We are absolutely thrilled to announce that we’ve partnered with our friends at Isomer Capital, HSBC Innovation Banking and SuperVenture to launch The European VC Awards on Day 1 of SuperVenture 🏆 When we set out to build eu.vc our mission was to connect and champion The European VC industry, so coming together with three good friends and partners to launch The European VC awards is nothing short of a dream come true 💗. We’ve so looked forward to this day when we can finally invite you all to join us in the endeavor and you can do so by nominating to the awards, joining in the conversation on social media, and inviting your peers to nominate 🌟. We will of course also cover select nominees as well as all the finalists and winners here on the eu.vc pod as well as host virtual fireside events so that you can get up close and personal with the European VC champions. Stay tuned 👀.And last but not least, you’ll of course also be able to attend the awards in person as they’re the concluding session at this year’s SuperVenture in Berlin 🏆.Your Voice Matters - Nominate Now!Now, let’s get into the categories, the process and the judging panel ⚖️. Five Awards to Celebrate Our ChampionsDesigned to celebrate change-makers in European VC, the awards are dedicated to recognize and honor the firms and individuals that truly stand out and make a difference. We will do so across five categories:Hall of Fame: Celebrating a lifetime of achievement in European Venture, this award is for those who have shaped the industry through their investments, contributions, and thought leadership over 20+ years and is stepping back from an active investing role and/or entering into a portfolio career of multiple firms. Nominate here 🏆.Firm of the Year: This accolade recognizes a firm from a fully holistic view, including pure financial performance and portfolio performance as well as innovation, impact on the ecosystem, diversity, transparency and fairness as well as team and culture. Nominate here 🏆. Newcomer of the Year: Honoring emerging managers, this award goes to a fund that has had its first close in the past year, recognizing their remarkable success in bringing something new and innovative to the European Venture market while building traction around their fund and vision. Nominate here 🏆. Achievement of the Year: This category is for the outstanding achievements and contributions in the European VC ecosystem in the given year, whether from an individual, company, or fund. This is the wild one where anything can happen. Nominate here 🏆. Exit of the Year: Honoring the firm that has had a company that has exited and created the most value back to the VC and therefore back to the European Venture ecosystem. This is about venture capital returns as opposed to “the biggest exit” and will also encompass strategic aspects of the exit such as timing in relation to market conditions and exit strategy.Nominate here 🏆.The judging panelIn assembling the judging panel, we’ve looked for LPs with decade-long investing excellence and experience that together would form a panel all of the European ecosystem will recognize as capable and just.Thomas Kristensen, Partner at LGT Capital PartnersJonathan Sibilia, Partner & Head of FoFs at Molten VenturesGiulia Van Waeyenberge, Member of the Executive Committee at SofinaStephen Lowery, Head of Investor Coverage & Business Development at HSBC Innovation BankingJoe Schorge, Founding Managing Partner at Isomer Capital (co-chair)Chris Wade, Founding General Partner at Isomer Capital (co-chair)Read much more on eu.vc and go nominate on isomercapital.com/awards

Hemal Fraser-Rawal is the GP of White Star Capital, a global investment platform with 1.5B AUM housing venture capital, digital assets and now debt-led Hybrid growth financing for companies. White Star Capital backs exceptional entrepreneurs building ambitious, international businesses across multiple stages and operate out of London, New York, Paris, Montreal, Toronto, Guernsey, Tokyo, and Singapore. By having such global presence, perspective, and people enable White Star are able to partner closely with their founders and them scale internationally.Go to eu.vc for our core learnings and the full video interview 👀Chapters:00:03:18 - Turbocharging company growth through equity and debt00:06:01 - Leveraged finance and the great recession00:08:46 - The golden age of private credit is changing00:11:30 - Understanding the growth debt markets00:14:28 - Volatility in valuations and risk-reward in credit vs VC00:17:25 - The benefits of debt investments00:20:08 - The inevitability of write-offs in investing00:25:49 - Addressing the funding gap in Europe00:31:08 - Investing across different stages and asset classes00:33:44 - Considering different investment assets00:36:18 - Debt-based investment strategy00:39:07 - Liquidity events and talent in Europe's secondary investing sector00:41:49 - The availability of technical sector jobs00:44:33 - Finding Top VCs in Europe00:50:10 - Persistence in the face of rejection00:52:53 - Building the Future of machines and software

