Ilya Levtov never learned to code, yet he built Craft, a 12-year-old San Francisco-based supply chain software company that now works with 35 federal agencies and generates double-digit millions in annual recurring revenue.
Levtov, who holds an English literature degree from Columbia University and an MBA from Stanford Business School, spent his early career in finance and venture capital before shifting to entrepreneurship. His route to technology was indirect: after emigrating from the Soviet Union to England as a child, he trained as a classical cellist, attended a specialist music school, and later participated in a Columbia-Juilliard exchange program.
Before founding Craft, Levtov gained operational experience at Goldman Sachs, ad-tech startup Spot Runner, video service provider Crunchyroll, and Deutsche Telekom, where he helped Silicon Valley startups including Evernote, Box, Dropbox and Pinterest establish distribution partnerships. His startup originated from an attempt to build an enterprise social network, during which his team compiled company profiles from public sources. These profiles ranked prominently in Google searches, revealing a market opportunity.
As a non-technical founder, Levtov relied on outsourced developers to build the product, a process he described as slower than coding in-house. His first developer was hired for $20 per hour through an online platform. The company’s profiles eventually appeared in 100 million search results monthly, attracting about 2.25 million organic visitors. Despite these early signs of traction, investors in London between 2015 and 2016 often prioritized technical founders, creating fundraising challenges for Levtov.
Craft’s pivot to supply chain management began when Lockheed Martin approached the company, recognizing its data could track changes across complex supply chains. The U.S. Air Force later contracted Craft to monitor 300,000 companies in the defense industrial base, closing a five-year, $6.5 million deal within 94 days. These customers were business users with operational problems, not software developers seeking developer tools.
Levtov acknowledges the disadvantages of lacking technical expertise, including hiring missteps and slower early-stage development. However, he argues that non-technical founders can excel in areas such as customer understanding, team management, fundraising and relationship-building. While AI tools may reduce the need for traditional coding, he maintains that both technical and non-technical founders bring critical strengths to a venture. As companies scale, skills like dealmaking, positioning and marketing often become more important than raw engineering ability.
Craft has raised $42 million in funding to date, according to Levtov.
