Seed investment firm Hummingbird VC, which previously invested in Deliveru, Peak Games, MarcaVIP, and Kraken, has a new management partner. Firat Ellery, the previous partner – who became Europe’s youngest vice-chancellor at the age of 28 – joined in 2012 -, has taken over from the company’s partner Berend van den Brand, who will now take on a more strategic role at the firm. Ellery grew up in Cyprus and went to MIT to study electronic engineering, computer science, and operations research. At Hummingbird, he led the firm’s first investments in Latin America and Southeast Asia.
Ellery initially introduced the co-founder of Village Games, led their first investment, and helped the company get out of Zinga for half a billion dollars. He also led the sales process for the Peak Games in 2020, which stood at $1.8 billion and made history as the largest technology exit in Turkey so far. Founded in 2010, Hummingbird currently stands on top of the $200 million Fourth Fund, which was raised in 2020 and says it, has invested in Europe, India, Southeast Asia, Latam, Turkey, and more recently in the United States.
Hummingbird’s first investment in firat most recent engineering biology, SF-based precision diagnostic firm in prenatal and liquid biopsy space has invested in Billionaire, which has scored $55 million in Series B goals. It has also invested in Cornell Biology, an MRNA 2.0 therapeutics company focused on oncology. Van den Brand says:
In the very early days of Hummingbird, he ran and hit the ground from the moment he joined us back. His vision for unique and ambitious founding teams and his understanding of what seed investment, perseverance, and truly early-stage Company’s need, has become an invaluable resource to Hummingbird and all of the organizations we work with. I am simply satisfied that Firat took on this role and was able to lead the Hummingbird family and portfolio for the next few years.
Ellery said the firm’s thesis was to invest in standout founders: “We’re spending a lot of time trying to understand who these people are and what makes them special. Somehow, we’re looking for inconsistencies between people and we believe the best companies are nonlinear backgrounds. So, this is the thesis.”
