The editors of Forbes in the US have again this year compiled a top 30 list of successful young people under 30. It is a great pride that Julia Sohajda, co-founder and managing partner of Vespucci Partners, is the only Hungarian to be included in the 2022 list, working with incredible ambition every day to make our world more innovative and sustainable.

In 2011, Forbes magazine in the US published for the first time the top 30 under 30, the 30 most successful people under 30 years old in America. Over time, the prestigious business magazine has established continental lists in Asia and, since 2016, in Europe as well.

Julia Sohajda, a global figure to watch

The magazine's editors looked for  young people to watch in Europe today in thirteen categories. The list includes the successful TikToker, Khabane (Khaby) Lame, the recent winners of the Eurovision Song Contest, the Italian rock band Maneskin, Anastasiia Lapatina, a journalist for The Kyiv Independent in Ukraine, and Charles Leclerc, a Ferrari Formula 1 driver, among others. Julia Sohajda was named in the financial list, who, together with her team, is constantly expanding Vespucci Partners' portfolio to help more promising Hungarian companies achieve their dreams in the fields of biotechnology, MedTech, robotics, artificial intelligence, IoT or even machine learning innovation.

Julia Sohajda's work has been recognised by the Budapest Business Journal and Venture Capital Journal

Julia pursued her higher education in the US, at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She was soon given the opportunity to put her knowledge to good use, and started working for a California-based venture capital fund, now called Group 11. All this is already clear from an interview in a special issue of the Budapest Business Journal, which, like Forbes, recently, recognized the Hungarian professional as an emerging investor to watch. It is worth mentioning here that Venture Capital Journal's Rising Stars 40 list also includes the co-founder of Vespucci Partners - which was reported at length by another prestigious Hungarian journal, called Világgazdaság.

"What I am most proud of is that, together with my partners, we founded an investment firm that provides not only financial support but also smart capital to the founders of the startups that work with us, as well as real opportunities for them to succeed in international markets," said Julia Sohajda, in an interview with BBJ.

One of Vespucci Partners' most successful startups, TranscendH2O

A profile of Vespucci Partners co-founder and managing partner Julia Sohajda by Forbes reveals that she co-founded the Budapest-based venture capital firm in 2019 with Peter Macher, which invests in seed-stage tech startups and aims to create a bridge between innovative companies in the Central and Eastern European region and international startup markets, all with a focus on the US as a Hungarian-American hybrid company. They will also briefly present one of the most successful Vespucci Partners-backed ventures, TranscendH2O, a startup that is turning hundreds of engineering hours into automation. With their innovative software, after 15-20 minutes of data entry, it takes only six to eight hours to produce five design plans with the documentation needed for a quote or tender, freeing up to 1500 engineering hours. Furthermore the next investment round attracted over 100 potential investors and the company has since raised an additional $14.5 million.

Vespucci Partners pushes startups towards global success with a hybrid model

"Transcend is one of our biggest success stories and is a great representation of the hybrid model we have believed in at Vespucci since the beginning. This means that our startups are developing in Hungary, but we are already selling the solution in the US," says the co-founder of Vespucci Partners in an interview published in the BBJ. "Another investment I'm very proud of is a female-led sustainability startup called Sequana (formerly Poliloop) that is helping to solve a global problem. It offers a real solution to plastic pollution after the founders discovered a bacterial cocktail that can break down all single-use plastics within a few weeks," she adds.

Vespucci Partners supports a unique global training programme

Vespucci Partners has a long-term vision for the Hungarian market and is taking an active role in making the Hungarian innovation ecosystem internationally competitive. 

The Hungarian Startup University Program (HSUP) is the first online, university-based startup education in Hungary. It was created to introduce Hungarian students to the world of innovation, modern entrepreneurship and startups through a new common educational platform, where young people can learn at their own pace with interactive and entertaining learning materials and personalised content. In addition, the programme involves not only Hungarian universities but also universities in the Carpathian Basin, so students in the region can try their hand at building a start-up from scratch in a two-semester e-learning course (which starts as a university subject, meaning that candidates can receive credits for successfully completing HSUP).

"The HSUP programme is unique in the world. It provides entrepreneurial knowledge and vision to young Hungarians on a systemic level. I see it as a driver for the Hungarian innovation ecosystem and the funnel of new startups will be continuously filled from here. We are very happy to be involved in the professional support of this programme and we are also working to create more and more ecosystem building programmes in the field of domestic innovation", adds Julia Sohajda, one of the most successful professionals under 30 in the US Forbes magazine.