Firat Ileri is a Cypriot-born, MIT-trained engineer turned venture capital investor at Hummingbird VC who deliberately seeks out weird founders and outsiders with non-linear backgrounds, having built a track record by backing people who were made fun of at school, obsessive gamers, or those with unconventional journeys rather than polished CVs. As a 24-year-old associate, he went far beyond typical VC behavior by personally introducing co-founders, investing his own savings, hiring employees, and pulling all-nighters with teams like Gram Games, which became a multi-fund returner after its sale to Zynga.

• Deep involvement in the mobile gaming sector, particularly focusing on studios originating from Turkey and expanding globally. He celebrated the massive acquisition of portfolio company Peak by Zynga as a major milestone, highlighting that his firm had been invested since the pre-seed stage, and frequently mentions the success of other studios like Gram Games.
• Support for fintech infrastructure and business tools, with a distinct preference for startups operating in emerging markets like Southeast Asia and India. He highlighted the fundraising success of Aspire, a financial operating system for Southeast Asian businesses, and Khatabook, which helps merchants in India digitize their bookkeeping.
• A growing focus on deep tech, biotechnology, and health diagnostics. He actively promoted the work of BillionToOne regarding their development of high-throughput testing protocols and explicitly called for early-stage founders working on diagnostics and therapeutics to pitch him for rapid funding decisions.
• Interest in large-scale consumer marketplaces and logistics networks. He tracks the progress of major platforms like Deliveroo in the food delivery space and celebrated the rapid growth of Frontier Car Group, an emerging markets car auction startup, noting their progress shortly after their seed round.
• Attention to the crypto and blockchain space, specifically looking at infrastructure and real-world utility. He shared news about Kraken acquiring Crypto Facilities and pointed out practical use cases for cryptocurrency, such as when Uber switched to Bitcoin in Argentina due to government credit card restrictions.
• A clear preference for high-conviction, pre-seed, and seed-stage investing where speed is a differentiator. He emphasizes his willingness to move fast, noting in one instance that his firm could write checks within 24 hours over video calls, and prides himself on backing unicorns from their very first funding rounds.