Seed funding agency Hummingbird VC, which beforehand invested in Deliveroo, Peak Games, MarkaVIP, and Kraken has a brand new Managing Partner. Firat Ileri, beforehand a Partner – who at 28 turned considered one of Europe’s youngest VCs when he joined in 2012 – takes over from Founding Partner Barend Van den Brande, who will now tackle a extra strategic position on the agency.
Ileri grew up in Cyprus and went on to review electrical engineering, pc science, and operations analysis at MIT. At Hummingbird he has lead the agency’s first investments in Latin America and in South East Asia.
Ileri initially launched the cofounders of Gram Games, led their first funding, and helped exit the corporate to Zynga for half a billion. He additionally led the sale means of Peak Games in 2020, which exited at $1.8Bn, making historical past as Turkey’s largest tech exit to this point.
Founded in 2010, Hummingbird is at present on its fourth fund of $200M, raised in This autumn 2020, and says it invests from Europe to India, SEA, LATAM, Turkey and extra just lately within the US.
Firat most just lately led Hummingbird’s first investments in engineering biology, investing in Billiontoone, the SF-based precision diagnostics firm within the prenatal and liquid biopsy house, which has raised a $55M Series B spherical. It’s additionally invested in Kernal Biologics, an mRNA 2.zero therapeutics firm centered on oncology.
Van den Brande mentioned: “From the moment Firat joined us in the very early days of Hummingbird, he hit the ground running. His eye for unique and ambitious founding teams, and unparalleled expertise in Seed investing, persistence and really understanding what Early Stage companies need has made him an invaluable asset to Hummingbird and all of the founders we work with. I’m only pleased to have Firat take on the role and lead the Hummingbird family and portfolio for years to come.”
Ileri mentioned the agency’s thesis was to spend money on stand-out founders: “We’re spending much more time trying to understand who these people are and what makes them special. In a way, we’re looking for anomalies in people, and we believe that the best companies are created with nonlinear backgrounds. So, this is the thesis.”
He mentioned the staff has expanded to drive this imaginative and prescient: “We used to be a boutique fund, but we have the ambition to be more and especially to look for founders who have an independent mind and huge ambitions. To be able to find more companies we’ve gone more global, in order to have a better chance of finding these special stories.”
