes only, do not represent a complete list of investments, and should not be viewed as a recommendation or endorsement. Entry dates reflect the timing of initial investment by Traction-managed vehicles. Third-party headlines and valuations are drawn from the cited sources, have not been independently verified, and are not representations or performance claims by Traction Fund LLC. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
References to portfolio companies are for illustrative purposes only, do not represent a complete list of investments, and should not be viewed as a recommendation or endorsement. Entry dates reflect the timing of initial investment by Traction-managed vehicles. Third-party headlines and valuations are drawn from the cited sources, have not been independently verified, and are not representations or performance claims by Traction Fund LLC. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Who is Ulvi?
Ulvi Rashid
Founder and Investment Director, Traction Fund
Ulvi Rashid is the Founder and Investment Director of Traction Fund, a venture firm that backs growth-stage layer leaders across the AI stack: energy, compute, data infrastructure, defense autonomy, and applications. Traction invests when customer conviction has formed but investor consensus has not. Over his career Ulvi has invested more than $200M across more than 30 private technology companies.
Before founding Traction, Ulvi was Investment Director at 1802 Ventures (formerly Mindrock Capital), where he ran dealflow and scaled the platform from scratch to $211M across 21 companies, including SpaceX, Kraken, Figure Technologies, Lemonade, Coursera, and Udemy. That portfolio produced 7 exits, with the outlier being SpaceX, where he invested in 2019 at a $35B valuation. Traction’s current positions include Crusoe, Anduril, Saronic, Positron AI, and Aalo Atomics.
Ulvi is also Founding Partner of the Traction Club of Executives, a collective of 80+ Fortune 1000 and AI lab executives who invest alongside the firm. These are the customers, vendors, and operators of the companies Traction backs. They give Traction a ground-level read on which products enterprises actually buy, and give founders direct lines to buyers and partners.
For founders, Ulvi is a long-term partner beyond the check. He has served as a board member at Intento, the enterprise AI translation platform, and as a board observer at Q-CTRL, the quantum infrastructure software company. Since 2018 he has mentored startups on go-to-market and fundraising at Carnegie Mellon’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship.
Earlier in his career, Ulvi was a banking executive in commercial real estate, where he financed $350M of hotel and retail developments and brought a $1B portfolio of non-performing loans out of default. Before that, as a valuation and fraud investigation consultant with Big Four firms, he built valuation models for M&A and IPOs and audited Fortune 500 energy companies, uncovering a tariff scheme that threatened a $3B public-private partnership. He calls it a talent for finding things people hide, and it still shapes how he diligences companies.
Ulvi holds an MBA from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business and graduated as valedictorian on a Presidential Scholarship, having ranked 16th among 100,000 applicants nationally. As a student he co-founded Magnat, an intellectual games club that has grown to 2,000+ alumni. He is a Forbes Finance Council member, a former Vice President of the Tepper alumni chapter of California, and the recipient of the 2025 Nexus Award, sponsored by Scale AI.
Ulvi is passionate about connecting the dots globally, whether ideas, people, or organizations. He gets curious, learns entirely new domains from first principles, and then relays that knowledge to his investors and peers.
Before founding Traction, Ulvi was Investment Director at 1802 Ventures (formerly Mindrock Capital), where he ran dealflow and scaled the platform from scratch to $211M across 21 companies, including SpaceX, Kraken, Figure Technologies, Lemonade, Coursera, and Udemy. That portfolio produced 7 exits, with the outlier being SpaceX, where he invested in 2019 at a $35B valuation. Traction’s current positions include Crusoe, Anduril, Saronic, Positron AI, and Aalo Atomics.
Ulvi is also Founding Partner of the Traction Club of Executives, a collective of 80+ Fortune 1000 and AI lab executives who invest alongside the firm. These are the customers, vendors, and operators of the companies Traction backs. They give Traction a ground-level read on which products enterprises actually buy, and give founders direct lines to buyers and partners.
For founders, Ulvi is a long-term partner beyond the check. He has served as a board member at Intento, the enterprise AI translation platform, and as a board observer at Q-CTRL, the quantum infrastructure software company. Since 2018 he has mentored startups on go-to-market and fundraising at Carnegie Mellon’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship.
Earlier in his career, Ulvi was a banking executive in commercial real estate, where he financed $350M of hotel and retail developments and brought a $1B portfolio of non-performing loans out of default. Before that, as a valuation and fraud investigation consultant with Big Four firms, he built valuation models for M&A and IPOs and audited Fortune 500 energy companies, uncovering a tariff scheme that threatened a $3B public-private partnership. He calls it a talent for finding things people hide, and it still shapes how he diligences companies.
