Strategic Investments Mit
| Born | 25 October 1968 (age 52) Moscow, Soviet Union |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | Columbia University Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Occupation | Venture Capitalist, Angel investor, professional blackjack player, entrepreneur |
| Known for | Founding Partner of One Way Ventures Former Managing Director of Techstars in Boston Founder of the Troublemaker Award Former Chairman of SMTP (company) Member of MIT Blackjack Team |
Semyon Dukach (born 25 October 1968) is the Founding Partner of One Way Ventures,[1][2] a venture capital fund that backs immigrant entrepreneurs.[3][4]
Mit Investment Management Company
He is also known as the former Managing Director of Techstars in Boston,[5] a top angel investor,[6] the former Chairman of SMTP (company) (NASDAQ: SHSP),[7] and a former professional blackjack player with the MIT Blackjack Team.[8] He played with Strategic Investments and later was one of the founding members and team leaders on Amphibian Investments whose exploits were chronicled in Ben Mezrich's Busting Vegas and referred to in Mezrich's Bringing Down the House. Dukach was the main character in Busting Vegas and the only member of the MIT blackjack team to be referred to by his real name in either book.
Strategic Investments Corp. Is a unique private wealth management firm Washington DC offers that produces results. Call 240.786.4891 to improve your finances! 'MIT enables us to work at our best. They are true long-term investors. They develop the confidence to invest with us over the long term much as we do with the companies in which we invest: through. While attending MIT, Dukach was trained as a player on the MIT Blackjack team whose exploits were loosely depicted in the Hollywood movie 21. Starting out with Strategic Investments (SI) in 1992.
Early life[edit]
Born on 25 October 1968 in Moscow, Dukach moved to the US in 1979 at the age of 11. He completed a BS in Computer Science at Columbia University in 1990 and a MS in Computer Science at MIT in 1993.[9]
At a young age Semyon developed an interest in video games and specifically Pac-Man. Semyon became proficient at the game by reading Ken Uston's Mastering PAC-MAN. This led him to read Uston's other titles on blackjack, giving him an understanding of the basics of card counting before he was approached to play with the MIT Blackjack Team.[10]
Blackjack career[edit]
While attending MIT, Dukach was trained as a player on the MIT Blackjack team whose exploits were loosely depicted in the Hollywood movie 21.
Starting out with Strategic Investments (SI) in 1992, Dukach was a major player on the team. At the end of 1993 SI dissolved and Semyon was involved in a team effort with the remaining players from SI for the next year. By 1995 Dukach and a few players split off from that team and formed a second, independent team. This new team was referred to as the Amphibians and the team that they left was referred to as the Reptiles.
Since stopping play in the late 1990s, Dukach's involvement in blackjack has been limited.
Angel Investing and Techstars[edit]
Xconomy lists Dukach as a top Angel Investor in New England.[6] According to his website, he has invested in over 100 startup companies, and provides marketing and team building advice to companies he invests in. Some of his investments include Amino, Bellabeat, Boatbound, Bolt, Buttercoin, Camiolog, Cangrade, Krash, CoachUp, Codeship, CoEverywhere, Crunchbutton, Dashbell, Donde Esta, Double Robotics, Enertiv, Faraday Bikes, Fashion Project, Freight Farms, ImageSurge, Jebbit, HelmetHub, Mapkin, Meograph, OpenBay, Ovuline, Petcube, Petnet, Plowme, Preply, Quanergy, Rallyware, Regalii, Simpleprints, Socrative, Splashscore, Sproutel, Strongarm, Terrafugia, Trefis, Reactor Media, ViralGains, Wanderu, and Zagster.
In 2014, Dukach assumed the role of Managing Director of Techstars in Boston.[11] He ran the program for three years before leaving in 2017 to found One Way Ventures, a venture capital fund for exceptional immigrant founders.[12]
Venture Capital[edit]
Dukach co-founded One Way Ventures in 2017 and currently serves as the Managing Partner. One Way Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund that focuses on investing in startups with at least one immigrant founder on the team. The fund is based in Boston, Massachusetts, and is actively investing out of its first fund of $28.3 million.[13] The firm focuses on tech-enabled startups in the Pre-seed to Series A stages, and has made investments in startups including Brex, LovePop, and Chipper Cash.
Other ventures[edit]
He has also been involved in other notable ventures outside of his blackjack and angel investing career:
- Authored work on virtual reality at IBM Research in 1988[14]
- Authored a 1992 e-commerce paper on SNPP: A Simple Network Payment Protocol[15]
- Founded Fast Engines in 1997, sold to Adero in 2000[16]
- Co-founded Vert in 1998
- Lead investor and interim CEO of AccuRev in 2001[17]
- Chairman of SMTP, a Nasdaq listed provider of email delivery services.
