Participated · Series B · Oct 2021

ClickHouse offers a high-performance, open-source columnar database that powers real-time analytics at massive scale, delivered both as self-managed software and the fully managed ClickHouse Cloud service. The platform emphasizes exceptional query speed, high concurrency, and cost efficiency, making it well-suited for customer-facing products and data-intensive AI systems. The company reports serving more than 3,000 customers on ClickHouse Cloud and achieving over 250 percent year-over-year ARR growth, with users such as Capital One, Sony, Tesla, Meta, and Airwallex. Recent strategic moves include acquiring Langfuse to add large-language-model (LLM) observability capabilities and launching a native, enterprise-grade Postgres service integrated with ClickHouse to unify transactional and analytical workloads. Product enhancements now support data lake formats like Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake, expanded full-text search, and lightweight updates to meet AI-driven application demands. ClickHouse continues global expansion through new partnerships in Japan and with Microsoft Azure, and it has hosted large community events across major tech hubs. The company positions itself as a unified data platform and AI observability layer for modern, real-time applications.

Participated · Equity · Aug 2019

Mel Science combines hands-on experiment kits with interactive VR simulations and live lessons to teach science to children. Its product line started with MEL Chemistry and has expanded to include a MEL Physics kit and MEL Kids STEM kits for children aged 5–10, while core offerings target ages 5–14. All micro-science kits include the tools to safely conduct experiments and can be supplemented with free science videos and DIY articles published by the company. Those videos and articles have been viewed over a billion times and helped grow an online community of more than 3 million followers. Since starting in 2015 under founder and CEO Vassili Philippov, Mel Science has expanded its range. The company secured $14M in Series B funding and intends to use the proceeds to develop its product offering and expand into new territories. MEL Science is an educational startup that provides virtual-reality chemistry experiments, striking visualizations, and a constructor-style interface for elements, as described in reader comments in the article. The vc.ru piece reports the company raised $6 million in a financing. Named investors include TMT Investments, Yandex, Sistema VC and other unspecified backers. Article comments describe the product as combining VR tests, visualizations and a constructor, while raising concerns about the depth of interactivity. Commenters note the platform appears to provide feedback and simulated reactions during experiments but question whether it can assess true learner understanding beyond tests. MEL Science has developed a platform for science lessons that combines VR/AR interactive visual lessons with hands-on experiments. Its first product, MEL Chemistry, is a B2C subscription service that pairs physical experiment kits with a VR-enabled iOS and Android app. The company also offers a B2B product for schools that delivers education programs using a simulation engine and molecular-level experiments to build fundamental understanding. MEL Chemistry is available in more than 30 countries and MEL Science provides its products to thousands of users in the USA and Europe across B2C and B2B sectors. Led by CEO Vassili Philippov, the company intends to expand into new science subjects and scale up sales in existing and new countries. MEL Science plans to use recent funding to support those expansion and scaling efforts. MEL Science operates an educational service that leverages virtual-reality technologies to deliver learning experiences. The vc.ru article reports an investment into the company by Sistema VC and unnamed partners. The investors put $2.2 million into MEL Science according to the report. The article does not disclose how the funds will be used or provide revenue, user, or other operating metrics. No information on the company’s founding year, past funding rounds, or headquarters is provided in the article. The article’s comment thread includes user remarks about VR safety but offers no additional company-specific operational details. MEL Science sells physical chemistry kits that pair with a mobile app and Google Cardboard VR headset to show 3D molecular models, macro photos and videos that explain experiments at the molecular level. Subscribers receive two new chemistry sets by mail each month at $49 per kit. The kits are sold direct to consumers in the U.K., U.S. and Russia, with typical buyers being parents, grandparents and homeschooling families. The app is available for iOS and Android and the company provides a Cardboard headset in its introductory kit. MEL Science was founded by CEO Vassili Philippov, who started the company after running home experiments for his children and previously co-founded SPB Software (acquired by Yandex in 2011). The startup has raised funding to expand its subscription commerce, VR content, kits and curriculum for use both at home and in schools.

