Polina Kyriushko‘s story begins with a passion for physics that led her to excel in international Olympiads and earn a scholarship to study in the United States. However, Polina’s ambitions extended beyond academia.
During college, she founded a nonprofit organisation in Ghana, driven by her desire to address educational inequality. Witnessing the financial struggles of children in Ghana, she devised an innovative solution: a business model that provided fair wages to local producers while funding education in the community.
Though her social enterprise eventually ended, Polina’s journey continued with a transition into investment banking and later into a strategy role at a cybersecurity company.
During this time, her desire for a closer connection to products grew stronger, leading to her eventual move to HG Capital, the largest software investor business in Europe.
For the past three years, she has been immersed in the world of private equity funds, leveraging her experiences to make strategic investments and contribute to the growth of software companies.
Today, however, Polina is here to speak about her latest venture in the world of AI: her recently launched company, Edge Connect AI.
Edge Connect AI: Mission and Market Opportunity
Could you provide us with an overview of Edge Connect AI’s mission and the problem it aims to solve?
Edge Connect AI is a portfolio analytics platform for private investment markets.
While public equity funds have successfully automated and leveraged data throughout the investment lifecycle, the private markets segment has notably lagged due to the challenges in obtaining data from private companies.
To address this gap, we have developed a solution that directly fetches data from these companies, utilises AI to transform this data into actionable insights, and enables private equity funds to enhance their value-creation strategies.
PwC’s Private Equity Survey indicated that 54% of private equity firms still use email attachments to collect data from portfolio companies. We are here to change this with Edge Connect AI.
The Changing Investment Landscape
How do you perceive the current tech landscape, particularly regarding investment opportunities and funding challenges?
We are enduring the toughest fundraising environment for the private equity industry in the modern era.
Over recent years, General Partners (GPs) have amassed a historically high number of portfolio companies. With higher interest rates, overall economic uncertainty, and increased competition in the private equity industry, PE firms must rethink their operating models and how they drive value creation.
The old playbook of financial engineering is no longer sufficient, so investors are increasingly focusing on active value creation.
Today, the private equity space is undergoing a significant transformation, presenting numerous opportunities for new vendors to enter the market.
HG Capital, my former employer, has been at the forefront of this shift by focusing on enhancing internal data science capabilities. This strategic move demonstrates a commitment to innovation and staying competitive in a rapidly evolving industry landscape.
Internally, we hope that 2023 marked the bottom of the market cycle, but an important lesson must be learned. There is a clear need for agility, technological innovation, and increasing data transparency in private equity, which is precisely the solution we aim to deliver with Edge Connect AI.
Positioning Edge Connect AI in a Competitive Market
With your experience in strategy and M&A, how do you envision Edge Connect AI positioning itself in the market?
I firmly believe we are at an inflection point where data management and AI solutions will disrupt every industry.
The private equity space is embarking on a transformation journey, creating significant opportunities for new vendors to enter the market.
The Edge Connect AI team combines industry expertise with technical capability to lead this journey.
I come from the private equity investment space, having faced the data challenge firsthand, and my team brings experience in building software for financial markets and leveraging AI for data management.
I am also greatly inspired by my former CEO, Ondrej Vlcek at Avast (now Gen), who built a global data privacy and security market leader that protects customers throughout their digital journey.
These topics are highly relevant for Edge Connect AI as we handle customers’ private and sensitive data.
Building the Company: Early Stages
With the company only a few months old, what have been the most exciting aspects and biggest challenges?
From my perspective, the most exciting part of our journey so far has been the customer discovery stage.
Speaking with hundreds of potential customers helped us understand their pain points and confirmed that we had uncovered a strong value proposition for the market.
This stage gave us invaluable insights into what our target audience truly needs and laid the foundation for product development.
Building our team has been the most challenging but also the most rewarding part.
Meeting my co-founder Matthew Kordonowy at university was a stroke of luck, as our career paths naturally aligned.
Our first connection in 2013 came while we were working on separate projects supporting schools in Ghana and Guatemala through nonprofit apparel businesses. That shared experience created a unique bond that later became the foundation for our collaboration.
The stars aligned when I decided to build a product for private equity and Matthew, who had spent the last decade spearheading a European franchise for DealCloud, the largest financial CRM vendor serving the same clientele, crossed paths with me again.
Our venture was formed when Matthew and I joined forces, and Matthew recruited Jake, our Head of Engineering and data expert.
The next step was finding the right Chief Technology Officer. I reviewed more than 400 candidates to identify the right match, evaluating experience, drive, personal ethics, and entrepreneurial mindset.
After a rigorous selection process, we were thrilled to welcome Arnaud Blois. With his experience leading developer teams at Goldman Sachs and 7Bridges, along with his strong vision and energy, we are confident he is the ideal fit for our startup.
Attracting and Retaining Talent
What is your strategy for attracting top talent in a competitive landscape?
We are fortunate to have strong fundamentals and a complementary skillset within the founding team.
As we grow, our strategy is to leverage our company culture and mission to attract individuals who are looking not just for a job but for purpose.
We aim to foster a culture of inclusion and innovation, while enhancing a sense of ownership through equity incentives.
One of my personal priorities is actively seeking female talent to join the team and help ensure diversity and balance as we grow.
Lessons from Investment Banking
What lessons from investment banking have shaped your approach to building a company?
The first lesson is to treat people well.
This builds trust, strengthens reputation, improves loyalty, and enhances collaboration.
The second lesson is to be a customer-first company.
Your product-market fit and your value proposition both depend on prioritising customer needs and experiences. Only through continuous dialogue and feedback can businesses refine their products and services to meet evolving market demands.
The third lesson is the importance of data and automation.
Drawing from my experience at HG, I saw the transformative impact of investing in strong data science capabilities. By working closely with portfolio companies, the team uncovered insights that drove significant value creation.
In today’s environment of fluctuating interest rates and increasing competition, traditional profit sources are no longer as accessible.
Achieving a competitive advantage now requires harnessing the power of data and technology, enabling businesses to adapt more effectively and sustain long-term growth.
Summary
As Polina continues to write the next chapter of her career journey, one thing is clear: her story should inspire female technology leaders across the globe.
Through passion, perseverance, and a commitment to making a difference, Polina is helping shape the future of technology while leaving a meaningful impact on the world.
