POLYAKOV
Maxym

• 1. Education
• 2. Business
• 2.1. Noosphere Ventures
• 2.2. EOS DATA Analytics
• 2.3. Firefly Aerospace
• 2.4. Dragonfly Aerospace

Maxym Polyakov is a global entrepreneur. He is a founder of Firefly Aerospace, Cupid, and Renatus, among other companies. Polyakov is a general partner in the venture fund Noosphere Ventures Partners LP.

Education

Maxym "Max" Polyakov was born in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. His parents were engineers at JSC Khartron" (Hartron), a Ukrainian rocket and space enterprise engaged in the development of control systems and electronics.

In 2011, Polyakov graduated from the Dnipro Polytechnic University.

In 2013, Polyakov was awarded a Ph.D. in International Economics and in 2019, earned a Doctor of Economic Sciences.

Business

Polyakov co-founded the IDE Group which included the companies Cupid, Murka, HitDynamics and Maxymiser in 2005. Polyakov took Cupid public on the London Stock Exchange in 2010. In 2015, Polyakov’s startup Maxymiser was bought by the American corporation Oracle. Blackstone bought out Murka project group in 2019.

Noosphere Ventures

In 2014, Polyakov founded Noosphere Ventures, an international asset management firm dedicated to the development of space technology. The same year, Polyakov created Noosphere Engineering School (NES). Noosphere Ventures hosted the 2016 FAI World Championships for Space Models in Ukraine. On June 7, 2021, Noorsphere Ventures co-sponsored the 11th Annual Space Foundation Student Art Contest.

EOS DATA Analytics

In 2015, Polyakov's Noosphere Ventures created EOS DATA Analytics, a company for processing and analyzing satellite data. Four years later, EOS implemented the World Bank partnered with the EU to launch a project on satellite-based monitoring of agricultural land use. EOS DATA Analytics also partnered with the €10 million Goldeneye Project will run real time monitoring of five mines in Europe (Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Kosovo and Romania) to improve safety, environmental impact, and mine profitability by creating a platform that combines Earth observation technologies with on-site sensing.

Firefly Aerospace

Polykov's Noosphere Ventures acquired assets of Firefly Space Systems and later launched a new company keeping the original Firefly brand in 2017. By May 2018, a Firefly research and development center was opened in Polyakov's hometown of Dnipro. In November of the same year, Firefly Aerospace entered the list of companies selected by NASA for its lunar exploration program with a total budget of $2.6 billion.

In 2019, the U.S. Air Force selected Firefly to participate in the Orbital Services Program-4 (OSP-4) along with Rocketdyne. In 2021, NASA awarded Firefly a $93.3 million to deliver a suite of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon in 2023. Firefly The team successfully performed pre-flight of their alpha rocket in September 2020. On May 4, 2021, CBInsights listed Firefly Aerospace as a 'unicorn' startup having achieved $1 billion valuation.

Dragonfly Aerospace

In April 2021, Max Polyakov bought majority stake in Dragonfly Aersopace, a South African satellite engineering company.