Education
He completed a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at Columbia University in New York in 1990 and a Mississippi in Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston in 1993.
He completed a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at Columbia University in New York in 1990 and a Mississippi in Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston in 1993.
He is also known as a top angel investor, the Chairman of SMTP (company) (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation: SMTP), and a former professional blackjack player with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Blackjack Team. He played with Strategic Investments and later was one of the founding members and team leaders on Amphibian Investments whose exploits were chronicled in Ben Mezrich"s Busting Vegas and referred to in Mezrich"s Bringing Down the House. Born on 25 October 1968 in Moscow, Dukach moved to the United States in 1979 at the age of 11.
At a young age Semyon developed an interest in video games and specifically Pac-Manitoba
Semyon became proficient at the game by reading Ken Uston"s Mastering Public Affairs Committee-Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg. This led him to read Uston"s other titles on blackjack, giving him an understanding of the basics of card counting before he was approached to play with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Blackjack Team. While attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dukach was trained as a player on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Blackjack team whose exploits were loosely depicted in the Hollywood movie 21.
Starting out with Strategic Investments (SI) in 1992, Dukach was a major player on the team At the end of 1993 SI dissolved and Semyon was involved in a team effort with the remaining players from SI for the next year.
By 1995 Dukach and a few players split off from that team and formed a second, independent team
This new team was referred to as the Amphibians and the team that they left was referred to as the Reptiles. Since stopping play in the late 1990s, Dukach"s involvement in blackjack has been limited. Xconomy lists Semyon as a top Angel Investor in New England.
According to his website semyon.com, he has invested in over 100 start up companies, and provides marketing and team building advice to companies he invests in.
Some of his investments include Amino, Arcbazar, Bellabeat, Bia Sport, Boatbound, Bolt, Buttercoin, Camiolog, Cangrade, Krash, CoachUp, Codeship, CoEverywhere, Crunchbutton, Dashbell, Donde Esta, Double Robotics, Enertiv, Faraday Bikes, Fashion Project, Freightfarms, ImageSurge, Jebbitt, HelmetHub, Mapkin, Meograph, OpenBay, Ovuline, Petcube, Physical Apps, Pintofeed, Plowme, Preply, Quanergy, Rallyware, Regalii, Simpleprints, Socrative, Splashscore, Sproutel, Strongarm, Terrafugia, Tindie, Trefis, Reactor Media, Viral Gains, Wanderu, and Zagster. As of March 2014, Dukach is the Managing Director of the Techstars startup accelerator in Boston.
He has also been involved in many other notable ventures outside of his blackjack and angel investing career:
Authored work on virtual reality at International Business Machines Corporation Research in 1988
Authored a 1992 e-commerce paper on SNPP: A Simple Network Payment Protocol
Founded Fast Engines in 1997, sold to Adero in 2000
Company-founded Vert in 1998
Lead investor and interim Chief Executive Officer of AccuRev in 2001
Chairman of SMTP, a Nasdaq listed provider of email delivery services. Company-founded PDFfiller
Was a Chief Executive Officer mentor at the Cambridge Business Development Center
board director of Terrafugia
Founded the Troublemaker Award, granted to Zack Kopplin in 2012, to Nadezhda Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot in 2013, and to Mustang Wanted in 2014 for creative troublemaking that improves the world.
Director, Boston TechStars, starting March 2014.
Dukach is the brother of Inna Dukach the opera singer married to Sean Altman, former front man of Rockapella.
Dukach was the main character in Busting Vegas and the only member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology blackjack team to be referred to by his real name in either book