One Way Ventures

🧠 The US needs to reframe its attitude towards immigration if it wants to avoid a self-inflicted brain drain. ❌ Our policy and rhetoric seeks to drive away immigrants, even though they’re disproportionately responsible for US innovation and AI development. 🎓 We’re losing foreign graduates and young talent to countries with more welcoming immigration policies. ➗ At the same time, our internal education standards have been falling. 💡 That’s bad news for US innovation, foreign investment, and its future standing in the global race in AI, semiconductors and more. This is why the US’s skill level, innovation and economic prosperity over the next 20 years are so closely intertwined with immigration. ⬇️

🇺🇲 If Kamala Harris wins the Democratic nomination, the next #president will be the child of immigrants, regardless of who wins in November. Kamala Harris was born to a Tamil Indian biologist who moved to the United States as a student in the 1950s. Her father was born in British Jamaica, and also moved to the United States for study in the 1960s. Donald Trump’s mother was born in Scotland, in a Gaelic-speaking household, and migrated to the US as a young woman. His father was born in the Bronx to German #immigrants, and grew up speaking German. And yet, Trump’s hostile stance on immigration is clear, and he’s vowing to deport millions if he wins. Harris, if she follows the current direction of the administration - including their asylum ban - will likely seek to reduce #immigration and dissuade foreigners from arriving. We’re not the first nor the last to say this, but as a nation of immigrants, we need to revisit how we talk about immigrants, treat our immigrants, and show appreciation for our immigrants. Our political class knows - even if they won’t recognize it - that we still rely heavily on immigrants for #economicgrowth, innovation and labor. Within 20 years, US population growth will be driven solely by immigration. We hope that the next few months and years will see a change in political rhetoric and action towards the immigrant community.

👩🏽🚀 Boeing’s Starliner astronauts should have been back on Earth 1 month ago. The aerospace giant’s continued failings on this manned launch are a sign that the #space industry needs more competition - and #startups are beginning to fill that void. In this latest video, our Founding Partner Semyon Dukach explores how space startups are accelerating innovation in the sector. He answers the question: which are the 3 areas of greatest potential for space startups vs. national space agencies? 📲 Telecommunications (e.g. consumer-grade satellite communications, such as Lynk) 🏗️ Infrastructure (e.g. refueling, navigation companies like Momentus) 🧪 Science services (e.g. labs on satellites - see Odyssey SpaceWorks) If you’d like to learn more, watch the video below and reach out!

🚀 A few years ago it may have been unthinkable that #NATO, #NASA and other international and government organizations would be turning to scrappy #startups to fill tech voids in defense, space, #AI and more. 💡 But that’s now happening, explains Semyon Dukach, our Founding Partner, in his most recent op-ed for TNW of the Financial Times. ⚖️ So much ethical responsibility is now being placed at the feet of startup #founders - more likely to be tech bros than experienced decision-makers with legal, ethical, or political training. It’s our responsibility to make sure these startups advance ethically and responsibly, no matter who’s at the helm. Semyon’s article explores how founders can make structural and personal decisions to set ethical lines in the sand and make their technology a force for good, not evil. ⬇️ Read the article for more - link in the comments below!

🇺🇦 One Way Ventures is proud to be joining the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA)! 🤝 The UVCA has been bolstering the local ecosystem since 2014, promoting local #investment opportunities and building international ties. Our founder Semyon Dukach fled the Soviet Union as a child, settling in the United States in 1979. He met his wife in #Ukraine and has always maintained close ties to the country, funding some of Ukraine’s most successful #startups over the years. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, within a few hours Semyon and his wife were booking AirBnB apartments across the border for those fleeing, and within two days they had flown to the Romanian border and were handing families cash in hand to figure out their next steps. Their initiative became the non-profit Cash For Refugees, which has since helped 16,000+ families and distributed over $2M in aid. This August, they will be holding a Ukraine Leadership Program for young women who've been internally displaced. Some of the Ukrainian-led companies Semyon has invested in include DRESSX and Preply. ⬆️ Ukrainian startups increased in value by 703% between 2017 and 2022. We believe the country will emerge from this turbulent period with drive and determination, and that the resilience it has shown the world during the war will give rise to a vibrant business and startup hub in years to come. We’re looking forward to furthering our support for local #entrepreneurs and citizens through our UVCA membership. If you’re involved in Ukraine’s startup ecosystem, reach out!