George is a General Partner at Phoenix Court Group, the group of funds home to LocalGlobe in Somers Town, London, building global businesses based on innovative science and technology to have the maximum positive impact on society.LocalGlobe is investing out of their fifth institutional fund, of approx. 150M pounds, with a total AUM of over 1b pounds. Local Globe has an established portfolio of +60 companies and notable investments, including Melio, TravelPerk, Tide, Hibob, Motorway, Wise and Oxford Nanopore, AvantArte, and Sorare.At LocalGlobe, George focuses on Marketplaces, E-commerce 2.0, and SaaS with a particular focus on SMEs across New Palo Alto, a region that encompasses a market of 40 million people and is roughly 4 hours train ride from Phoenix Court’s home next to St Pancras, London. George led the investments into Travelperk, Rekki, Taster, and Qogita.Go to eu.vc for our core learnings and the full video interview 👀 Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction to Phoenix Court Group and Local Globe00:03:03 - Concentrating capital into the most exciting companies00:08:21 - The Rise of Social Media Platforms00:11:01 - P2P Marketplace for Local Activities00:13:44 - Hiring as a VC00:16:25 - EQ and relationships in the venture capital industry.00:21:55 - The Positive Aspects of Control and Humility00:24:51 - The Strength of Europe in the Technology Wave00:30:23 - The Relationship Between Culture, Technology, and Politics00:35:47 - The Role of AI in Society and Culture00:39:00 - The Value of Open Conversations in AI00:41:40 - The Importance of Teamwork in Venture Capital00:44:21 - The unique structure and mission of Local Globe00:47:01 - Lessons learned and the importance of focus00:49:42 - Investing Tips for Emerging VCs in Europe

Today, we have Doreen Huber. Doreen is a Partner at EQT Ventures, a €1.1 BN early-stage venture fund with offices all over Europe and the US to back European and US startups. At EQT Ventures, Doreen focuses on Software in Europe, leading the investment into Parloa this year, the AI for Customer Care Automation. EQT Ventures is investing out of Fund III with a total of €2.3 BN AUM and an established portfolio of more than +100 companies and notable investments, including Handshake, Banking Circle, Einride, Instabee, and Verkor.Prior to joining EQT Ventures as Partner in January 2022, Doreen spent several years honing her role as one of Germany’s most respected business entrepreneurs and food technology experts, holding various C-level positions throughout her career and having founded her first company at 23.As the founder and CEO of LEMONCAT (acquired in 2019 by Rocket Internet’s B2B Food Group), Doreen built a marketplace and SaaS solution for the European catering industry. She was also COO of food delivery unicorn Delivery Hero, currently valued at over €10bn.Outside of work, Doreen is a keen traveller and art lover and holds a Master's degree in Media Science, Literature and Art History from Humboldt University Berlin.Go to eu.vc for our core learnings and the full video interview 👀 Chapters:00:02:40 - From Writer to Founder and VC00:05:08 - Investing with Aligned Goals00:07:32 - Lessons Learned from Early Investments in Delivery Hero00:09:47 - The Shift in Perspective00:12:33 - Embracing Luck and Gratitude00:15:13 - The Intersection of Business and Creativity00:17:46 - The Intersection of Different Backgrounds in Startups00:20:11 - Sales as Crucial to Success00:22:36 - Sales Teams in Product Growth00:24:58 - Sales DNA00:27:22 - Importance of Monetization Strategy00:29:49 - Bridging the Gap in Sales Culture00:32:23 - The Power of EQT Partners to Connect with Experts00:34:51 - Leveraging Knowledge within Organizations00:37:31 - Being a Supportive Investor00:39:56 - Lessons for Founders from a VC Internship00:42:17 - The Randomness of VC Decision-Making00:47:14 - The Importance of Company Culture in Remote Settings

