Bohdan Svyrydov

Investing at Horizon Capital (Growth) & (VC) | Preply, Yope, Cargofy, Influ2, Carmoola, Fintech Farm, GRAI, Streamline, Embedd, Arn Autonomy

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

@_AlexMenn Great stuff

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

My portfolio company @cargofy just launched Cargofy 2.0, and with it Architect: an AI that does the job of a forward-deployed engineer.

Complex software is moving toward personalisation, and this summer much of that conversation focused on forward-deployed engineers, people who embed with each customer and fit the product to how it works. Cargofy took a different route and built that role into the product.

Now Architect learns how a logistics company works from public sources and interviews with its leadership, then sets up the platform around that operation. After setup, the team requests changes in plain words, via text or voice, and Architect builds them. Cargofy`s AI agents then take the routine off the team: calling carriers, quoting rates, chasing documents, tracking loads.

Congrats to @staaakh and the team on the launch!

If you work in logistics, you can see it live on November 5: https://t.co/vKawsHDmHw

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

Excited to invest in PixelCrew via u.venturеs!

Founded and led by @dzaporozhets (co-founder of GitLab) and Andriy Dyadyura (ex-Apple, GitLab, Mixpanel and Product Hunt), PixelCrew brings together a crew of AI design agents trained by design veterans to help you create high-quality web pages and mobile app designs—simply by describing what you want in a prompt. It is built with a focus on design quality, not just speed.

Try PixelCrew: https://t.co/2XDnkdxxpk

Alongside my core focus on tech growth investments and Horizon Capital’s portfolio, I continue actively investing in Ukrainian startups from pre-seed to Series A+ via u.venturеs ($200k–$5m tickets; I make around 5–6 investments annually), so please feel free to reach out.

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

Excited to announce our investment in Embedd through u.venturеs as part of the $2.7 million pre-seed round led by Seedcamp.

AI has enormous potential in the physical world, but intelligent machines rely on chips from many different manufacturers, creating a major integration bottleneck. Engineers still need to write extensive custom code by hand to connect each chip to the software layer.

Founded by Ukrainian entrepreneurs Michael Lazarenko, Maxim Gorinov and Valentin Gololobov, Embedd is building the infrastructure to solve this problem. Its platform creates digital twins of chips and uses AI agents to automate integration, helping manufacturers deliver production-ready chip software up to 6x faster.

The platform is already live with Microchip Technology, with Zephyr support among its first integrations.

Congratulations to the team! Glad to join @seedcamp and a strong group of co-investors on this journey.

https://t.co/TUUR5zUnRj

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

I'm heading to Stanford for the AI, Innovation and Growth Program, delivered by Stanford Graduate School of Business and Endeavor Ukraine.

The program compresses Stanford's executive learning into five intensive days. But the curriculum is only part of the value.

What I'm looking forward to most is the people: around 160 founders and key leaders from across the world learning side by side on one campus, including both a global cohort and a dedicated Ukrainian cohort.

P.S. I'll be in the Bay Area from August 16 - 23. If you'll be there, I'd love to meet in person.

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

@BahramIsmailov @northzoneVC https://t.co/YCwovKsv1T

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

Congratulations to @BahramIsmailov , Paul Rudkouski, and the entire Yope team on raising a $12M round led by @northzoneVC — an early investor in Spotify and Klarna!

Glad to have been among the company’s early investors via https://t.co/UNBCQRbmol and to have witnessed the team’s exceptional strength and execution.

While social media has shifted towards algorithm-driven public entertainment, Yope is building the opposite: a private social network centred on genuine connections with friends and family — without algorithmic feeds or ads.

The traction speaks for itself: nearly 15 million registered users, 10–20 million pieces of content shared weekly, and more than half of users opening the app at least five days a week.

Excited for the company’s next chapter.

At Horizon Capital and https://t.co/UNBCQRbmol, we continue actively backing growth-stage and early-stage companies with Ukrainian roots, respectively. Feel free to reach out if we can be helpful.

More on the round in TechCrunch — link in the reply.

