S16VC: Venture Capital Driven by Community

Raison recently hosted a private webinar with S16VC’s founders, Oleg Bibergan and Alex Shamis. In this article, we break down the highlights of the meeting and explore how a community of tech entrepreneurs became the fund’s most valuable asset.

People and Vision

Oleg Bibergan brings 13 years of experience from Goldman Sachs, where he spearheaded investments in leading tech companies across the CIS, including Tinkoff, DST, CIAN, and Kaspi. Alex Shamis is a serial entrepreneur with four companies and four successful exits under his belt, having scaled businesses to over 1,500 employees.

S16 is built on a conviction both partners verified through their own careers: the best deals go to a founder’s best friends long before they ever hit the open market. This belief gave rise to a fund centered around a community 15 years in the making.

We believe the greatest predictor of success is the founder. And the best deals are offered to their inner circle before the broader market even hears about them.

Oleg Bibergan

Inside the Fund’s Engine

The S16 pipeline is exclusively focused on inbound deals via recommendations. Currently, the fund receives over 200 referrals per year — four times as many as during its first fund. Despite the increased volume, the number of deals remains disciplined at 10–15 per year, ensuring the quality of selection continues to sharpen.

When evaluating a founder, S16 applies three critical filters:

• Clarity: If a founder cannot explain their business model on a napkin, it’s a red flag.
• Speed: In the AI era, companies scale in weeks. Slow iteration equals defeat.
• Unique Market Insight: What does this founder know that the competition doesn't?

The Investment Committee consists of founders who have built and scaled major companies, with decisions made by a qualified majority. To maintain agility, the team has automated all routine tasks. S16 operates on a proprietary system that aggregates correspondence, call recordings, and contacts. AI agents sit on top of this data to log interactions, draft emails, and source key personnel.

Our strategic work is talking to people. Everything else should be automated.

Alex Shamis

Performance That Speaks for Itself

The metrics of S16 are not the result of "lucky bets" but the output of a finely tuned machine. According to Carta, both S16 funds consistently rank in the top 10% of venture funds globally.

• Fund I (2021–2022 Vintage): Currently delivering a 1.6x multiple, with key assets continuing to scale.
• Fund II: Reached 2.3x in three years; the 2023–2024 cohorts are already showing a 3.1x return.

A staggering 87–90% of startups from the 2023–2024 cohorts have successfully raised one or more institutional rounds following S16’s investment. This is a testament to a systematic approach rather than a random hit.

Portfolio Highlights:

• Synthesia: A leader in AI video generation; ARR ~$170M, valuation $4B.
• Oyster: Valued at $1.1B.
• Perplexity: ARR ~$400M (stake acquired via an exit of another portfolio company).
• Finom: Fintech player; 3x return with projected 2026 revenue exceeding $100M.
• Techr: AI robotics; entered at a €3M valuation, currently seeing a 34x markup in two years.
• Dwelly: Reached £30M in revenue within two years, yielding a 7x return on invested capital.

The Power Behind the Fund

The quality of the fund is validated not just by its returns but also by the heavyweights backing it.

• Anchor Investor: Sequoia Capital — the Tier-1 firm that backed Apple, Google, and WhatsApp. Sequoia increased its commitment to S16’s second fund tenfold, which is the ultimate marker of trust and asset quality.
• Limited Partners: Yuri Milner (founder of DST Global), Leonid Boguslavsky (early investor in Yandex and Datadog), and the founders of Atomico, NFX, and Iconic Capital.
• General Partner: Andrey Khusid, founder of Miro.

This is more than financial backing. These individuals source deals, serve as mentors, share deep expertise, and co-invest alongside the fund.

How to Participate via Raison

S16 is currently closing its third fund with a $100M target — over half of which is already committed. The GP commitment stands at $6M, triple the market norm, signaling that the team is putting significant personal "skin in the game."

While direct entry into such funds typically starts at $5M, Raison bridges this gap. We provide our clients with the opportunity to access these elite deals with smaller ticket sizes of $200k, $300k, or $400k.

S16VC is a cornerstone of our "fund of funds" strategy, alongside Quantum Light Capital, IQ Capital, and DVC. We identify managers who are performing at the top of their respective markets and open the door for our clients to join them.

In my view, S16 is one of the best funds in the European landscape, and arguably, the world.

Andrey Berezin

Co-founder of Raison

Interested in participation terms? Please contact our expert to get a personal consultation.