Join us for another episode of the NEUVC series which is dedicated to those embarking on their journey in the VC.In this episode, Freddie Macpherson, Analyst at Isomer Capital, and Linda Võeras, Associate at Karma Ventures, are joined by the one and only Mr. Exits, who runs Exits Cap. Exits Cap is a Seed and Series - A fund launched in 2022 focused on investments in the SaaS, Consumer Internet, and Aerospace and Defence verticals. But you may know who we’re talking about from the name of the infamous social media account Praying for Exits.With over 80,000 followers on Instagram, we all know his memes. Today, Mr. Exits lifts the lid on the US versus Europe by setting up his social media accounts and how they've been useful to him on his journey.Head on over to eu.vc for the core learnings 🧠Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction to Mr. Exit and His Social Media Platform00:02:10 - The Journey to Venture Capital00:03:51 - The Journey to Becoming a VC00:05:34 - The Impetus for "Praying for Exits"00:07:12 - Memes and Influence in Venture Capital00:12:07 - Building Relationships with Founders00:15:29 - Cold Outreach and High Conversion Rates00:17:09 - Scrutiny in the Public Eye00:20:20 - Building a Brand with High Integrity00:23:42 - Overcoming Anxiety and Staying Genuine on Social Media00:26:55 - Finding Value in Social Media00:28:35 - Revealing the Opacity of Venture Capital00:33:36 - The Value of Attention in Early Stage Companies00:35:16 - Utilizing Attention for Success in Venture Capital00:36:57 - Building with Integrity in Venture Capital

Welcome to a new episode of our special series At The Cap Table. Today Savitri Tan from Isomer Capital is joined by Naza Metghalchi, Principal at EQT Ventures to talk a lot about her career so far, transitioning from a platform role into investment, why surrounding yourselves with the best is integral and how to build relationships of trust with founders.Naza Metghalchi was born in Iran, raised in Paris, and has lived in London for the past 15 years. She started her career as an intern at Seedcamp in 2012, whilst all her friends were joining consulting firms or investment banks. Later, she joined onefinestay, where she fell in love with the raw energy and enthusiasm of startups.She joined the team at Series A, led commercial positions in the sales and product marketing teams, witnessing periods focusing on profitability and others on growth (at all cost!), until the company got acquired after having raised $80m. She then became an early employee at a startup studio, Founders Factory, where she set up their accelerator program.An avid supporter of the European ecosystem, she published Rewarding Talent, a guide to democratising employee equity, and is an active angel investor, in consumer social, and the future of work space.At EQT, she loves partnering with founders that are execution-driven whilst being self-reflective, and working alongside them as a problem-solver and people-person at her core.Outside of work, you can usually find Naza organising a dinner party, listening to podcasts outdoors, reading Japanese literature and travelling to South America. Naza holds a BA in European Politics, and a MS in Management from the London School of Economics.Watch the full episode as well as our upcoming events on eu.vc 👀Chapters:00:00:00 - Untold Stories of Amazing VCs in Europe00:02:19 - Career Moves and Early Stage Companies00:04:21 - Learning in Startup Environments00:06:12 - Attributes of Successful Founders00:08:03 - Surrounding Yourself with the Best00:10:01 - Surrounding Yourself with Tier One People00:12:02 - Building Your Cap Table00:13:49 - Building Relationships with VCs00:15:43 - Assessing Investors for Business Growth00:17:41 - Building Trust and Vulnerability in Investor-Founder Relationships00:19:39 - Building a Trust-Based Relationship with Founders00:21:38 - The Importance of Alignment in Achieving Objectives00:23:46 - Understanding Product Market Fit00:25:37 - Assessing Founders and Market Timing00:27:35 - The Role of Luck in Business Ventures00:29:25 - Maximizing Chances and Grabbing Luck00:31:22 - The Trustworthiness of Tactyc in Fund Management

Today, we have Lucile Cornet with us. Lucile is a Partner at Eight Roads, a $11BN global venture fund with offices across the globe.Eight Roads invests in companies at the Series B stage and helps them scale up internationally. They have 450 portfolio companies globally, of which 60 are IPOs, and many are unicorns: Alibaba, Toast, Flywire, Chewy, Hibob, Neo4j, or Fever.Lucile is part of the European team of Eight Roads. She is a French national (born in Toulouse) but has been based in London for 15 years and focuses on anything SaaS and Fintech series B. She became one of the youngest female partners in Europe, being promoted to Partner in 2021 at just 33 years old. Her investments include companies such as Spendesk, Leocare, Amenitiz, Reveal, and Thinksurance.Outside work, Lucile is a mum of two daughters who loves adventurous travel and cooking and as you’ll see, a dazzling extrovert who thrives in meeting new people.Watch the full interview on eu.vc 👀 and read our core learnings 🧠Chapters00:00:00 - Lucile’s journey in VC & Eight Roads Venture Fund intro00:06:30 - Moving fast in the tech industry00:07:07 - Learning and unlearning in VC00:15:07 - Building firm belief & conviction ahead of an investment00:18:00 - Why a little bit of chaos is good for you00:24:02 - The Potential of SME Vertical SaaS00:29:49 - The value ad model and investing in growth00:35:59 - Sales, marketing and adoption in enterprise software00:38:59 - The importance of Humility and listening00:42:17 - The importance of Speed and execution00:45:03 - On Leadership and decision-making 00:48:04 - Building strong relationships in business00:51:11 - People and culture in VC00:54:16 - Advice for emerging VCs across Europe00:57:27 - Don't give up on fundraising