Participated · Series B · Jun 2017

DOC+ operates an on-demand doctor service and telemedicine platform that lets Russian-speaking users book home visits via call centre, mobile app, or website. The closest available doctor accepts the order and visits the patient at home, offering consultations, prescriptions, sick notes, tests, ECGs, MRI referrals and other diagnostics. DOC+ also provides telemedicine consultations via chat, audio and video calls, plus personalized services like digital health records and personal doctor subscriptions. It serves Moscow and Saint Petersburg, with another Russian city planned for 2018. With new telemedicine legislation approved by the Russian government and pending parliamentary review, DOC+ aims to expand its range of remote services. The company was founded in August 2015 and has previously raised seed funding from business angels and a $5.5M Series A from Yandex and Baring Vostok.

Led · Series A · May 2014

SalesPredict provides a predictive-analytics product that grades prospects A–D and recommends the best pitch, likely pain points, vertical, and buying persona. The product ingests past deal outcomes plus web data (Wikipedia, Google and Yahoo APIs), public social profiles, and commercial lists from providers such as Alexa and ZoomInfo. It currently ships as a Salesforce.com plug-in available on the Salesforce AppExchange, with a Marketo version announced as coming soon. The company was founded by CEO Yaron Zakai-Or and CTO Kira Radinsky and is roughly two years old. SalesPredict is based in Israel and has opened an office in San Francisco. The company recently closed financing to expand sales and marketing and to scale the business. SalesPredict builds a SaaS predictive analytics platform aimed at sales and marketing teams that scores leads and helps prioritize follow-up. Its algorithms, developed by CTO Kira Radinsky (formerly of Microsoft Research), are tightly integrated with the Salesforce AppExchange. The service enriches leads with Salesforce data, social data and external sources such as Alexa and data.com. SalesPredict analyzes past data to characterize attributes of productive leads and updates its models over time to reflect changes in the lead pool. The company plans to make its app available on AppExchange in the next few weeks. It recently raised $1M in seed funding to support development and go-to-market efforts.

Participated · Equity · Sep 2011

Blekko is a search engine that launched last year and differentiates itself with Slashtags—query refinement tools (e.g., /news, /date, /amazon, /blogs) that let human editors filter results. The product emphasizes aggressive spam removal, having banned pages from known content farms and blocked pages from approximately 1.1 million domains. Blekko indexes roughly 3.5 billion URLs and integrates social data and Facebook comments into results, with plans under consideration to integrate Twitter data. The company has signed partnerships with Topix, DuckDuckGo and Foodily. Financially, Blekko has raised a total of $55 million to date. Yandex’s involvement is positioned to help the company grow its product and talent access. Blekko is a search engine that kept a placeholder name it created while operating in stealth. The team has avoided heavy publicity and hasn’t turned on a large hype machine. The company was described as quietly doing its thing and growing nicely despite earlier search startup failures such as Cuil. Ashton Kutcher invested in the company, bringing some Hollywood attention. Financially, Blekko has raised around $25 million in a mix of debt and equity capital to date. The article does not detail product roadmaps or specific operating metrics. Blekko is developing a stealth search engine and has remained in private launch mode while refining its product. The company recently closed a $2.5 million inside round led by existing investors USVP and CMEA Ventures. That financing brings Blekko's total capital raised to $20 million. CEO Rich Skrenta said the team is taking its time to launch the product. In the meantime, the company is hiring aggressively. No revenue, user, founding year, or location details are provided in the article. Blekko is a stealth search engine that has been covered since early 2008. The company raised a third round of financing, $11.5 million, from USVP and CMEA. That brings total capital raised to $17.5 million, including a $1 million credit line. Their last round was in March 2008. Blekko has asked for no press while it continues to bake the product. TechCrunch reported there appears to be "something interesting under the hood" and noted the search space is difficult but financially large for a successful entrant. Blekko is a stealth search company founded by Topix co-founder Rich Skrenta. Little is publicly known about its product; its website currently shows only a puppet photo. The company appears to aim at competing with or finding niches outside of Google in search. Blekko has attracted investor interest, raising $3 million in a second round at a $23 million post-money valuation. Prior to this it raised a $2 million seed round. Investors in the latest round include Marc Andreessen, SoftTech VC and Western Technology Investment.