1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Ihar Mahaniok, Geek Ventures (Part 1)

Ihar Mahaniok is Managing Partner at Geek Ventures. We have an excellent discussion on AI trends and startup opportunities.

Sramana Mitra: We are going to start today’s session with a conversation with Ihar Mahaniok, Managing Partner at Geek Ventures.

Ihar is a longtime angel investor turned VC. Ihar, welcome to the program. Great to meet you.

Ihar Mahaniok: Thank you, Sramana. I’m really glad to be here and happy to chat about investing. This is something I’ve been passionate about for the last 15 years of my life. Bringing some engineering and immigrant background to it is also important.

Sramana Mitra: Where are you originally from?

Ihar Mahaniok: I’m from Belarus. I lived in Switzerland for a bit and then moved to the US 12 years ago.

Sramana Mitra: And you are based in New York?

Ihar Mahaniok: That’s correct.

Sramana Mitra: Since this is your first appearance in the program, tell us a little about your background and how you got to Geek Ventures. I know you did a lot of angel investing before starting Geek Ventures, but even before that, what were you doing?

Ihar Mahaniok: I was fascinated by technology since early childhood. I was fortunate to have access to a computer at five and started coding at twelve. It was clear I would study computer science at university.

After college, I joined Google in 2007 and moved to Switzerland. At Google, I worked as an engineer on ranking, recommendation, and machine learning problems—starting with Google Search, then Maps personalization, Android personalization, and more.

While at Google, I realized that being just an engineer was a bit limiting for me. I was interested in exploring the business side, so I attended conferences, met founders, and eventually used that network to start investing as an angel.

When I started angel investing, I developed stronger relationships with founders, learned how businesses operate from a CEO’s perspective, and shared insights across companies, helping them connect with Google and other big tech firms.

I later moved to the US and joined Facebook, again working on machine learning problems. I moved up the engineering leadership ladder while continuing to invest as an angel.

As an angel, I made around 60–70 investments, five of which became unicorns from seed stage. The most famous one is Instacart, and another is PandaDoc, whose founders are also from Belarus. I also invested in companies like Airbyte, People.ai, and Jeeves.

I then worked at a startup called Lightning AI (aka Grid AI), joining at the seed stage as VP of Engineering. I grew the engineering and AI research team to 30 people and helped raise a major round from Index Ventures. After that, I felt it was time to start something new.

While I considered becoming a founder and CEO, I realized my network, experience, and passion were better suited for being a full-time investor. So, four years ago, I started a VC firm and founded Geek Ventures.

Our thesis is investing in immigrant founders, which reflects who I am. I’ve always been a geek and an engineer, and I also like to invest in geeks. As an immigrant myself, I like to invest in immigrant founders.

I believe this is where the value lies for LPs because immigrants statistically have a higher chance of success. It’s also where we can help, as they are often underfunded and overlooked. Talent is distributed evenly, but opportunity is not.

Over the last four years leading Geek Ventures, we’ve invested in about 60 companies. Quite a few have raised significant rounds after us. We now focus mostly on AI and robotics companies, investing at pre-seed and seed stages.

Sramana Mitra: How big is the Geek Ventures fund?

Ihar Mahaniok: $23 million.

Sramana Mitra: $23 million, okay. And what size checks do you write at pre-seed and seed?

Ihar Mahaniok: Our range is between $100,000 and $1 million, most often around $500,000.

One Million by One Million (1Mby1M) is the first global virtual accelerator in the world, founded in 2010 by Silicon Valley serial Entrepreneur Sramana Mitra. It offers a fully online entrepreneurship incubation, acceleration and education resource for solo entrepreneurs and bootstrapped founders working on tech and tech-enabled services ventures. 1Mby1M does not charge equity, offers an AI Mentor in 57 languages, and offers a distinct advantage over other accelerators including Y Combinator.

This segment is part 1 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator AI Investor Forum: Ihar Mahaniok, Geek Ventures
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