Semyon Dukach is Founding Companion of One Method Ventures, a VC agency funding distinctive immigrant founders. A Ukrainian-American, he got here to the US as a toddler refugee in 1979. He’s the previous Managing Director of Techstars (Boston), and an angel investor in over 100 corporations.
You’ve been an angel investor and/or VC investor for over 20 years, what initially attracted you to the funding area?
After launching my very own startup, Quick Engines, I went to a nonprofit that mentored CEO teams – the Cambridge Enterprise Improvement Middle. It was my first time getting mentorship, however I discovered that the actual worth was startups serving to startups by peer relationships. It was a neighborhood of individuals that basically needed to assist one another out.
Once I bought my firm in 2000, the middle instantly requested me to be a mentor. It went to my head – I used to be youthful than a lot of the founders I used to be mentoring, and I actually needed to make a optimistic influence.
That is after I made my first angel investments. I used to be attending to know founders and commenced investing in them. I had some successes, made some errors, and tried various things.
I spotted that I am good at evaluating chances, due to my background taking part in blackjack (whereas at MIT, I joined one of many infamous MIT blackjack groups that received tens of millions from the casinos). My blackjack group was mainly my first funding fund. We had been modeling likelihood, taking dangers, being quantitative, and attaining issues that had been imagined to be unimaginable.
So when it got here to supporting startups, I used to be good at transferring rapidly and taking dangers, and I wasn’t frightened about doing so as a result of I already knew that issues that seem like dangers are literally manageable.
In doing so, I additionally realized who my folks had been. I received way more out of the gratitude of the folks I used to be serving to, than the cash I may make at casinos or different schemes. It was a lot nicer when a startup founder I preferred and personally associated to advised me that I had helped them by a disaster. I really like my founders, and I’m keen to lose cash in an funding to assist a founder.
I used to be additionally good at it, and over time I received higher. Usually, I get tired of doing the identical factor for a decade or extra. However One Method Ventures is totally different. It’s a lifelong dedication as a result of I get to fulfill various corporations daily. I like being concerned within the early levels. It performs to my strengths to have a small share stake in an organization and assist individuals who worth what I can convey to the desk – that’s the place I shine.
Are you able to share what impressed you to launch a VC fund that focuses on immigrant founders?
It was the conclusion that I needed to construct a enterprise fund with a mission. My expertise and life trajectory put me in a spot to attain that. Techstars had been a incredible expertise in ecosystem growth, however this was what I actually cared about. Immigrant entrepreneurs is my group. That is our world and we’re right here to assert our rights. Some folks may not prefer it, however we’re going to construct corporations, and we are able to construct them higher as a result of we’ve got drive, we’re relentless, we’ve got chips on our shoulders, and we’re beasts at working laborious.
I spotted that that is the way in which I can change the world. If we put money into immigrants as a VC fund, we are going to make extra returns than if we put money into anybody else. Immigrants may get decrease valuations than different founders due to conventional markers, just like the extent of their community, however the outcomes are manner above common for native US Individuals. 55% of all US unicorns had been based by immigrants. It is shocking – immigrants are discriminated in opposition to, and so they nonetheless do higher.
That is really an argument for seeing the worth of immigrants versus simply their “cost” to the economic system. Our mission will probably be profitable by making extra money and creating extra jobs.
We even have an affinity group. We get robust advisors as a result of they get the story. It’s constant, motivating. LPs usually tend to say sure to our speculation if we are able to present that it really works higher than others. Pathfinders, our new collective of billion-dollar immigrant founders, is tremendous profitable as a result of these celebrity entrepreneurs consider in our joint immigrant story and are keen to assist others like them.
On condition that 65% of the highest AI corporations within the US had been based by immigrants, what distinctive views or expertise do immigrant founders convey to the AI business?
I do not suppose immigrants convey any distinctive views or expertise to AI – the reality is, in any sector, they’re objectively higher startup builders. I feel US American entrepreneurs are getting weaker, not stronger. When a founder is extremely comfy, they’re extra prone to worry threat. Immigrants, alternatively, have already given loads up and have much less to lose.
Immigrants are primarily pre-selected for his or her self-discipline and attaining success on their very own.
Most founders will face rejection a number of instances by VCs. However immigrants are much less probably to surrender at that time – they don’t assume that they’ll obtain the top aim, and so they’ll work as laborious as they will to attempt to get it. In the event that they gave up simply they most likely wouldn’t have launched into the powerful immigration journey within the first place. They’re those who will battle in opposition to all odds.
How are present and potential future visa insurance policies affecting the power of the US to draw and retain prime expertise in AI and different tech fields?