Join us as Tom Wilson from Seedcamp and Anthony Danon from Cocoa talk to Paul Foster, co-founder & CEO of Indeed and currently an active angel investor.Paul Forster co-founded Indeed and was CEO until the company’s acquisition in late 2012. Today, Indeed is the leading job site globally, with over 100 million unique visitors in more than 50 countries and 26 languages. Paul previously co-founded the leading job site for financial professionals, and before that was an investment professional at International Finance Corporation. He holds an MBA from INSEAD and Master’s degrees from Cambridge and Oxford Universities.Paul loves working with founders and loves their energy, creativity, and variety. As an investor, he enjoys the intellectual stimulation from getting to know different industries and sectors and from working with different kinds of people.We invite you to listen to this discussion below to hear some wonderful stories, besides the actionable pieces of advice that you can have a sneak peek at below.Watch the full interview on eu.vc 👀 and read the core learnings 🧠 Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction to the Super Angel Podcast00:01:54 - Early stage investing and angel investing00:04:50 - Mentally stimulating work and investing in focused founders00:06:30 - Investing in UK-based Companies00:08:14 - Approaching New Deals and Portfolio Diversity00:10:00 - Finding the Balance Between Diversification and Support00:11:42 - Investing in Founders with Domain Expertise00:13:22 - Pattern Recognition and Experience00:15:05 - Collaborating with Other Investors in the Ecosystem00:16:51 - Investing in Early Stage Companies00:18:35 - Leading a Round00:20:16 - Examples of Successful Investments00:22:09 - Investing in VC Funds00:23:58 - Core Learnings from Angel Investing00:25:49 - Key Factors for Successful Investing00:27:44 - Follow-on Investing and Objective Decision Making00:29:28 - The Importance of the Right Team and Market Opportunity00:30:57 - The Importance of Capital Efficiency in Building a Business00:32:37 - Lessons from Angel Investing00:34:28 - Building networks for international investments

Join us for another episode of the NEUVC series which is dedicated to those embarking on their journey in the VC. In this episode, Freddie Macpherson, analyst at Isomer Capital, and Linda Võeras, associate at Karma Ventures, are joined by Rebecka Löthman Rydå, Investment Director at Inventure.Inventure is a Nordic-Baltic a generalist venture capital fund focused on early-stage investing. Rebecka has been an investor for almost nine years and ended up in venture a little bit by accident and staying because she simply couldn’t see herself anywhere else.Her true passion is all things related to software, AI data, and nerdy stuff. A little bit of deep tech and clean tech, when possible.Chapters:00:00:00 - Rebecka’s journey into venture00:04:55 - The balance of trust and empathy in deal-making00:09:50 - The deal evaluation process00:14:34 - Building trust and balancing relationships00:19:32 - Key skills in deal-making00:24:40 - Negotiating ownership and capital Needs00:29:42 - Staying true to portfolio strategy00:34:45 - Becoming a great investor through curiosity and deep diving00:40:04 - The importance of staying focused and being Open00:45:13 - VC funding in the music industry.