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

@cargofy https://t.co/X13MZTzJnA

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

Excited to share that https://t.co/UNBCQRbmol led @cargofy `s Series A, and I will be joining the company’s Board.

Cargofy is building AI workers for logistics — automating tendering, dispatch, load search, bidding, carrier communication, document processing, and other repetitive freight workflows.

The opportunity is big: logistics remains one of the world’s largest and most under-automated industries, where AI can unlock significant gains in efficiency and productivity.

This investment is also personal for me.

Before joining Horizon Capital and https://t.co/UNBCQRbmol, I was Cargofy’s advisor and introduced the previous round’s investors, including Flyer One Ventures, JKR, Murat Abdrakhmanov, Anton Borzov, and Mathias Eklöf.

At the time, I didn’t have a fund through which to invest myself — so I’m especially glad that this time I could finally back @stakh_vozniak , Alex Kovalchuk, Dimitris Alexiou, and the team as an investor.

Glad to see @MovensCapital , Toloka, and @destraynor joining the round with us.

Excited to support the company in this next chapter.

More on the round in EU-Startups — link in the replies.

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

@khoslaventures @flyerone_vc @grai_fm TechCrunch article on GRAI: https://t.co/FKQQ5BSPGE

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

Excited to have invested in GRAI through https://t.co/UNBCQRbmol, alongside @khoslaventures, https://t.co/K6rImm5YS2, @flyerone_vc and others.

While many AI music startups focus on generating songs from scratch, @grai_fm is taking a different approach: using AI to make music more interactive and social.

The idea is that fans should be able to remix tracks, change styles, play with music for fun, and share with friends inside GRAI’s apps — while artists and rights holders remain in control of how their work is used and can benefit from new royalty streams.

To power its social apps, GRAI has developed its own taste and participation graph, as well as the infrastructure to preserve the identity of original tracks while allowing them to be transformed.

GRAI’s founders previously built Vochi, the video-creation and editing app acquired by Pinterest.

Congratulations to @otsmth , @AndreiAvsievich , @dzimkar , and the whole team on this new chapter.

More on GRAI in TechCrunch — link in replies.

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

Tier 1 VCs generate high returns fund after fund, mostly lead rounds, win the most competitive deals while also backing non-consensus opportunities, and deploy capital from sizable funds with the ability to write meaningful tickets — they are not just well-known firms.

In Europe, that realistically leaves Index and probably Accel.

That said, Europe has many outstanding firms — from boutiques like Hummingbird, Point Nine, and 20VC to scaled platforms such as Creandum and Balderton.

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

@HarryStebbings No Replit? :)

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

@SebJohnsonUK @HarryStebbings Isn`t @20vcFund among the investors? Also, since it is a YC company, it is no wonder that most of the VCs on the company`s cap table are US.

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

@Baron_AlphaX Of course

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

Hardest part of being a VC scout?
Having little influence over actual investment decisions.

During my part-time scouting days, I sourced 3 startups at a very early stage that are now European unicorns, plus a number of others on a similar path — Daytona among them (see the bew round announcement below).

All were rejected by the European pre-seed & seed VC I was scouting for for “lack of traction.”
All later raised from top-tier US VCs.

Similar stories from other scouts at that VC.

In VC, early conviction in the team (most important) and its space beats traction, especially at pre-seed & seed.

Glad to see that more European VCs are recognizing this now.

[Matt Turck @mattturck]

Every human worker needs a computer. Soon, every AI agent will too, but not one: millions, provisioned instantly, securely isolated, and running in parallel.

Thrilled to be partnering with @ivanburazin (who didn't a break during the holidays), @JukicVedran and @daytonaio (+ @upfrontvc, @datadoghq, @figma, @PaceCap)

https://t.co/fV3sXFTWeh

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

I tried to determine whether the founding team was extraordinary enough to build a highly successful company in that space.

I looked for prior entrepreneurial, professional, academic, or even sporting achievements; depth of competence; clear market insight; ambition; and the ability to convincingly sell their vision.

[Bohdan Svyrydov @BogdanSvyrydov]

@HarryStebbings Higgsfield vs Luma