arkady kulik / arkane

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.