The Fund / 01
Backing the important thing everyone else is ignoring.
We find uncommon ground, backing exceptional founders building breakthrough companies — in artificial intelligence, space infrastructure, defence, and cryptographic proof — before the rest of the market looks their way.
Fund I held its first close in April 2026: a ~€25M-target early-stage vehicle, run by a solo GP, writing ~$2M checks and leading rounds from pre-seed through Series A.
- Vehicle
- Off Piste Fund I
- First close
- April 2026
- Target
- ~€25M ($30M)
- Structure
- Solo GP
- Stage
- Pre-seed → Series A
- Typical check
- ~$2M · Leads
- Base
- Norway
The General Partner / 02
Max Samuel.
Max Samuel spent close to a decade inside Peter Thiel’s private investment office, Thiel Capital, after starting out in investment banking at Credit Suisse and as a technology attorney at Wilson Sonsini. In 2020 he moved to Norway, spending five years as a General Partner at SNÖ Ventures investing across the Nordics and Europe — while keeping the US relationships that define his edge.
In April 2026 he struck out on his own. Off Piste bridges the two worlds: deal flow sourced from the networks he spent a decade inside, carried to founders the Bay Area hasn’t met yet.
PayPal Mafia / Thiel Fellowship / Founders Fund / SpaceX / Palantir / Anduril → Nordic & European founders
The Thesis / 03
The name is the thesis. Off piste is where the trail ends.
Contrarian by design
“Off Piste” and “Find Uncommon Ground” aren’t decoration. A decade at Thiel Capital is a decade in the definite-optimism school — backing the important thing everyone else is looking away from.
Network as the moat
The edge is access: connecting skilled founders outside the Bay Area to Silicon Valley’s networks — embedded deal flow from the Thiel ecosystem, PayPal Mafia, Founders Fund, and the SpaceX / Palantir / Anduril adjacency.
Frontier, not fluff
The announced deals are AI truth-adjudication, space infrastructure, cryptographic proof and defence hardware — not SaaS. Off Piste backs the systems and infrastructure of the future.
Geographic arbitrage
US networks × Nordic and European founders. Norway-based, globally sourced — carrying elite American capital and relationships to talent the Valley hasn’t reached yet.
Find Uncommon Ground
Off the
groomed trail.
Building something important where nobody else is looking? We’d like to hear from you.