Deep tech minds behind Xonai

XONAI is a young, fast-growing company backed by deeptech investors all over Europe that believe in our mission to build the next-generation solution that will revolutionise data analytics and AI.

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Our Values

Great companies succeed when their customers succeed, and that starts with building a great culture where everyone has a purpose and thrives.

Take ownership

We believe milestones are best met when each person acts as an owner and drives its own work with full motivation and responsibility. We always strive to set clear expectations for each team member and the company.

Customers first

We succeed when our customers succeed, and their requirements always come first. Our priorities revolve around meeting customers' expectations on agreed time and success metrics.

Do it right

We take more time to do things right rather than shipping half-baked features into production. We want every piece of our solution to work reliably and broadly before we start tweaking things.

Stay ahead

Keeping up with the hottest technology trends requires overcoming inertia. We hire people who have a thirst for knowledge and proactively seek to improve themselves and others around them.

Leadership

Ashraf Lotfi

Semiconductor pioneer with 30+ years leading chip R&D, product innovation, and 170+ US patents.

Graham York

Former HP CTO overseeing large-scale software and services across fintech, healthcare and telecoms.

Leandro Vaz

Compiler and execution engine architect, co-founder of Xonai and builder of its core performance engine.

Bilal Khan

Xonai CEO with deep AI expertise, neuroscience education and executive leadership experience.

Xonai Team

Filipe Oliveira

Software Engineer

Specialties:

Apache Spark, Scala, distributed systems, plugin integration

Filipe holds a Master’s in Informatics and Computing Engineering from the University of Porto, with a strong background in distributed systems and Apache Spark. At Xonai, he is responsible for the plugin layer and Spark ecosystem integrations, ensuring Xonai fits cleanly into real-world data stacks and workflows.

Outside of work, he channels the same focus and precision into running and photography.

Turkey Alsalkini

MLIR Compiler Engineer

Specialties:

C++, LLVM/Clang, compiler optimisation

Turkey holds a PhD in Parallel Programming from Heriot-Watt University, specialising in production-grade compiler and performance optimisation for parallel systems. At Xonai, he optimises the compiler pipeline to produce faster binaries and improve execution performance across real-world workloads.

He is a lifelong football supporter and enthusiastic optimization traveller.

Mykola Zerniuk

System Engineer

Specialties:

Scala, Java, backend engineering, microservices, system design

Mykola holds a Master's in Systems Programming from Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics and has a strong background in backend and data infrastructure. At our company, he works mainly on the core engine, expanding SQL capabilities and ensuring they work reliably across Spark runtimes and versions.

He often codes under the supervision of his cat, Anthony.

Sharron Luong

Customer Experience

Specialties:

UX design, customer research, customer experience, brand systems

Former Accenture Song, Sharron brings experience from large-scale digital programmes, including UX and web experiences for Jaguar Land Rover. At Xonai, she oversees customer research and user experience across key touchpoints, ensuring how customers interact with the product supports understanding, trust, and commercial decision-making.

A self-confessed adventurous eater, she’s rarely tempted by the safe option.

Tetyana Skoropad

Marketing

Specialties:

ICP research, competitive analysis, technical marketing

Tania’s computer science background from Ivan Franko National University of Lviv brings technical depth to how complex products are communicated and positioned in the market. At Xonai, she applies that strength to shape how the company understands its ICP, competitive landscape, and positioning, grounding marketing decisions in product reality rather than assumptions.

Her signature emoji style is hard to miss around the company Slack.

Darina Vasileva

Business Development

Specialties:

Enterprise buyer discovery, commercial validation, data infrastructure markets

Darina brings a strong track record in business development across several successful start ups, with deep familiarity with Apache Spark–based platforms and enterprise buyers. She brings that market context to inform demand, pricing sensitivity, and buyer priorities around performance and cost.

Darina dreams of sailing through one the world’s most iconic maritime routes.

Proudly backed by

Our investors are highly passionate about deeptech and for the future of data analytics and AI.
They trust us in building the next-generation solution for optimizing big data analytics.