We’re glad to see our Entrepreneur-in-residence Masha Levin joining the University of Southern California’s Mentor Series for student and alumni founders looking to gain skills from expert entrepreneurs. Masha will be offering guidance on how to fundraise in today’s uncertain VC landscape for participants at the Greif Incubator at USC Marshall School of Business. As our EIR, Masha has been offering vital support to our portfolio startups, drawing on her own experience as a founder and investor to help them scale, fundraise, and stay sane in the process. If you want to talk to her about the kind of mentorship we offer founders, or the networks we build to support other immigrant entrepreneurs, send us a message!

🏁 We’re proud to see KarmaCheck close a $45M Series B as they revolutionize how companies conduct background checks! 🌱 One Way Ventures has been following KarmaCheck’s journey since investing in their seed round in 2020. 🔎 The company is building an AI-forward platform for accurate background checks, credentialing and compliance that delivers results 3x faster than others on the market. 👥 Recently we invited KarmaCheck’s co-founder and CEO Eric Ly - also co-founder of LinkedIn - to our Pathfinder Collective, where immigrant #founders of billion-dollar companies connect with early-stage #immigrant founders to give them a leg up into the #startup world. Can’t wait to hear more about what the team does next!

#Independence was a war fought for freedom of self-determination. We should remember that today in the way we treat #immigrants coming to the United States. While #Trump and #Biden “debate” immigration and their golf swing in the same breath, the country is rapidly moving towards an unsustainable situation: ⬇️ Declining birth rate 🎓 Worsening education 🇨🇦 Losing foreign talent to nations with more open borders, like Canada All while the #US tries to keep up with breakneck global tech races in AI, space exploration, semiconductors and more. The unmatched potential of immigrants is one of our best bets for the future. Many of our partners, friends and founders may never have settled in the US had the immigration policy at the time been as prohibitive as it is now. Today, only 1 in 10 foreign-born graduates from US universities remain in the US to live and work. As our founder Semyon Dukach said recently: “It feels like the country has forgotten the American Dream and the values it was founded on, with dire consequences to come for the economy and businesses.” Hope this leaves people with something to reflect on today. 🇺🇸 #July4

Reflecting on last night’s presidential debate, here’s a message to both candidates: severely limiting people entering the US will end up damaging American #entrepreneurship in the long term. #Immigrants play an outsized role in US entrepreneurship and innovation. Despite making up only 14% of the total US population…: 📊 immigrants are responsible for 1 in 4 new employer businesses in the nation  🦄 have founded 55% of US unicorns 🤓 are responsible for almost 25% of all recent patents. If the US wants to keep being a competitive global power, it must embrace immigrants and recognize their value within the US economic system, especially if it wants to stay at the forefront of the #AI & tech race. Over the next decade, harsher immigration rules will inevitably push foreign entrepreneurs into the more welcoming arms of other nations. Competing global superpowers like #Canada are already poaching immigrant talent who studied in the US but find it impossible to settle in the country afterward. We see it everyday – immigrants are empirically more effective #entrepreneurs, and we are proud to stand on this hill and continue to demonstrate it. Here’s a question to other VCs and people in the startup world: what can we do better to enable entrepreneurial immigrants to build, innovate and break barriers inside the US? #Innovation #Startups #EconomicGrowth #FutureOfWork #Inclusion

Helm.ai is setting the standard in #autonomousdriving, and we are thrilled to see they recently celebrated the launch of VidGen-1! 🚗 Their #genAI model VidGen-1 produces highly realistic video sequences of driving scenes, crucial for autonomous driving development and validation. The new solution is trained on 1000s of hours of diverse driving footage, leveraging neural networks and deep teaching #technology to generate videos in various geographies, from multiple camera perspectives, and under different conditions. This enables rapid asset generation, reduces development time and cost, and enhances simulation-based training. Helm.ai is an advanced #AI software for high-end ADAS, Level 4 autonomous driving, and robotic #automation. We backed Vladislav Voroninski and the #HelmAI team on their journey in 2021 and look forward to what comes next. #Innovation #AI #GenerativeAI #Robotics Semyon Dukach