Ihar Mahaniok is Managing Partner of Geek Ventures in New York, which backs immigrant founders at pre-seed and seed. He has made 100+ angel investments since 2012, including pre-seed and seed checks into unicorns Instacart, PandaDoc, People.ai, Chainalysis, Airbyte, Jeeves and Invisible, with 15 exits. Before Geek he was VP of Engineering at Grid AI (now Lightning AI) and an engineering leader at WeWork. Business Insider named him a rising star of VC in 2023. He is also an LP in emerging VC funds.

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Ihar Mahaniok is Managing Partner of Geek Ventures in New York, which backs immigrant founders at pre-seed and seed. He has made 100+ angel investments since 2012, including pre-seed and seed checks into unicorns Instacart, PandaDoc, People.ai, Chainalysis, Airbyte, Jeeves and Invisible, with 15 exits. Before Geek he was VP of Engineering at Grid AI (now Lightning AI) and an engineering leader at WeWork. Business Insider named him a rising star of VC in 2023. He is also an LP in emerging VC funds.

Career

Board Member at Jome from 2024-01 to Present
Managing Partner at Geek Ventures from 2021-08 to Present in New York, NYPre-seed and seed fund for immigrant founders; now focused on AI companies in the US.
Seed Investor at Invisible Technologies from 2019-05 to PresentSeed investor; became his sixth unicorn from seed.
Limited Partner at Emerging VC funds from 2019 to Present
Pre-seed Investor at People.ai from 2016-04 to PresentInvested before the company joined Y Combinator.
Pre-seed Investor at PandaDoc from 2013-02 to PresentInvested in the first pre-seed round, when the company was called Quote Roller.
Seed Investor at Instacart from 2013-02 to PresentInvested in the seed round at a $20M valuation.
Angel Investor / Advisor at Empire Angels from 2012-07 to 2021-07 in New York, NY
VP of Engineering at Grid AI (Lightning AI) from 2020-06 to 2020-12 in New York, NYBuilt the engineering team, processes and culture for grid.ai.
Engineering Leader at WeWork from 2019-07 to 2020-06 in New York, NYLed WeWork Virtual Selling and WeWork Referrals (30+ people).
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Stock picking through people lens

Ihar's 2021 essay on judging companies by the people who build them.

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What to read about startups and investment

Ihar's reading list for founders and investors.

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Ihar's Collections

Ihar's Lists

In these lists

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