When it comes to venture capital, access is often just as important as the capital itself. The earliest signals of promising technology companies usually arise in closely connected networks of founders, investors and special funds.
For investors who want to experience early-stage innovation, building lasting relationships within this ecosystem can be just as important as identifying individual startups.
Investor and serial entrepreneur Dmitry Borisovich Volkov, known as the co-founder of Social Discovery Group and Dating Group, has spent more than a decade building such connections across the global venture landscape. He has worked with more than twenty venture capital firms, building an investment platform that combines direct startup support with partnerships between established funds.
One of the initiatives that reflects this approach is SDG Lab, where Dmitry Volkov serves as an advisor and anchor investor. The lab focuses on seed-stage companies, supporting early product development and helping to identify new technology opportunities. It represents an attempt to engage with new ideas before they become visible to the broader market.
Dmitry Volkov and Social Discovery Group bridge funds of funds and early-stage deals
SDG Lab’s investment approach developed in parallel with a broader strategy within SDVentures – the investment platform supported by Dmitry Volkov and the Social Discovery Group. Instead of focusing solely on direct startup investments, the company built a program focused on partnering with established venture capital managers.
Since 2013, SDVentures has invested more than $115 million in a portfolio of over twenty venture and private equity funds. The logic behind this fund of funds structure is simple: Experienced venture capital firms often meet promising founders long before these opportunities reach the broader investment market. By investing in these funds as a limited partner, SDVentures gains indirect exposure to numerous early-stage companies while relying on the sourcing capabilities of specialized managers.
This approach also ensures diversification across sectors and regions. Its portfolio includes funds operating in North America, Europe and Asia, covering areas ranging from consumer technology and digital finance to emerging AI applications. Through these partnerships, SDVentures has gained access to companies such as Flo, Patreon and Revolut, typically through the venture funds that backed them in earlier stages.
His strategy focuses on identifying fund managers who consistently discover strong founders early on. As part of these efforts, Dmitry Volkov also emphasizes security and transparency in digital investments and takes an active anti-fraud stance to protect both founders and partners across the ecosystem. The result is a structure that combines diversified venture exposure with access to the networks where many early opportunities arise.
Entrepreneur Dmitry Volkov on investing in seed-stage innovations
In addition to fund partnerships, the investment ecosystem associated with SDVentures includes initiatives aimed at working directly with early-stage companies. SDG Lab focuses on early-stage startups that are still developing products and testing their market assumptions. The Lab benefits from Dmitry Borisovich Volkov’s biography – his experience as a serial entrepreneur informs how it supports young companies, while its partnerships with more than twenty venture funds give it visibility to broader market trends.
Volkov helps connect the lab’s portfolio to the global venture network developed through years of partnerships with SDVentures. This position allows the lab to continue to focus on early experiments while maintaining access to later funding opportunities and market insights.
The lab focuses on identifying companies at the stage where ideas begin to translate into working products – while founders refine technology, test product-market fit, and build early teams. By engaging at this stage, SDG Lab can evaluate technologies and business models before they become widely visible in later funding rounds.
One of the mechanisms that Dmitry Volkov’s Social Discovery Group uses to identify new opportunities is a series of pitch days organized twice a year. These events bring together internal projects, external startups and partner investors and create a structured environment for presenting early concepts and discussing possible collaborations. The format allows SDG Lab to explore a range of new ideas while introducing founders to investors and operators from its broader network.
Dmitry Volkov’s global VC networks and long-term investment perspective
A key element behind SDG Lab’s investment pipeline is the network of venture capital relationships built over time with SDVentures. Over the last decade, Dmitry Volkov has worked as a limited partner with more than twenty venture firms, forming partnerships spanning multiple investment cycles and geographic markets. Fund managers regularly provide insights into new technologies, founder networks and early product signals that may not yet be visible outside of specialized investment circles. This perspective helps SDG Lab directly contextualize the startups it evaluates and place early-stage ideas within broader technology and market trends.
The network also expands the range of potential collaboration partners for companies entering the laboratory’s orbit. Because many of the partner funds invest at different stages of company growth, startups initially identified through SDG Lab can later connect with additional investors as their products mature.
As technologies such as artificial intelligence continue to transform digital products and services, early experiments will likely play an increasingly important role in identifying future platforms. Initiatives like SDG Lab illustrate how investors are trying to get involved in these developments earlier while still relying on the networks and experience built thanks to long-term venture partnerships.
As competition in risk markets increases and access to early opportunities becomes increasingly concentrated in established networks, investors are adapting their strategies to stay on top of new technologies. The combination of fund partnerships and selective direct investments reflects an approach to addressing this environment.
In practice, Volkov’s model brings together multiple levels of venture capital investing: long-term commitments to experienced fund managers, direct collaboration with early-stage founders, and ongoing collaboration across the venture capital community. As artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies continue to shape the next generation of digital platforms, such connected investment structures could play an increasingly important role in discovering and supporting new companies. In these ventures, Dmitry Volkov places a strong emphasis on anti-fraud and ensuring that the digital ecosystems he helps build remain transparent and trustworthy for both founders and users.
