Partners and collaborators

The people and firms behind the platform

The team running Cyprus Valley, plus the external funds, service providers and event organizers we work with. We earn only from exits, with no fees on partner deals.

Founders

Who you'll be dealing with

Elena Stepanova

Elena Stepanova

Founder of Cyprus Valley · Angel Investor and Partner at Network VC

I founded Cyprus Valley to give high-potential founders in Longevity, HealthTech, DeepTech and AI a single place to find capital, strategic partners and a path into global markets. Based in Limassol, Cyprus, the ecosystem draws on 20+ years of my own experience as an entrepreneur and investor, including my ongoing work as Angel Investor and Partner at Network VC, and the Entrepreneurship & Innovation program at Harvard Business School Online.

Cyprus Valley is built for two audiences: the founders working in these sectors, and the investors who back them. If that is you, I would like to connect.

Volodymyr Zhukov

Volodymyr Zhukov

Partner at Network VC (California), Managing Partner at Cyprus Valley, Independent Stanford Researcher

  • Serial entrepreneur and AI expert with 20+ years of experience in IT; worked with Lenovo, Toyota, Lexus, Amic Energy, WOG and others.
  • Participated in startup acceleration programs by Cohere, NVIDIA, Microsoft and Amazon.
  • Received a grant from OpenAI and was named among the Top 20 InsurTech startups by Plug and Play.
  • Speaker at Stanford Research Institute, AI Marketing Day, WikiFX, Cyprus AI Expo, Future Capital of Cyprus and other international industry conferences.
  • Jury member at Startup World Cup Finals Greece, EUT Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Unicorn Events and other international startup competitions.

Our mentors

They work with your company in the accelerator

Oleksandr Orlyk
Finance

Oleksandr Orlyk

Finance from zero to investor ready

I have been the first or only finance hire at three venture-backed companies — a Volkswagen Group venture, a Bertelsmann-backed HR-tech group and a Berlin e-commerce platform — and built each finance function from scratch: model, reporting, controls, banking and multi-country tax. I have negotiated an angel round and a bank credit facility as finance lead, owned investor reporting and due-diligence Q&A, and supported DD on multiple >€50M acquisitions and post-acquisition integration. Most recently I have been automating the work founders hate — multi-country VAT and compliance filings, product master data — with Python and LLMs, turning a week-long monthly cycle into one click.

Bring me: the model you are about to show investors; a cross-border entity structure you are unsure how to finance or report; DD prep; or the question of what to automate before you make your first finance hire.

One bias I will admit to: most early-stage companies hire finance too early and automate it too late. The first finance person should be senior enough to build the whole function and then script most of it away — which is why it rarely needs to be a full-time seat.

Based in Limassol, working remotely across the EU. Ukrainian · Russian · German · English · Portuguese.

Nik Chepenko
Sales & GTM

Nik Chepenko

Head of EU Office at Verysell Group (Switzerland), leading AI product and commercial development across the European market

  • MBA (Harvard-affiliated university), 9+ years in fintech, AI and enterprise software.
  • Built commercial and go-to-market functions from the ground up - sales strategy, pipeline, team and processes - across multiple companies and markets.
  • Closed enterprise deals worth $1M+, working with telecom operators, major banks, PSPs and government entities across 15+ countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Zambia and Kazakhstan.
  • Launched fintech infrastructure and mobile wallet platforms for leading telecom operators and major banks, taking products from concept to live deployment across multiple regions.
  • Deep expertise in go-to-market strategy: market entry, partner ecosystems and scalable sales operations in regulated markets (EMI, PSP, crypto-fiat rails).
  • Expert in AI commercialisation, from concept to product for enterprise and mid-market clients.
  • Experience spanning Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, from ministry-level negotiations to partnerships with the region’s largest service providers.
HAPPIX · IRMC (Board)

Anatoliy Kompanichenko

Marketing & business-development strategist

An independent marketing and business-development strategist who works directly with owners and CEOs, turning founder-dependent, ad-hoc growth into structured, measurable systems. CEO of HAPPIX and a board member at IRMC.

A practitioner, not a theorist: his track record spans launching and scaling ventures across hospitality, entertainment, events and consumer brands — including go-to-market and positioning. He steps in where the current growth model has run out.

Alina Nezhyd
Finance & Fundraising

Alina Nezhyd

Investor-ready finance for high-growth tech

A finance executive and startup mentor with 10+ years helping technology companies build scalable financial operations and sustainable growth — across investment, FinTech, iGaming, payments and high-growth tech, where finance is a strategic driver of product expansion, profitability and long-term value.

Built and scaled finance, billing and managerial-accounting functions from the ground up, overseeing high-volume payment operations with portfolios above $100M and millions of transactions. Covers revenue optimization, unit economics, liquidity management, financial modeling and operational frameworks that let businesses scale while balancing growth, profitability and risk.

Advises founders on financial strategy, investor readiness, monetization and scalable business models — validating unit economics, building credible projections and preparing for fundraising and international expansion, so they're ready not just to raise capital but to build financially resilient companies that scale globally.

Partner ecosystem

Firms we work with

growth

HAPPIX

Marketing and growth systems for owner-led companies

The growth-systems platform led by mentor Anatoliy Kompanichenko: fragmented marketing and business development, rebuilt into one managed, measurable system.

NVIDIA
technology

NVIDIA

Accelerated computing and AI infrastructure

Microsoft
technology

Microsoft

Cloud, developer tooling and enterprise software

AWS
technology

AWS

Cloud infrastructure for startups at any stage

OpenAI
technology

OpenAI

Frontier AI research and models

Anthropic
technology

Anthropic

AI safety research and the Claude models

Stanford University
academic

Stanford University

Research university in Palo Alto, California

Stanford HAI
academic

Stanford HAI

Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence

Network.VC
fund

Network.VC

Licensed venture structure behind the fund

CY
Unicorn Events
events

Unicorn Events

Organiser of Unicorn Pitches

CY
Cyprus University of Technology
academic

Cyprus University of Technology

Limassol research university, member of EUt+

Startup.Inc
accelerator

Startup.Inc

CY
Startup Network
community

Startup Network

CY
Enter
community

Enter

CY
SAI Labs
technology

SAI Labs

AI startup screening

Partnerships

Work with us

Funds, service providers and community organizers: we list partners on the platform, run joint events in the hubs and route founders to the people who can actually help them.