Ulvi holds an MBA from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business and graduated as valedictorian on a Presidential Scholarship, having ranked 16th among 100,000 applicants nationally. As a student he co-founded Magnat, an intellectual games club that has grown to 2,000+ alumni. He is a Forbes Finance Council member, a former Vice President of the Tepper alumni chapter of California, and the recipient of the 2025 Nexus Award, sponsored by Scale AI.
Ulvi is passionate about connecting the dots globally, whether ideas, people, or organizations. He gets curious, learns entirely new domains from first principles, and then relays that knowledge to his investors and peers.
I’m originally from Azerbaijan, and I’ve been building clubs all my life.
The first was Magnat, a student club for intellectual games that became the largest in the country. Our team went on to win the world championship in the business simulation run by HP and Junior Achievement.
After graduation I started my career as a fraud investigator at PwC, auditing oil and gas companies. It turned out I have a talent for finding things people hide. On one site visit I found $10M of inventory that had grown legs and walked off. Another time it was a tariff scheme sitting under a $3B partnership.
Then I decided it’s safer to spend my energy on the future than on the past. I moved into banking, financed $350M of hotels and malls, and took a $1B portfolio of bad loans out of default. Along the way I figured out how to approve loans 6x faster, which is when I realized AI in the enterprise was inevitable. I was told that if I want to innovate, I should move to wherever it is appreciated. So I moved to the US and went to the school that was number one in the country for AI and robotics.
After an MBA at Carnegie Mellon, I joined 1802 Ventures and helped scale it from scratch to $211M across 21 companies, including SpaceX in 2019 at a $35B valuation, Kraken, and Figure. Board member at Intento, board observer at Q-CTRL.
Club number two came along the way. As VP of the Carnegie Mellon alumni chapter in California, I started Tartan Circles, mentorship circles where alumni help each other out.
Today I run Traction Fund, and yes, there is a third club. The Traction Club is 80+ Fortune 1000 and AI lab executives who help us pick the growth-stage layer leaders of the AI stack. We invest when customers are convinced but investors are not yet. Current positions: Crusoe, Anduril, Saronic, Positron AI, Aalo Atomics.
I like connecting dots: ideas, people, organizations. I get curious, learn a new domain from first principles, and pass it on to my investors and peers.
You can find me meeting founders in San Francisco and Palo Alto, mentoring new ones from Carnegie Mellon, the Bay Area, and Central Asia, studying a new domain I knew nothing about, walking the Embarcadero, or, some Sundays, playing hand drums in Golden Gate Park.
The first was Magnat, a student club for intellectual games that became the largest in the country. Our team went on to win the world championship in the business simulation run by HP and Junior Achievement.
After graduation I started my career as a fraud investigator at PwC, auditing oil and gas companies. It turned out I have a talent for finding things people hide. On one site visit I found $10M of inventory that had grown legs and walked off. Another time it was a tariff scheme sitting under a $3B partnership.
Then I decided it’s safer to spend my energy on the future than on the past. I moved into banking, financed $350M of hotels and malls, and took a $1B portfolio of bad loans out of default. Along the way I figured out how to approve loans 6x faster, which is when I realized AI in the enterprise was inevitable. I was told that if I want to innovate, I should move to wherever it is appreciated. So I moved to the US and went to the school that was number one in the country for AI and robotics.
After an MBA at Carnegie Mellon, I joined 1802 Ventures and helped scale it from scratch to $211M across 21 companies, including SpaceX in 2019 at a $35B valuation, Kraken, and Figure. Board member at Intento, board observer at Q-CTRL.
Club number two came along the way. As VP of the Carnegie Mellon alumni chapter in California, I started Tartan Circles, mentorship circles where alumni help each other out.
Today I run Traction Fund, and yes, there is a third club. The Traction Club is 80+ Fortune 1000 and AI lab executives who help us pick the growth-stage layer leaders of the AI stack. We invest when customers are convinced but investors are not yet. Current positions: Crusoe, Anduril, Saronic, Positron AI, Aalo Atomics.
I like connecting dots: ideas, people, organizations. I get curious, learn a new domain from first principles, and pass it on to my investors and peers.
You can find me meeting founders in San Francisco and Palo Alto, mentoring new ones from Carnegie Mellon, the Bay Area, and Central Asia, studying a new domain I knew nothing about, walking the Embarcadero, or, some Sundays, playing hand drums in Golden Gate Park.