1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Semyon Dukach, Managing Partner at One Way Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: If a team is strong, are you okay with investing before pre-product? 

Semyon Dukach: It takes more than a strong team. In my view, the team for this company was clearly the best in the world. There was no way that a team with more money could be stronger than this one. It was not a question of being strong; it was a question of being number one. In most of our investments, the product, revenue, and the customers are already there. 

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Semyon Dukach, Managing Partner at One Way Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How close is your activity portfolio within the MIT community? 

Semyon Dukach: We have quite a bit of stuff around MIT. I’ve been physically in Boston ever since I went to MIT 30 years ago. We have a lot of stuff with Harvard and other universities as well. I think that is one of our areas of focus – IT startups with defensible tech.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Semyon Dukach, Managing Partner at One Way Ventures (Part 1)

Semyon Dukach is Managing Partner at One Way Ventures, a VC fund focused on immigrant founders.

Sramana Mitra: We are going to have a conversation with Semyon Dukach, the Managing Partner at One Way Ventures. Let’s introduce our audience to yourself as well as to One Way Ventures. 

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Roman Kikta, Managing Partner at Mobility Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Solutions looking for problems are much harder to get through to scale. I think it’s much better to start by solving a problem and then working out how you are going to market first before building something.

That is what we practice here at 1M1M – the need to understand what market you are going after and how you are going to position. It sounds like you are from Finland originally? 

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Roman Kikta, Managing Partner at Mobility Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: A lot of entrepreneurs look for product-market fit. We also want investor-entrepreneur fit. It needs to happen for a deal to happen. The reason that I’m asking you all these questions about stage, geography, and styles of companies is that they are relevant to getting an investor-entrepreneur fit.

There is also this unfair advantage. If you can, as an entrepreneur, connect with an investor who also has an unfair advantage in the domain that you are working on, that is a multiplier. 

513th Roundtable Recording on December 17, 2020: With Sasha Mirchandani, Kae Capital

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Roman Kikta, Managing Partner at Mobility Ventures (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Where are you located?

Roman Kikta: I am based in Dallas, Texas, but we are distributed globally. I have partners in Barcelona, UK, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Sao Paulo. 

Sramana Mitra: How many partners are bringing in this $200 million of working capital. It sounds like all of them are general partners in your fund. 

513th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast With Sasha Mirchandani, Kae Capital

Sasha Mirchandani is Founder and Managing Director, Kae Capital, an early stage fund focused on India. I’ve known Sasha for over a decade, and we discuss the evolution of the Indian startup industry at length.

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