Draft:Flyer One Ventures

Flyer One Ventures (also known as F1V) is an international venture capital firm, founded in 2018 by its General Partner Vital Laptenok.. The company is headquartered in London, UK, and has offices in Kyiv and Warsaw. Flyer One Ventures focuses on startups from the CEE region and invests in B2B & Enterprise SaaS, EdTech, mobile apps, games, FoodTech, and other startups at Seed and Series A stages.

History
In November 2018, the venture capital firm was founded and invested under the name Genesis Investments, as a Corporate Venture Capital of international IT-holding Genesis. Genesis is known for founding and developing global tech startups, some of which became corporate spin-offs, such as Jiji, BetterMe, Appflame, Headway, and Solidgate. Co-founder and CEO of Genesis Vladimir Mnogoletniy is also a Partner at Flyer One Ventures.

In September 2021, the firm made the rebranding, changed its name, website, and logo, and became known as Flyer One Ventures, named after Wright brother's first airplane Flyer 1. In the first 3 years since inception, Flyer One Ventures invested $20 million in 24 startups, participating in rounds with Andreessen Horowitz, EBRD, Y Combinator, and 500 Global.

In December 2021, the Flyer One Venture's portfolio startup VOCHI was acquired by the US image sharing and social media service Pinterest, marking the VOCHI startup as the first Flyer One Venture's exit.

Investment
The firm invests in startups founded by CEE founders, including Ukrainian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Finish, Portugal-based, and UK-based teams.

2019-2020
In 2019, Flyer One Ventures was a lead investor in IntellectoKids and Mate academy rounds. In July 2019, the firm backed a tech startup in the pharma retail industry Liki24.com, leading the round together with TA Ventures, founded by Viktoriya Tigipko. In 2020, Flyer One Ventures backed PromoRepublic, RedTrack, and Allright. In October 2020, the firm invested in tech media Hacker Noon, the first American startup in its portfolio.

2021
In 2021, Flyer One Ventures portfolio company Accel Club, Amazon businesses aggregator, raised $170 million round. In November 2021, the firm's portfolio startup Chipper Cash became a unicorn after raising $150M in C round from FTX with over $2B valuation, becoming the first unicorn in the F1V portfolio. In August 2021, Flyer One Ventures led the round of Estonian math platform 99math. Also, the firm participated in Prodly round led by Leta Capital, and joined 3DLOOK, Awesomic, and Allset funding.

2022
In 2022, Flyer One Ventures and Solid led $7.4 million round of Fintech Farm startup, co-founded by Dmytro Dubilet. In January 2022, Flyer One Ventures backed digital skills school Kodland in $9 million Series A round. In February 2022, the firm supported Greenscreens.AI round led by Tiger Global, joined the $2 million funding of Ukrainian freight broker Cargofy, and participated in pre-seed round of AI-powered writing tool Linguix.

Programs and partnerships
In March 2021, Flyer One Ventures launched a program of support for Ukrainian and Belarusian startups claiming the promise to invest $100,000 in each of the startups from Ukraine and Belarus that will enter Y Combinator

In April 2022, Flyer One Ventures launched a 20 Startups with Ukrainian Founders to Invest In initiative to support 20 selected Ukrainian startups suffered from the consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.