Vladimir Jacimovic was born in Yugoslavia as an only child. He left there to come to the United States after his junior year of high school. The University of San Francisco recruited him to play on the men’s basketball team, hoping to one day play in the NBA. These hopes were dashed when the university faced recruiting violations, which caused the basketball program to be closed down.
This was a turning point in Vladimir’s life as he had to decide whether to go to Germany and play professional basketball in the European league or end his basketball career entirely. Vladimir chose to help his parents immigrate to the United States, and he completed his undergraduate degree at the University of San Francisco. Upon graduation, he joined Intel and worked in the software department before leaving to join Ingress, where he worked in post-sales support.
As he became familiar with rising in corporate America ranks, he decided he would pursue an MBA as it seemed that was the track the C-Suite executives had traveled. He was committed to going to the best school in the world so he chose Harvard Business School.
Vladimir loved every minute of HBS, especially the bootcamp atmosphere of the first year. He didn’t have any expectations when he arrived knowing very little about the program and with no personal contacts.
After graduation from HBS, Vladimir joined McKinsey Consulting and settled in Italy for a few years prior to transferring back to San Francisco with McKinsey. During his time at McKinsey he had great exposure to the tech world in Silicon Valley. He joined Crosslink Capital as a Managing Director and spent eight years there before becoming a Venture Partner at New Enterprise Associates. In 2008 Vladimir became the founder and CEO of Continuum Capital Partners, LLC where he still resides and is focused on funding start ups in the artificial intelligence space.
Over the years Vladimir was no stranger to the hard knocks of the venture capital industry where he has experienced his fair share of ups and downs. He resides in San Francisco with his wife and is his children’s biggest fan.
He expresses his gratitude for the journey he has been on after being raised under communist rule and taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to him by being an immigrant to the United States.