Leo Polovets
Leo Polovets is a venture capitalist who was an early engineer at LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry, later co-founded the seed fund Susa Ventures, and is a general partner at Humba Ventures, a fund focused on deep tech and defense tech.
Contents8 sections
Key facts
2003–2005Early Engineer at LinkedIn
According to the About page of his blog Coding VC, he worked at LinkedIn from 2003 to 2005 as the company’s second non-founding engineer, contributing to early versions of LinkedIn Groups and LinkedIn Jobs and implementing some core graph algorithms.[1]
2005–2009Working at Google
The same page says he then worked at Google from 2005 to 2009, mainly on real-time payment fraud detection.[1]
2009–2012Working at Factual
From 2009 to 2012, he worked at the location data platform Factual, where, by his account, he built an in-memory distributed search engine and much of the data cleaning pipeline.[1]
From 2012: Co-Founding Susa Ventures
December 12, 2024Humba Ventures Closes a $40 Million Second Fund
On December 12, 2024, TechCrunch reported that Humba Ventures had raised $40 million to invest in deep tech and defense tech startups; the report described Humba as a sister firm to Susa Ventures, with him serving as a general partner at Humba while being a co-founder of Susa, and said the two funds share resources such as software discounts and marketing.[3]
In a blog post published the same day, he described it as Humba’s oversubscribed second fund, focused on deep tech and “American Dynamism,” and noted that the first fund had backed companies including Antares, WindBorne and Mytra.[4]
As of October 2026: General Partner at Susa Ventures and Humba Ventures
According to his Substack profile, he is a general partner at Susa Ventures and Humba Ventures, with investment interests including business software, deep tech and sectors critical to the United States’ future; on that platform he runs the blog Coding VC, which writes about venture capital from an engineer’s perspective.[5][1]
Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts
Susa Ventures: Official website: https://www.susaventures.com/ (opens in a new window)[3]
Humba Ventures: Public link: https://blog.humbaventures.com/ (opens in a new window)[5]
Personal website: Public link: https://www.codingvc.com/ (opens in a new window)[1]
LinkedIn: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lpolovets/ (opens in a new window)[2]
Sources
- About - Coding VC (opens in a new window)
- Going From Operator to Funder with Leo Polovets (opens in a new window)
- Humba Ventures raises $40M fund to invest in deep tech, defense tech (opens in a new window)
- Humba II: Doubling Down on Deep Tech (opens in a new window)
- Leo Polovets | Substack (opens in a new window)