Any restrictions on individuals who need to come right here to america and don’t current a direct and clear bodily hazard of felony exercise, will reduce the higher energy of america.
There should not be visas; what we must always have is proof that individuals aren’t going to commit crimes. There needs to be applications in place that do ample safety checks for any direct hurt that an individual may inflict. However should you contemplate that direct hurt to be unemployment on account of immigration, that’s not the American manner. In capitalism, if immigrants are higher at one thing, everybody else has to compete, and that may make everybody stronger.
I don’t suppose that the best ethical crucial for the federal government is growing sure folks’s incomes by limiting the entry of immigrants. There are such a lot of points in the way in which of that. Folks ought to get richer by their very own efforts. The federal government’s job is to guard folks from hurt. Visas as an idea harms us. We will’t filter folks for “value” – each immigrant that comes right here eagerly is effective.
We should always welcome anybody on the earth to the US, in the event that they signal as much as US values and work. In the event that they do the job cheaper and higher, we’ve got to consider others will discover one thing higher for themselves and profit from cheaper merchandise and improved lives. We’ve received to believe that change is nice. We will’t be MAGA conservative and worry it. Issues change, jobs get disrupted. If we go in opposition to the present we’ll get swept away.
What are the most important challenges immigrant founders face when beginning AI corporations within the US, and the way does One Method Ventures assist them overcome these challenges?
AI has its personal challenges – the sector is overheated, and in some ways it’s too late to penetrate. One of many few methods to start out an AI firm now’s to use different folks’s LLMs and develop inside verticals that individuals don’t actually perceive but.
Immigrants are much less prone to have deep data of US business, and usually tend to be deeply technical founders. Getting into the sector with clear and profound business perception will give them an enormous benefit.
One other downside for immigrant founders is that the federal government could contemplate the AI that they’re engaged on to be army know-how – and in the event that they’re not but US residents, that may hinder them from progressing.
How can enterprise capital corporations higher help immigrant founders in AI, significantly in navigating regulatory and cultural boundaries?
Founders ought to scout out the traders which have probably the most to supply them the place they’re weakest. Corporations like ours will supply scaling recommendation, a powerful community, and help in constructing a resilient firm from the early days. Different VC corporations like Unshackled Ventures will help you immediately should you want visa help.
With elections approaching, what coverage modifications would you advocate for to make sure the US stays a frontrunner in AI innovation and continues to draw immigrant expertise?
There’s no brief time period repair for our angle in direction of immigration. However by succeeding, we are able to present the world that they’re improper to underestimate the facility of immigrants in enterprise. We will make it clear that present insurance policies are misguided.
At this time, corporations engaged on twin use know-how are discouraged from hiring immigrants as a result of they may steal intelligence. The irony is, there are various circumstances of founders who left their dwelling nations, took their data to the US, and have introduced tech into this nation. If we push immigrants away, we’re additionally shedding these minds and their technological capabilities.
Might you share some success tales of immigrant-founded AI corporations that One Method Ventures has backed and the way these corporations are making a worldwide influence?
We’ve backed so many nice AI corporations with immigrant founders through the years. There’s Helm.ai, which is growing AI autonomous driving and is backed by Honda. Or Greeneye, which is growing precision pesticide spraying with AI to attenuate chemical utilization whereas enhancing agricultural productiveness. That tech can have broad advantages the world over by supporting extra sustainable agriculture.
What recommendation would you give to aspiring immigrant founders trying to enter the AI area and safe enterprise capital funding?
If they will pursue a enterprise that’s core AI, it needs to be 5x higher than OpenAI. Extra realistically, new corporations would construct on current LLMs to rework extra obscure verticals. Should you’re utilizing instruments like OpenAI, it’s important to have deep area data.
However on the similar time, at this level there’s no such factor as an “AI space.” It’s like saying “companies who use software.” Everybody has AI now, it’s a core know-how. So my recommendation is similar as something – construct one thing that is wonderful, and discover clients.
Should you’re a newly arrived immigrant and your English sucks, discuss in horrible English, however don’t wait round for a greater time to behave. The time is now.
What’s your imaginative and prescient for the way forward for AI innovation within the US, and what position do you see immigrant founders taking part in on this imaginative and prescient?
AI’s broad functions will make the world infinitely higher, or worse. It’s nonetheless early days, and finally it’ll be higher than people in most duties. Immigrant founders will proceed to be aggressive, robust founders. It’s particularly necessary for america to be supporting their growth inside their borders as we speak. If different organizations and nations develop harmful AI earlier than america owns that data, it is going to result in extreme penalties. That data has to maneuver the world over.
Thanks for the nice interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to One Method Ventures.
