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At present, I balance two worlds: creativity and capital.
On one side, I’m a fashion and editorial photographer working out of my studio in NoHo, New York. More than 40 of my images appear on magazine covers each year, including Harper’s Bazaar. On the other side, I’m an active investor across real estate, venture capital, and private fixed income. My focus now is turning toward robotics and public-company ventures—areas I believe will shape the next generation of opportunity.
I wasn’t supposed to end up here. I was born in Romania during communism, where leaving the country could get you shot at the border. Books about explorers like Jules Verne, Magellan, and Columbus gave me the courage to dream. When my family moved to France, and later when I came to the U.S. to study at MIT, those dreams turned into action.
At MIT, what was meant to be a short internship became years of research, publications in Nature and Science, and the foundation for my entrepreneurial mindset: when you love what you do and deliver results, people want you around.
Over the years, I’ve built companies that scaled quickly—and sometimes collapsed just as fast. I bootstrapped Boston Technologies from $0 to $20M+ in revenue, landed it on the Inc. 500/5000 four years running, and sold it in 2014. I founded Lampix, an AR company that won at SXSW and raised 40,912 ETH (~$14.2M). I launched Brooklyn Textiles, which hit $60M in annualized revenue in just six months before being sold in 2021. Along the way, I created Lending Times (which won Best Journalist Coverage at the LendIt Awards), Blockchain Times, and Wavesoul Surf Travel—a luxury surf travel venture that COVID forced me to pause.
I’ve also advised 30+ startups, mentored founders through MIT Venture Mentoring Services and Techstars Fintech, and served as a partner at LunaCap Ventures. In 2012, the Boston Business Journal named me to its 40 Under 40 list.
What ties all of this together isn’t a single industry or idea, but a philosophy:
Say what you’re going to do. Do what you said you’d do. Do it on time and on budget.
Today, whether I’m behind the camera, in the studio, or building the next company, I remain driven by the same forces that carried me from Romania to MIT to entrepreneurship: curiosity, resilience, and reinvention.