Empowering Startups and Navigating Tech Investment: An Interview with Olga Duka of Improve Ventures
I had the pleasure of interviewing Olga Duka, GP at Improve Ventures
How did you break into tech investing?
To be honest, I don’t think there ever was a “breaking into” moment.
I started working with startups as founder or operator or advisor almost 15 years ago and I was an institutional investor prior to that. I went to work in the tech sector, because I’ve always been obsessed with talent and wanted to learn how early-stage ideas originate and develop.
On one hand, I wanted to work hands-on to understand every facet of building a startup; on the other, to gain a deeper understanding of long-term talent investment. I also wanted to develop a consistent and relevant network — and to develop a methodology to assess and select startups for investment purposes.
Since then, I have worked with about a hundred startups, and have seen more than 70,000 across the world. Whenever the next, say, edtech startup comes by, I have enough visibility not only to analyze it on its own merits, but I also have a perspective within a competitive environment and within a Death Valley.
That experience also gave me insight into how venture capital works (or doesn’t) and plenty of ideas about how I personally want to approach it, what kind of fund I want to build, and why. What we can do, what we should offer, how we work with founders, how we work with other investors and so on.
For instance, I am a firm believer in cold introductions and recognizing talents based on their own merits, in creating protection from hostile / predatory partners, in win-win negotiation strategies, on building proof to help bring more capital into emerging markets ecosystems. Also, while we are still building our fund, we already work with founders over funding via mergers and acquisitions hands-on, to help them withstand the current economic crisis.
What is it that excites you about investing?
I am someone who has multiple ideas and infinite curiosity, so it was never easy to choose just one thing to work on long term. I had to learn to choose the biggest and most impactful way to implement my talents and experience over time, and after a couple of long-term commitments to startups, I realized that investments are going to be that one large and long-term focus.
I am passionate about nurturing talent and aim to support as many individuals as possible, in tech, in arts or science in my lifetime. Investment fund gives me the leverage to focus all my resources and capabilities on one thing, yet be able to support multiple ideas, and even work with them hands-on when needed.
Pretty much everything about investing excites me: meeting founders and investors, researching, working with founders hands-on, solving problems, fundraising for the fund, building our data platform to assess and select companies at scale and so on.
What has been your biggest challenge when it comes to finding the “right deals”?
There is no shortage of deals in emerging markets. In fact, venture ecosystems there are just getting started. It’s less about finding deals and more about a problem of capital accessibility now, and more of a capital accessibility problem now.
To some degree, perhaps, it`s a challenge of assessment. Plenty of international investors opt for a look-alike and think that it will de-risk their investments. In fact, none of the US or EU playbooks work in Latam or Africa or SEA, so you must assess companies within a local context, macro, regulation, human behavior, language and interface and so one — and those companies look completely different from what you are used to.
In terms of ‘right deals’, aside from our existing pipeline, we already have multiple companies on our radar that are outside fund I strategy (stage, vertical etc), that totally make sense to us and other investors.
10x capital can be deployed, and it still would not be enough.
What major trends do you expect to see in technology innovation over the next 5 years that excites you?
I see multiple trends and countertrends, but those that excite me, are directly connected to supporting talents:
- Novel education models
- Remote work
- AI
- Deeptech — especially in infrastructure and climate change
- Personal data ownership & protection
If you had to share, “words of wisdom,” with a Founder who’s about to start their own startup, what would they be?
Perhaps, make sure that what you are building reflects who you are. Integrity is important generally, but when you consider betting next 6–10 years of your life on something so risky, you better make sure this is what you want to do with your life.
It’s not a simple decision and should not be taken lightly, regardless of how lucky or capable you feel about yourself. Most founders eat sand with glass for the first few years of building, and unless you are quite prepared for it, it may not be a good idea. Your true passions, experiences and knowledge may help you choose between ideas, but those that stick long-term, are usually those, that resonate to you so deeply, that you can withstand multiple storms. And there will be many.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/olgaduka/
This was very insightful. Thank you so much for joining us!
