Exciting News – I’m Back in the Investing Game!
For the past 20 years, most of my time has been spent writing code. But, funnily enough, that’s not how I’ve put food on the table — at least not for the last decade. When I was a teen, I dragged my mother to a bank to open my first foreign currency accounts (she wasn’t thrilled). After turning 18, I got my license to invest globally, trading stocks, bonds, options, forwards, and, yes, even penny stocks, with a special love for deep-tech.
Now, you might think I had some grand plan, but really, I just stumbled through it at first. I wasn’t formally trained in finance, but I did know tech. And it turns out that having a developer’s view and scientific training helped me spot trends early — like AI infrastructure exploding with Mellanox and Nvidia chips or AMD rising with its Zen CPUs. That’s when I realized: having a deep technical background can give you a real edge in investing, especially in industries driven by innovation.
What surprised me, though, was how few investors were equipped with that technical insight. Over the years, I’ve spoken with hundreds of investors, and in less than 1% of cases did I face deep technical questions during due diligence! It made me realize that there’s a real opportunity to bring more technical rigor into venture capital, and I’m excited to be a part of that shift.
On the bright side, I’ve built incredible friendships with other founders and investors. And now, with the market looking a bit healthier, I’m thrilled to join my friends at Aloniq and AAL VC as a Venture Partner. My focus will be on finding the next big innovations in deep-tech — especially in software, bio, chemistry, and engineering.
If you’re working on something cool, feel free to ping me (@ashvardanian) here or on X. No pitch deck needed, just tell me what you’re building! 🤗
PS: The picture is me in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 2018, trying to stay positive after closing a huge out-of-money intra-day stock-options bet on AMD too early 🤦🏻
