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 baby 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 house?
After launching my very own startup, Quick Engines, I went to a nonprofit that mentored CEO teams – the Cambridge Enterprise Improvement Heart. It was my first time getting mentorship, however I discovered that the true worth was startups serving to startups by way of peer relationships. It was a neighborhood of individuals that actually needed to assist one another out.
After 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 many of the founders I used to be mentoring, and I actually needed to make a constructive affect.
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 enjoying blackjack (whereas at MIT, I joined one of many infamous MIT blackjack groups that gained thousands and thousands from the casinos). My blackjack workforce was mainly my first funding fund. We had been modeling likelihood, taking dangers, being quantitative, and reaching issues that had been presupposed to be unattainable.
So when it got here to supporting startups, I used to be good at transferring shortly and taking dangers, and I wasn’t nervous 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 individuals had been. I obtained much more out of the gratitude of the individuals 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 favored and personally associated to instructed me that I had helped them by way of 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 obtained higher. Sometimes, I become bored with 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 each day. I like being concerned within the early phases. It performs to my strengths to have a small proportion stake in an organization and assist individuals who worth what I can deliver 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 realize that. Techstars had been a improbable 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 say our rights. Some individuals may not prefer it, however we’re going to construct corporations, and we are able to construct them higher as a result of now we have drive, we’re relentless, now we have chips on our shoulders, and we’re beasts at working arduous.
I spotted that that is the best way I can change the world. If we spend money on immigrants as a VC fund, we are going to make extra returns than if we spend money on anybody else. Immigrants would possibly get decrease valuations than different founders due to conventional markers, just like the extent of their community, however the outcomes are method above common for native US People. 55% of all US unicorns had been based by immigrants. It is shocking – immigrants are discriminated in opposition to, they usually nonetheless do higher.
That is truly an argument for seeing the worth of immigrants versus simply their “cost” to the financial system. Our mission might be profitable by making extra money and creating extra jobs.
We even have an affinity group. We get sturdy 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 imagine in our joint immigrant story and are keen to assist others like them.
Provided that 65% of the highest AI corporations within the US had been based by immigrants, what distinctive views or expertise do immigrant founders deliver to the AI trade?
I do not suppose immigrants deliver 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, however, have already given loads up and have much less to lose.
Immigrants are primarily pre-selected for his or her self-control and reaching success on their very own.
Most founders will face rejection a number of occasions by VCs. However immigrants are much less possible to surrender at that time – they don’t assume that they’ll obtain the tip purpose, they usually’ll work as arduous as they will to attempt to get it. In the event that they gave up simply they in all probability wouldn’t have launched into the robust immigration journey within the first place. They’re those who will struggle 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 the US and don’t current a direct and clear bodily hazard of legal exercise, will reduce the higher energy of the US.
There should not be visas; what we should always have is proof that folks aren’t going to commit crimes. There ought to be packages in place that do satisfactory safety checks for any direct hurt that an individual may inflict. However should you think about that direct hurt to be unemployment on account of immigration, that’s not the American method. 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 individuals’s incomes by limiting the entry of immigrants. There are such a lot of points in the best way of that. Individuals ought to get richer by way of their very own efforts. The federal government’s job is to guard individuals from hurt. Visas as an idea harms us. We will’t filter individuals for “value” – each immigrant that comes right here eagerly is effective.
We should always welcome anybody on the planet 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, now we have to imagine others will discover one thing higher for themselves and profit from cheaper merchandise and improved lives. We’ve obtained to trust that change is sweet. 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 largest 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 begin an AI firm now’s to use different individuals’s LLMs and develop inside verticals that folks don’t actually perceive but.
Immigrants are much less prone to have deep information of US trade, and usually tend to be deeply technical founders. Coming into the sector with clear and profound trade perception will give them an enormous benefit.
One other downside for immigrant founders is that the federal government could think about the AI that they’re engaged on to be navy expertise – 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. Companies 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 instantly should you want visa help.
With elections approaching, what coverage adjustments would you advocate for to make sure the US stays a frontrunner in AI innovation and continues to draw immigrant expertise?
There’s no quick time period repair for our perspective in the direction of immigration. However by succeeding, we are able to present the world that they’re mistaken to underestimate the facility of immigrants in enterprise. We will make it clear that present insurance policies are misguided.
As we speak, corporations engaged on twin use expertise are discouraged from hiring immigrants as a result of they may steal intelligence. The irony is, there are numerous circumstances of founders who left their house international locations, took their information 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.
May you share some success tales of immigrant-founded AI corporations that One Method Ventures has backed and the way these corporations are making a world affect?
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 reduce chemical utilization whereas bettering agricultural productiveness. That tech can have broad advantages internationally by supporting extra sustainable agriculture.
What recommendation would you give to aspiring immigrant founders trying to enter the AI house 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 present LLMs to remodel extra obscure verticals. For those who’re utilizing instruments like OpenAI, you need to have deep area information.
However on the identical 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 expertise. So my recommendation is identical as something – construct one thing that is superb, and discover prospects.
For those who’re a newly arrived immigrant and your English sucks, speak 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 enjoying 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, sturdy founders. It’s particularly vital for the US to be supporting their growth inside their borders right now. If different organizations and international locations develop damaging AI earlier than the US owns that information, it’ll result in extreme penalties. That information has to maneuver internationally.
Thanks for the good interview, readers who want to be taught extra ought to go to One Method Ventures.