- Co-founded PDFfiller
- Was a CEO mentor at the Cambridge Business Development Center[18]
- Board director of Terrafugia[19]
- Founded the Troublemaker Award, granted to Zack Kopplin in 2012, to Nadezhda Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot in 2013, and to Mustang Wanted in 2014 for creative troublemaking that improves the world.
- Director, Boston TechStars, 2014-2017.[5]
Strategic Investments Llc
Family[edit]
Strategic Investments Mitigation
Dukach is the brother of Inna Dukach the opera singer married to Sean Altman, former front man of Rockapella.[20]
References[edit]
- ^'WBUR: Meet The Immigrant Who's Creating A Venture Capital Fund For Fellow Immigrants'. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
- ^'Forbes Tech Money: Betting on Immigrant Grit'. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
- ^'New Boston VC Firm for Immigrant Founders Aims to Raise $50M Fund'. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
- ^'WSJ Venture Capital: New VC Funds Aim to Help Immigrant Founders'. Retrieved 17 December 2017.
- ^ ab'Xconomy: Semyon Dukach Goes From VC Outsider to Techstars Boston Head'. Retrieved 28 March 2014.
- ^ ab'Xconomy: Top Angel Investors of New England'. Retrieved 2 May 2013.
- ^'Xconomy: Semyon Dukach Takes SMTP Public'. Retrieved 4 May 2011.
- ^Kahn, Joseph P. (10 May 2006). 'Boston Globe Semyon Dukach Profile'. The Boston Globe. Retrieved 17 April 2011.
- ^Blackjack Science
- ^'ThePOGG Interviews - Semyon Dukach - MIT Card Counting Team Captain'. Retrieved 10 November 2012.
- ^'Xconomy: Semyon Dukach Goes From VC Outsider to Techstars Boston Head'. Xconomy. 21 March 2014. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
- ^'Former Techstars Leaders Launch VC Firm to Back Immigrant Founders'. BostInno. 14 July 2017.
- ^'One Way Ventures'. Crunchbase.
- ^Design for Interactive Performance in A Virtual Laboratory – Wang, Koved, Dukach (ResearchIndex)
- ^SNPP: A Simple Network Payment Protocol – Dukach
- ^Network WorldArchived 22 June 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^'AccuRev, Inc. Releases Version 2.5 of AccuRev/CM With an Integrated Issue Tracking System June 18, 2001'. Business Wire. 2001.
- ^'Blackjack Experts Article'. Archived from the original on 20 November 2008. Retrieved 2 January 2009.
- ^Regan, Keith (28 January 2011). 'Future poised for takeoff for maker of flying cars'. Boston Business Journal.
- ^semyon.com
External links[edit]
When you’re creating your investor avatar, you first need to understand that there are basically two types of investors – 1) Financial Investors & 2) Strategic Investors. And you’ll need to respond to each differently.
The truth is that not all investors are the same. In fact, some are even better than others, they have an advantage or edge over others simply because of their investment focus. Which one's right for you? Read on… Click to Tweet
Financial Investor:
Strategic Investments Partners
A Financial Investor is always looking for a return on their capital, not just a return of capital. The reason they’re investing in your business is to MAKE MONEY, not run a charity, not anything else – just to maximize their financial returns, over a specified period of time. And money can be a great motivator for great results!
They look at investments in a different way. They could be looking at the market opportunity, product, traction or track record, team and more importantly exit potential. And it’s the last point – exit potential – which makes it important for them to figure out how they’re going to sell, well before they even buy. Which is also why we stress this when crafting your pitch deck.
A Financial Investor wants to make sure their money is being put to use, so they’ll often take board seats and add value by introducing you to a larger network, or help in terms of strategy, hiring, financials and more importantly industry insights as they work across a portfolio of similar companies. They’re like consultants in that they can work with various companies and gain a mosaic of insight, unlike a focused Strategic Investor.
Strategic Investor:
A Strategic Investor is a different beast, they’re not just in it for the money, though that is part of the raison d’etre for being a corporate body. They have a more ‘strategic’ point of view to investing, it could be because your business either complements theirs and add value in some way or even be seen as a competition, they’re just willing to buy out.
It may be that they don’t want to spend time building what you did, instead they’d rather use their capital or money in an efficient way, and just buy yours. This accelerates their revenue, growth, market, insight and development roadmap.
They understand the time value of money. And this where we get the “A” from M&A or Mergers and Acquisitions. In fact, Financial Investors may even sell your company to a Strategic Investors.
Strategic Investors may be a bit more forgiving and patient when it comes to growth. They’re not in rush to maximize a return on their investments like a Financial investor. As a business owner, entrepreneur or founder who is selling… you may be given freedom to continue building your business as you have, without much pressure to deliver on the milestones within a quarterly time frame. Sometimes, their strategy could be to simply create synergy between their other companies, and if your company fits the bill, you’re in luck.
So What?
Well, now that you have an idea of the difference between Strategic Investors as against Financial Investors, you may want to draw up your investor avatar to match what you really want from a deal, be it selling or growing your business.