Polina Porotsky

Polina Porotsky was born and raised in Russia and later Latvia before moving to the United States for university. She earned a degree in neuroscience from Columbia University, where she also wrote for Her Campus (Columbia/Barnard) as early as 2013. Her academic grounding in the life sciences has been the through-line of her career, from journalism into biotech investing.

After Columbia, Porotsky trained as a science journalist, completing NYU's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP 37, 2018–19). During and after the program she wrote about neuroscience, biology, and medicine for outlets including *Scienceline* and *Spectrum* (now *The Transmitter*), covering topics from gene-edited babies and brain organoids to coral preservation and preprint servers. She has also been a member of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW) Journalism Committee. Her NYU profile noted that she had, by 2018, already begun "working at a venture capital firm with a focus on biotechnologies."

Today Porotsky is an Analyst at Statum Funds, a stage-agnostic venture capital firm that invests in public and private companies developing cancer treatments and diagnostic tools under the tagline "investing with imagination." In parallel, she is pursuing a JD/MBA through the University of Pennsylvania's Carey JD/MBA Program (Penn Carey Law School and The Wharton School), an accelerated dual-degree track at the intersection of law and business. She has also worked as a Summer Associate at the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP.

Her combination of a hard-science background (neuroscience), science-communication training, and legal/business education positions her distinctively for evaluating oncology and biotech opportunities — she can read the science, the deal structure, and the market narrative.

• Sector: Oncology-focused biotech — companies "developing cancer treatments and diagnostic tools" (Statum Funds' stated mandate).
• Stage: Stage-agnostic. Statum invests across the lifecycle, in both public and private companies, rather than confining itself to a single round; early-stage/seed private deals fall within scope.
• Firm ethos: "Investing with imagination" — signaling a willingness to back non-obvious or scientifically ambitious approaches in cancer therapeutics and diagnostics.
• What likely earns a "yes": Given the firm's oncology thesis and Porotsky's neuroscience/science-journalism background, expect an emphasis on rigorous underlying science and a credible clinical or diagnostic path, communicated clearly.
• *Note:* Statum Funds does not publicly disclose specific check sizes or a formal target-company checklist.