Welcome to the Team, Sofiia

Sofiia Bondar recently joined BlackWood as an Investment Analyst while completing her studies at HEC Paris. Before joining us, she built a real focus on climate and deeptech – spending time around ilion Water Technologies, the ENS-Paris desalination spinout, and building a fuller picture of the ecosystem through stints at Ÿnsect and Partech, from scale-up finance to LP relations. 

Originally from Ukraine and now based between Paris and Copenhagen, Sofiia brings a mix of curiosity, energy, and a genuine interest in the hardest, most physical problems – the kind that start in a lab and take years to become a real business. We sat down with her to talk about how she found her way into venture, what draws her to deeptech, and what she's most excited to dig into at BlackWood.

Q&A

1. You're joining BlackWood while still at HEC. How did you first get interested in venture, and what pulled you toward the investing side rather than any of the other paths open to you?

My interest in venture started with building something myself. During my undergrad, a university course project turned into a real venture: LiteFarm, a microgreen farm. I co-founded it with three others. For the first time, I had full ownership over our decisions and strategy. This is where the entrepreneurial drive began.

I built on this as the first business hire at ilion Water Technologies, a deeptech water filtration spinoff from ENS Paris. I was the CEO's right hand and worked on our commercial strategy, including refining the business plan for our pre-seed fundraise. It gave me a ground-level view of the early-stage challenges.

This role at Ilion complemented my previous internship in the corporate finance team at Ÿnsect, a later-stage scale-up. There, I first saw how VC funds operate. I worked with one on a project evaluating Ÿnsect's carbon footprint. That was my first real exposure to VC.

Between Ilion and Ÿnsect, I had a full picture of startup development, from the earliest days to growth stage.

Then I joined Partech's Investor Relations and Business Development team. I worked with corporate LPs and investment teams across Seed, Venture and Growth strategies. But this is also when I realized that I actually wanted a front-row seat to meeting founders, seeing innovation up close. Only the investment team gets that. This is what pulled me to the investing side.

2. A lot of your background sits in deeptech. What is it about that area that you find most exciting to work on?

I have a lot of admiration for deeptech. I think it's where the real disruption happens, and where you find genuinely crazy innovation. That's even more true when the startup comes out of a scientific environment.

Taking a scientific discovery and proving it actually has commercial potential is incredibly hard. There's the intellectual property side, which is often messy and slow to untangle. And there's the human side, which I think is actually the toughest part. Shifting a mindset built for the lab into one built for industrial or consumer applications is a completely different game.

But that's exactly what fascinates me. When it works, these innovations don't just launch a product, they can completely reshape an entire industry and how it operates. That scale of impact is what pulls me toward deeptech again and again.

3. You spent time around ilion, a company spun out of a physics lab working on desalination. What did you take away from being close to a hard-science company at such an early stage?

It was an amazing experience. I got to witness a first fundraising round from the inside, and to see how very technical, engineering-minded founders actually think.

I also got to know the French deeptech ecosystem up close: how founders spin off from their research labs to build an independent venture. But the biggest takeaway came from my colleagues, almost all engineers or PhDs: go as deep into the topic as you possibly can. Keep questioning. Never settle, because there's still so much left to discover.

4. You grew up in Ukraine, studied in Paris, and now you're in Copenhagen investing across Europe. What does that mix actually do to the way you see founders and markets? 

Growing up in Ukraine and building my career in France gave me a dual perspective from the start.

In Ukraine, there's no real safety net. Access to capital, both debt and equity, is limited, and the economic environment, especially now, is very challenging. That's exactly why entrepreneurship is so respected there. In France, the system provides more of a cushion, which means people are more structured, but also less willing to take that same risk. Seeing both taught me that risk-taking isn't only a personality trait. It's shaped by the environment someone grows up in.

That shows up directly in how I look at founders. I try not to judge ambition or risk appetite in a vacuum. Where a founder comes from changes what bold actually looks like, and it changes what kind of support they actually need to go further.

Working across deeptech environments added another layer. I spent time closely with engineers and PhDs, watching how scientific research slowly turns into an actual product. I also noticed something that stuck with me: investors sometimes hesitate when founders come from research or academic backgrounds, as if that background is a red flag instead of a strength. That experience shaped how I evaluate innovation, and it made me more conscious of bias in venture, especially the kind that's rarely said out loud.

Now, sitting in Copenhagen and looking at founders across Europe, I don't see one European market. I see a patchwork of ecosystems, each shaped by its own access to capital, its own risk culture, its own relationship with failure. My background makes me naturally look past the pitch and ask: given where this founder is building, is this actually bold, or is it just normal for their context? 

5. Looking ahead, what's a space or type of company you're most excited to spend time on at BlackWood, and what are you hoping to learn over the next couple of years?

At BlackWood, I'm especially excited to spend more time on cleantech. I want to keep meeting founders who are tackling something real and physical, and understand how that translates into a business that can actually scale.

Fintech is the side I want to build up more. It's a different kind of company to evaluate, different risks, different growth logic, and I want to get genuinely comfortable there.

What I'm hoping to learn over the next couple of years is how to build real conviction faster, how to read a founder and a market well enough to defend an opinion in an IC room. And more broadly, I want to stay curious. I don't want to lock into one type of company too early. Some of the best lessons I've had came from being in rooms very different from each other, and I'd rather keep that range than narrow it down too soon.