The Venture Codex

Participated · Series A · May 2023

Careerist is an ed-fintech marketplace connecting motivated learners, teachers, and employers to finance and train underserved U.S. jobseekers for technology careers. The platform runs software- and freelance-instructor-led training, provides career coaching, job placement assistance, and ongoing mentorship, and automates students' job searches. In 2023 Careerist launched an initiative to underwrite loans for applicants with credit scores below 620 and plans to provide up to $12M in installments that year. Its loan product targets applicants with an SSN and credit scores under 620, offers up to 24-month repayment terms, an average APR of 18%, and requires a $499 down payment for low-credit students. The company was founded in 2019, participated in Y Combinator's Spring 2021 cohort, and has grown to a team of over 100 employees. Careerist recently raised $8 million in a Series A. Careerist operates a career-development platform that trains people without tech or coding backgrounds for roles such as software testing and then applies its students for jobs in the U.S. tech industry. Students pay an initial application fee and sign an Income Share Agreement to pay full tuition only if they land a job. The platform also helps graduates grow into more advanced roles after placement. Careerist graduates have secured jobs at major companies including Google, Apple, Amazon, Slack, Salesforce, Samsung, Verizon, AT&T, Snap, and Facebook. The company was founded in March 2019 by CEO Ivan Tsybaev and is Sunnivale, Calif.-based. Recent fundraising and product plans are positioned to support continued growth and scaling of its offering.

Led · Equity · Apr 2022

Mirai Flights operates a mobile app for instant booking of chartered private jets, matching supply and demand and leveraging empty flight legs to improve efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. The platform is available in 63 countries and works with eight private airlines, allowing users to book flights of up to €300,000 in one click. Mirai’s pricing engine calculates costs using operator data, three years of European flight activity, and point-of-departure demand. The company originally came out of Georgia and is now based in London. Mirai plans to use new funding to scale across the U.K., Europe, the United Arab Emirates and the CIS states. CEO Irakli Litanishvili projects the company will target 4% of a market he estimates at up to 300,000 commercial private flights a year in the U.K. and Europe, aiming for 12,000 flights in 2023, 150 connected jets and expected turnover of $240 million.

Led · Equity · Apr 2022

Immigram is a London-based immigration platform that helps tech professionals and entrepreneurs through the full relocation journey, from visa applications to finding housing and opening bank accounts. It provides a B2B SaaS product for employers to attract and retain international talent and a B2C service with fixed pricing that the company says costs 50% less than traditional law firms and issues refunds for unsuccessful applications. Core features include a scoring system geared to the U.K. Global Talent Visa and a combination of legal advice with tech-enabled processes aimed at automating immigration. Since launching earlier this year, Immigram says it has helped 150 clients relocate. The founders, Anastasia Mirolyubova and Mikhail Sharonov, both relocated to the U.K. from Russia and designed the product around immigrants rather than specific countries. The company has raised $500,000 in a funding round and plans to build an end-to-end global mobility platform, including special services for Ukrainian IT specialists to move to the U.K.; it is backed by Hatchery (UCL's incubator).

Participated · Seed · Dec 2021

Educate Online operates a Lewse, DE-based platform that connects international students to schools in the US, UK and Canada and enables remote full- or part-time study. The platform offers 450+ subjects and, over the past 12 months, more than 2,500 students from 18 countries have enrolled through the service. Educate Online provides localized academic and personal counseling via an international team of experts and also offers optional on-campus summer or semester programs, university exploration tours, cultural/language travel and local meet-ups. The company has a partner network of more than 90 universities and in 2019 developed The Hub for online K-12 study, ESOL, career exploration, university preparation, and internship & mentorship programs. Tuition through Educate Online is roughly $5–10K, which the company says is 20–30 times lower than the cost of full-time education in US/UK/Canadian schools. The new capital will be used to scale in LATAM, Asia and the Middle East, develop its technology platform, and build a worldwide community of students.

Led · Equity · Nov 2021

Longevica operates an open research tool and dataset that tracks the effects of more than 1,000 pharmacological compounds to accelerate testing of longevity hypotheses. The company is also commercializing consumer products and in April launched a line of supplements derived from its research. Its internal study tested 1,033 compounds and showed significant life‑extension properties; the company is close to publishing a peer‑reviewed paper on that work. Longevica plans to test 300 of those compounds in a new study at Jackson Laboratory and will open applications in January for researchers to participate in a full‑scale pharmacological screening experiment beginning June 2022. The platform and database will be free and open source, with marked‑up mouse longevity experiment data and program code published on GitHub. Longevica got its start more than 11 years ago and is led by co‑founder and CEO Ainar Abdrakhmanov alongside co‑founder Dr. Alexey Ryazanov. Longevica is a longevity biotech that spent 11 years researching supplements and building a biotechnology platform based on long‑lived mouse studies. The platform is based on work by scientist Alexey Ryazanov, who holds 10 U.S. patents in the field. Using 20,000 long‑lived female mice and a screen of 1,033 drugs from 62 pharmacological classes, the company identified five substances that increased lifespan by 16–22%: Inulin, Pentetic Acid, Clofibrate, Proscillaridin A and D‑Valine. Longevica says it will produce medicines, dietary supplements and food products and plans to launch its supplements later this year. The company has attracted investor capital and positions its products against a rapidly growing market for older adults, a point emphasized by CEO Ainar Abdrakhmanov.