As venture capitalists, we’re reminded every day how fortunate we are to get to work with some of the most ambitious, optimistic, and hardworking people in the world—people who commit some of the prime years of their lives to starting and running companies that ultimately aim to make people happy and make the world work better. These relationships between founders and VCs generally last for years (longer than many friendships and romances) and can become very intense, reflecting the high importance they hold in the lives of those involved.
We believe that for VC investors, as with startup founders, another set of incredibly important relationships is amongst the people with whom we choose to work every day: our partners and colleagues. In these people we aim to find a difference of perspective but commonality of values – a shared ethos and perhaps worldview, but shaped by different experiences. Getting this combination right is why it’s so hard to identify the right new partner for a VC firm, but when it works, the results can have an incredibly positive impact.
Over the last few years, Two Sigma Ventures has been focused on building out our team, across investing, portfolio company support, and operations. We have big ambitions for the continued growth of our firm and scale of our impact over the long term, and we want to ensure that we’re prepared to take advantage of the opportunities in front of us.
That is why we’re thrilled to announce that Villi Iltchev has joined our team as a partner.
Villi brings a wealth of experience as both an investor and an operator that we feel is a great complement to the rest of the Two Sigma Ventures team. He was most recently a partner at August Capital where he led a number of investments in early stage companies that we believe fit squarely with our thesis of investing in the next generation of companies harnessing data and advanced engineering. Prior to his work at August, Villi held operating roles at enterprise software companies Box and Lifelock, and investing and corporate development roles at Salesforce and HP. These experiences gave him deep enterprise software domain expertise and an understanding of how big companies interact with startups, as both customers and potential acquirers. Villi has spent the bulk of his career in the Bay Area, where he has built a strong network and reputation. On paper, we think he’s a great fit for Two Sigma Ventures.
But more importantly, we and Villi have devoted a lot of time this year just getting to know each other on a personal level, each looking for that optimal combination. A lot of it comes down to values. Two Sigma Ventures has a core set of values that we consider foundational to all our work: Stronger Together (a team rather than individual ethos); Humbly Open-Minded (recognizing how much we don’t know); Empathetic (the founder’s job is much harder than ours); and Challenging Convention (we can innovate how VC is done). We certainly don’t want each member of our team to think the same way; in fact we’d prefer they don’t. But we do want everyone on our team to embrace these values, and in Villi we think we have found someone for whom this way of operating was already standard practice.
As ambitious as Villi is, he understands the value of genuine, non-transactional relationships, and of interacting with people in a selfless way. As smart and thoughtful as Villi is, he is also tremendously self-aware and has high emotional intelligence about even his own blind spots. As hardworking as Villi is, he recognizes that a VC’s job is to support our founders, who have much more risk on the line than we do. And as accomplished as Villi has been to date, he shares our big ideas for how we can bring fresh thinking to venture capital.
Villi grew up in Bulgaria, before moving first to Greece and then to the U.S. as a teenager seeking to improve his opportunities in life. From what we have seen, he has built his career through hard work, intelligence, and a focus on helping those around him. Many of our founders (and, in fact, many of our team members) share elements of that story.
In another exciting development for Two Sigma Ventures, Villi will be based in San Francisco—the first member of our team located outside of NYC. He will continue to look at all kinds of investment opportunities, with an expected focus on the enterprise technology space in which he has been involved in for more than a decade.
We feel humbled and lucky to bring Villi onto the team. The opportunity to work with high-caliber people hungry to help build the companies and industries of the future is a privilege to those of us fortunate enough to do it. Moreover, to be able to add a colleague with Villi’s personal and professional characteristics, and to work with him on a daily basis, makes us all tremendously energized and excited.
