Datancoffee ~ Serhii Sokolenko

Serhii is the Founder and CEO of Tower.dev, a production platform for Python data applications, an angel investor in databases and data platforms, and a venture partner with a CEE deep tech fund Radix Venture Partners (he focuses on Ukraine and infra software).

In the past, he worked in product management at Databricks and Snowflake in Berlin and Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft in Seattle.

He also founded Cuesense, a startup for text analytics, and Greenline Legal, a legaltech startup, both based in Seattle.

His two most favorite things are Data and Coffee.

Investment Themes

Serhii invests small angel checks in data processing and database startups at Pre-Seed and Early Seed stages in US, Germany, Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics where:

(1) The product has a global appeal,

(2) The startup has at least some initial design partners who can speak to the product,

(3) Serhii’s background and experience can provide value that other investors cannot,

(4) The startup is organized or is planning to organize as a Delaware C Corp.

Why Ukraine?

“I have a preference for Ukraine-based or Ukrainian-founded startups.

I am originally from Ukraine and have been fortunate enough to receive good education in Europe and the US, and work for major US tech companies that define the Data + AI space today. I would like to contribute back to Ukraine and even the playing field for a nation that is still struggling to find its footing. Ukrainian tech professionals are very good, if I may say so, and they might be one of the best assets Ukraine has today.

What they lack is a bit of encouragement to start product companies, and a supply of capital and actionable advice.”

Why Serhii?

Prior to founding Tower.dev, Serhii co-founded two other product startups (text analytics and legal tech) and two IT consulting companies (BI and health tech). He also offers 15 years of experience in senior management at Databricks, Snowflake, Google, Amazon and Microsoft.

With Serhii’s angel investment you will get a shoulder to cry on (and, as a startup founder, crying you will), someone to celebrate your early successes with, and lots of unsolicited product strategy, pricing, cloud technology and guerrilla marketing advice. Serhii is also happy to share his connections in large US tech companies, when it makes sense.

How to contact

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You can also get in touch with Serhii via LinkedIn.

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