Ivan Bercovich
About Ivan Bercovich
Ivan Bercovich spent about ten years at Graphiq, a knowledge graph and research engine company. He joined as a software developer in 2011, became VP of Engineering, and later succeeded the CEO. His team built one of the largest general knowledge graphs and developed natural language understanding and generation technology. Graphiq reached 40+ million monthly visits and 400 million monthly impressions of its knowledge graph across the internet.
Amazon acquired Graphiq in 2017. Ivan then led a team of about 150 software developers and knowledge engineers whose system powered Alexa's open domain question understanding and answering. His resume says he stayed through 2020. He also served as CEO of HeyTutor, a tutoring company, from 2022 to 2023.
He co-founded ScOp Venture Capital, where he focuses on technical discovery, diligence and operating support. Since July 2025 he has also been an independent researcher and a contributor to Terminal Bench, a benchmark for measuring model capabilities. He studied electrical engineering at UMass Amherst.
Most of Ivan's public investing runs through ScOp rather than a separate angel vehicle. Crunchbase lists one personal investment: the PromptLayer seed round in February 2025. It lists Rogo as a further investor role from October 2024 and shows earlier advisor or investor roles at MindCo Health (2018), COR (2020) and Aipha G (2020). His resume says he may act as fractional CTO, sit on the board, or give ad-hoc advice, depending on what a founder needs.
His resume says he has invested in the first rounds of vertical AI companies including Rogo, ChipAgents, Pangram and Harbor. ScOp led the PromptLayer seed in February 2025, according to Caplight. ChipAgents lists him as a board member, and ScOp co-invested in its Series A in October 2025. He has also written publicly about AI safety, reward hacking and business models for startups.
Ivan focuses on companies building vertical AI and data-intensive applications. His technical interests are structured data, knowledge graphs and natural language processing, and he has long worked on human-in-the-loop systems. ScOp describes itself as an early-stage investor in SaaS, AI and software companies that already show product-market fit. NFX Signal and MarketScreener report an investment range of $500K to $3M for ScOp deals, with a $1.3M sweet spot on NFX. These are third-party figures and may not apply to every deal. Ivan has not published a personal angel check size.
- PromptLayer: tooling for AI prompt management; seed round in February 2025, which ScOp led.
- Rogo: AI for finance; Crunchbase lists him as an investor from October 2024.
- ChipAgents: AI agents for chip design; he sits on the board, and ScOp co-invested in its Series A in October 2025.
- Pangram: named in his resume as a vertical AI first-round investment; year not stated.
- Harbor: named in his resume as a vertical AI first-round investment; year not stated.
- crunchbase.com/person/ivan-bercovich
- ivanbercovich.com/assets/resume.pdf
- github.com/ibercovich
- clubforgrowthfoundation.org/fellow/ivan-bercovich
- chipagents.ai/leadership/ivan-bercovich
- caplight.com/investor/scop-venture-capital
- tracxn.com/d/people/ivan-bercovich/__UePFfjAC-V3WHKg-8ujdJCP6BFo7peTtj
- signal.nfx.com/investors/ivan-bercovich
Investing activity
Ivan Bercovich has made 1 investment according to Crunchbase across 1 portfolio company, and has led 1 round and founded 3 companies.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about Ivan Bercovich
What does Ivan Bercovich invest in?
He focuses on vertical AI and data-intensive applications. His background is in structured data, knowledge graphs and natural language processing.
Who is Ivan Bercovich?
He is a General Partner at ScOp Venture Capital in Santa Barbara. He previously spent ten years at Graphiq and then led the Alexa knowledge graph team at Amazon after the 2017 acquisition.
What check size does Ivan Bercovich write?
He has not published a personal check size. Third-party databases report a $500K to $3M range for ScOp deals.
What stage does Ivan Bercovich back?
ScOp targets early-stage software and AI companies with proof of product-market fit. Its deals include seed rounds such as PromptLayer and Series A co-investments such as ChipAgents.
Which AI companies has Ivan Bercovich backed?
These include PromptLayer, Rogo and ChipAgents, and his resume also names Pangram and Harbor. He sits on the ChipAgents board.
How can founders reach Ivan Bercovich?
He is on LinkedIn, and his X handle is @neversupervised. His personal site is ivanbercovich.com, and ScOp's site is scopvc.com.
Is Ivan Bercovich an angel investor?
Yes. Ivan Bercovich invests personally as an angel and is General Partner at ScOp Venture Capital. Crunchbase counts 1 investment.
Where is Ivan Bercovich based?
Ivan Bercovich is based in Santa Barbara, California, United States.