Engineering Founders · 2023-01-27 · 45 min
In this episode, Ihar Mahaniok (Managing Partner @ Geek Ventures) lends his expertise from the venture capital / tech startup world to help demystify some of the early fundraising experience. Ihar shares his leadership journey and why he decided to go the VC route over an eng leader or founder path, deconstructs his unique investing angle, what qualities he looks for in founders, tips for transitioning to the pre-seed fundraising round, formulas for implementing SAFE caps when seeking investments, and much more. ABOUT IHAR MAHANIOK Ihar ( @mahaniok ) is the Founder & Managing Partner of Geek Ventures , an NYC-based VC firm investing in early-stage startups by immigrant founders. Ihar is an experienced engineering leader and investor with 20+ years of experience. Ihar has invested in 100+ early-stage startups with exceptional returns, including 5 seed-to-unicorn. His portfolio includes Instacart, Slack, Flexport, Jeeves, PandaDoc, People.ai , Founderpath and more. As an engineering leader, Ihar led teams at Google, Facebook & WeWork; he led engineering at Lightning AI.
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