# Yigit Ihlamur

> Yigit Ihlamur is the co-founder and General Partner of Vela Partners, an AI-native quantitative venture capital firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area. A former Google Senior Program Manager and Oxford-trained AI researcher, he has pioneered the concept of 'Ventech' — using proprietary AI systems to evaluate and fund seed-stage AI founders at speed. Vela Partners issues $100K–$500K checks with commitments in 2–7 days, has backed 40+ AI startups, and earned a NeurIPS 2025 Best Poster award for its startup success forecasting research. Raised in Turkey by an entrepreneur father and mathematician mother, Yigit started coding at age four and competed as a top-10 national chess player before bringing that same obsessive discipline to venture capital.

- **Role:** Co-founder and General Partner at Vela Partners
- **Organizations:** Vela Partners, Google (former), University of Oxford (alumnus), Incubate Fund (Advisory Board), Pledge 1%
- **From:** Turkey
- **Nationality:** Turkish-American
- **Education:** MSc Computer Science (AI/Machine Learning), University of Oxford, Kellogg College, BSc Industrial Engineering, Koç University, Turkey
- **Known for:** Co-founded Vela Partners, one of the first AI-native quantitative VC firms in Silicon Valley, Pioneered 'Ventech' — the application of venture technology to automate startup evaluation, NeurIPS 2025 Best Poster award for Startup Success Forecasting Framework research

## Career timeline

- **~2004** — Started computing career with DOS games and early programming under father's mentorship in Turkey
- **2009** — Enrolled in MSc Computer Science at University of Oxford, focusing on AI and machine learning; wrote master's thesis on recommendation engines
- **2010** — Completed Oxford MSc; joined Google's Enterprise division, working in Dublin (EMEA) and Mountain View, California
- **2015** — Left Google after five years as Senior Program Manager; spent six months exploring startup ideas
- **2017** — Co-founded Vela Partners with Fuat Alican, pioneering 'Ventech' — AI-driven venture capital decision-making
- **2023** — Published 'Founder-GPT' paper applying self-play techniques to evaluate founder-idea fit
- **2024** — Published 'Automating Venture Capital', 'GPTree', and 'Startup Success Forecasting Framework' research papers
- **2025** — Vela Partners' Startup Success Forecasting Framework wins Best Poster at NeurIPS 2025 Workshop; launched Vela OS and Vela Terminal (Product Hunt #1)
- **2025** — Led seed investment in Bito ($6M round, May 2025)

## Achievements

- Co-founded Vela Partners, one of the first AI-native quantitative VC firms in Silicon Valley
- Pioneered 'Ventech' — the application of venture technology to automate startup evaluation
- NeurIPS 2025 Best Poster award for Startup Success Forecasting Framework research
- 50+ published AI research papers on topics spanning LLMs, venture capital, and decision-making
- 58 total academic citations with h-index of 5 (Google Scholar)
- Invested in 40+ AI startups including Limitless, Grabango, Interviewing.io, Meditopia, Bito, and Vieu
- Vela Terminal won #1 Product of the Month and #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt
- Top-10 national chess player in Turkey
- Oxford-trained AI researcher who applied ML expertise at Google Cloud for five years
- Board observer/member at Kuika Software, Polymer Search, Lightup Data, Cartken, and Meditopia

## Latest updates

- **2025-05** — Led seed investment in Bito as part of a $6M round
- **2025-01** — Vela Partners' Startup Success Forecasting Framework won Best Poster at NeurIPS 2025 Workshop
- **2024-12** — Published 'VCBench: Benchmarking LLMs in Venture Capital' research paper
- **2024-10** — Led seed investment in Vieu ($11M round)
- **2024-06** — Published 'Automating Venture Capital' and 'GPTree' research papers
- **2024-04** — Vela Partners invested in Goooods ($4M round)
- **2024-01** — Launched Vela Terminal, which became #1 Product of the Day and Month on Product Hunt

## Links

- Website: https://vela.partners
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yihlamur/
- GitHub: https://github.com/yihlamur
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yihlamur/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/yigit-ihlamur
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-17