Maxim, founder of Future Ventures Corp and CEO of Viner, joins Sunny Ray to share how he left Bulgaria in 1997 during 1100 percent inflation with only tuition money and 2,500 dollars to live on for a year. He recounts arriving in Calgary for university, grinding through lean early years, and later building multiple companies, including a wine import business that became one of Alberta's top 20 importers. Maxim explains why he left corporate consulting in 2018 to launch Future Ventures, a strategy, capital, and growth advisory firm built to help scaleup founders raise funding and drive growth. He discusses lessons from an earlier failed startup, his views on Bitcoin, tokenization, and the shift from centralized finance to decentralized systems, and how his portfolio focuses on truly differentiated AI companies rather than thin wrapper products. The conversation also covers his team's heavy use of Claude Code for vibe coding and his belief that founders today are living through a once in a lifetime moment to build.
A Bulgarian immigrant who arrived with 2,500 dollars now runs Future Ventures and multiple thriving Alberta companies.
Can you give a one line overview of what Future Ventures does?
Future Ventures is a strategy, capital, and growth advisory firm born out of a gap I saw in the scaleup space. We support founders doing over a million dollars in revenue who need to hire teams, raise funding, and drive growth. Companies mainly come to us for capital or growth, whether that means building an equity story, financial models, or other strategic support.
Take us back to your origin story, coming from Bulgaria with a couple grand in your pocket.
In 1996 Bulgaria had 1100 percent inflation and the IMF had to step in. I came from a working class family and knew I had to leave to build a life. I'd attended an English school under communism, which was rare, so I spoke the language. In 1997 I left for Canada with just enough for tuition plus 2,500 dollars to live on for a year, ramen noodle style.
What was your trust level in the monetary system leaving Bulgaria, and how does that connect to what you see happening in fintech now?
I believe central banks will keep eroding in importance while Bitcoin, digital gold, and asset backed coins rise. In 2018 we issued our own utility token on the Stellar platform for loyalty rewards. Everything is shifting from macro to micro, like AI personalizing software, and eventually we'll move away from passwords toward biometric and cryptographic authentication instead of logging in with Facebook or Google credentials.
Was there a specific moment that made you leave the corporate world in 2018 to found Future Ventures?
As a consultant I designed a lot of solutions but never saw them implemented, always window shopping from the outside. I wanted to be on the building side. It felt like a once in a lifetime moment, similar to the AI wave happening now, so I left. Originally I planned to do venture capital but pivoted since that space was saturated and undifferentiated.
You tried a wine importing business as a student that didn't work out. How did that failure lead to Vanera or Viner?
Actually the wine import business, Viner, succeeded and we're now one of the top 20 wine importers in Alberta. The company that failed was Vint. We focused too much on building a great product and not enough on customer discovery, growth, channel distribution, or velocity. Those lessons pushed me to publish what we learned publicly on futureventures.ca instead of hiding it behind a paywall.
You focus on AI native companies. What does AI native really mean to you?
We look for real competitive advantage, not just workflow integrations or thin wrappers on existing models. One portfolio company built its own computer vision model for industrial settings, predicting part failure through vibration monitoring or corrosion detection. Another is trying to move AI from probabilistic to deterministic by verifying LLM output before it reaches the enterprise, essentially building a trust layer, an operating system for AI.
Are you tinkering with tools like Claude Code?
We're insane on Claude Code, it's constantly running on our team. We haven't upgraded to the premium model since it's twice the speed for six times the price. We're essentially vibe coding, building apps using Claude and Visual Studio, where a team member hits a challenge and just directs Claude step by step to solve it in real time.
Where can people learn more about Future Ventures and connect with you?
The best way is our website, futureventures.ca, or reach out to me on LinkedIn since my info is public. We publish case studies on AI automation projects like hiring, RFPs, and building mini ERPs so people can see what's possible instead of imagining it. We also just launched a Beehiiv newsletter called Growth Chronicles, and I publish separately for founders and leaders on my personal site.
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