VC Masha Bucher, Epstein associate and Day One founder, explains herself

Masha Bucher, a Silicon Valley VC and founder of Day One Ventures, took to X this week to address news reports documenting her close business and personal relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Bucher’s name — primarily under her maiden name, Masha Drokova — appeared in the latest dump of Epstein files over 1,600 times, The San Francisco Standard reported.

“He made me feel I could be safe from the regime, someone with power and connections who could shield me” from threats she associated with her home country Russia, which she said she feared after she obtained her U.S. green card, she wrote in the post.

“I was naive; I didn’t dig deep enough early on,” she wrote about why she agreed to work with Epstein. “I believed his story that his earlier conviction was about sleeping with a girl who lied about her age and trusted validations from multiple investors and scientists.” She also apologized to her founders, team, and investors, saying that this situation has “caused pain I never intended.”

The files paint a picture of how Bucher — whose Silicon Valley career began in social media and public relations — agreed to become Epstein’s publicist in 2017, helping rehabilitate his reputation after his 2008 sex-trafficking conviction and setting up meetings between him and various journalists, as Forbes reported.

The documents show that Epstein supported and encouraged her in the early days of Day One Ventures. The firm has since grown substantially — as Bucher told TechCrunch, it closed its most recent fund, a $150 million third vehicle, in 2024, bringing its assets under management to $450 million.

Some of the most salacious details from the emails involve Epstein giving her money and a Prada bag, and on one occasion, asking her for nude photos — though there’s no indication whether she complied — according to SFGate. Bucher is certainly a well-known VC in the Valley, having backed breakout companies like Superhuman, Remote, Worldcoin, and Truebill (which exited to Rocket Companies in 2021), as well as others like Valar Atomics.

The whole episode is a particularly awkward one for a VC whose whole spiel to founders is that she’s a PR expert who can help them with their public image. But it’s not Bucher’s first run-in with controversy.

When younger, Bucher was known in Russia as a member of Nashi, a pro-Putin youth group. In fact, she was featured in a 2012 documentary called “Putin’s Kiss” — named for the widely circulated moment in the country when she kissed Putin’s cheek — as CNN reported.

In her post on X, she said she has since given up her Russian passport, publicly denounced Putin, and met with some of Epstein’s victims.

She’s certainly not the only VC whose name has been found in the Epstein files, which is not surprising given how connected he was to some of the biggest names in tech. The documents do not indicate that Bucher broke laws. However, she was engaged in friendly correspondence with Epstein until just 11 days before his arrest in July 2019, Forbes reported. Epstein died in jail roughly one month later.