Arkady Kulik is the founder of Arkane a $21M fund writing $350K checks into what he calls hidden needs, three major problems science can already solve, but that most investors don't yet see. 

To find them, he's built an army of AI agents that surface 400-500 page deep reports on specific needs, run them through a nine-dimension judgment framework, and map thousands of potential solutions: patents, papers, stealth founders on LinkedIn. He calls it hunting. Most VCs farm or fish.

Before venture, Arkady built Thankyou, the largest digital music label in Russia, in his early 20s. Then became COO of VK.com, the country's biggest social network, where revenue crossed a billion dollars. He left in 2021 when the platform was effectively acquired by the Russian government. He started RPV shortly after, deploying a $7M Fund I before launching Arkane. 

His foundational principle is that you can't time a solution, but you can time a problem. For example, rather than betting on one Parkinson's company, Arkane builds 17-20 companies across surgery, vaccines, gene editing, and neuromodulation. If they're right about the need, they hit their unicorn.

What struck me throughout our conversation was how this fund is a genuine extension of who Arkady is. The vehicle is almost beside the point. He'd be doing this anyway, hunting for the scientists and founders who can speak both languages, and building the bridge between them.

Molly is the Founder and General Partner of Moth Fund, a pre-seed fund backing what she calls moth founders - intrinsically motivated builders driven by agency rather than ambition.

Molly grew up in Mendocino, a town of 1,000 people in Northern California. Her graduating class was five people. She left at 15 to study film, and eventually found her way to Figma, Notion, and Stripe Press - where her job was helping exceptional founders unearth what made them special.

Our conversation gets into the distinction between moths and butterflies. Butterflies are credentialed and legible from day one whereas Moths are harder to read.. building because they have to, not because they're chasing a title. Ivan of Notion is her canonical example. She saw that pattern early, and built a fund around it. Fund one was $4 million, $100k checks, 35 companies, and fund two is $25-30 million with $750K core checks, where she's now aspiring to lead rounds.

Her long game is bigger than the fund. YC legitimized young technical talent. The Thiel Fellowship legitimized dropouts. Molly thinks the moth archetype hasn't been legitimized yet - and that's what she's building toward.