Today we have Tom McGinn with us. Tom is the General Counsel of Northzone, a multi-stage venture fund with offices in London, Stockholm, NYC, Amsterdam and Berlin, that invests from seed to growth across Europe and the US.Northzone closed a EUR 1 billion fund last year and has backed over 100 companies, including Spotify, Personio & Spring Health. Tom joined Northzone in 2021 from Cooley where he helped get the emerging companies team in Europe off the ground.Watch the full interview on eu.vc 👀 and read our core learnings 🧠 Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction and Guest Introduction00:03:09 - Lessons Learned from a Startup Experience00:06:23 - European Approach to Advising High Growth Companies00:09:34 - The Future of AI in the Legal Space00:12:37 - The Difficulty of Reversing Company Negativity00:15:41 - Building a High-Functioning Board00:18:33 - The Value and Potential Destruction of Board Members00:21:32 - Founders Treating the Board as Employees00:24:25 - Awareness of Misalignment00:27:38 - Strategic alignment and good cultural fit00:30:36 - Managing Investor Departures00:33:49 - Exceptional Leadership and Shoutouts to Female Founders00:36:56 - Key Learnings for Founders00:40:12 - Misalignment and liquidation preference00:43:15 - Management Carve Out and Incentivization00:46:36 - Tips for Emerging VCs 00:48:54 - Professionalism Amidst Technical Difficulties00:49:29 - Europe as a model for the world's new beginnings

Today we have Simon Lohmann, Head of Platform & Investor Relations at Cavalry Ventures, an early-stage generalist venture fund in Germany to back European Software companies with a huge LP network and a sizeable platform team in place.Cavalry is investing out of Fund 3 with a total of 250m AUM and an established portfolio of 50+ companies and notable investments including Usercentrics (Consent Management), Planradar (Real-Estate Construction Management), Forto (Digital Freight Forwarder), and Aleph Alpha (Generative Enterprise AI), which just raised an enormous Series B.At Cavalry, Simon focuses on Fundraising and Investor Relations now and built up the platform before.Go to eu.vc for a full write up of our learnings from this episode 🧠 Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction and Sponsor Message00:03:30 - Investment Announcement with German Corporates00:06:58 - From Sales to VC: My Journey in the Industry00:10:15 - The Importance of Education and Learning00:13:47 - Investing in Talent and Consolidation in the VC Space00:17:29 - The Challenges in the VC Industry00:21:09 - Adjusting Valuations and Interacting with LPs00:24:35 - The Beginning of Cavalry and the Platform Activities00:28:11 - Structured Approach to Platform Development00:31:40 - Using an App for Communication00:35:04 - Using Affinity as our CRM00:38:30 - Tracking the Success of Introductions00:41:59 - The Value of a Platform Team in Venture Capital00:45:28 - Importance of Value Add and Trust00:48:45 - Supporting Portfolio Companies00:52:14 - Shoutouts to Christian Du and Hannah from Don Capital00:55:49 - Strategic Work and Scalability00:59:20 - Capacity Management and Scalability Techniques01:02:53 - Advice for First-Time Founders and Long-Term Thinking01:06:27 - Communicating Clearly with LPs in Venture Capital01:10:15 - European Unity and Values

Today we are welcoming Bastian Larsen, Founding Partner of BlackWood Ventures, a pan-European early-stage VC fund focused on Fintech, Web 3.0 and Cleantech. Blackwood has a value-creating approach that leverages AI to minimize biases and a proprietary pan-European network of over 1200 angels. BlackWood had a $10m first closing in early April this year, with a $50m target. As of today, BlackWood has made investments across 5 countries in just 6 months, counting companies like Qaptis, Trips and Fingreen AI.We wanted to bring Bastian on because BlackWood, just as ourselves, build on a strong angel community, so for this episode, that’s where we focus 👀Chapters:00:02:54 - From London to New York: Bastian’s Journey into VC00:04:17 - Building the European VC Market00:05:37 - A Pivotal Moment in Venture Capital00:06:57 - The Power of a Small Positive Impact00:08:22 - The Lack of European Growth Stage Funds00:09:41 - Launching Growth Stage Funds00:11:03 - Building Blackwood and Overcoming Hurdles00:12:15 - Leveraging the Power of Angel Networks00:13:30 - Building Relationships with Angels00:14:41 - The Importance of Angel Networks in Startup Investing00:16:00 - The Importance of Feedback and Strategic Investments00:17:16 - Leveraging the Network for Co-investment and Cash Injection00:18:33 - Investing and Dividing Deals00:19:54 - Monetization and Scaling Up00:21:15 - Personalized Approach in Angel Investing00:22:52 - Jacob Kilgard: A Backer of Blackwood00:24:10 - Fundraising success and trust in our network00:25:28 - Staying Curious and Building Relationships00:26:46 - Building a Common Vision00:28:01 - Comparing Opposites and Writing Children's Books00:29:22 - Fundraising and Leveraging Networks in the VC Industry00:30:43 - Drop Us a Review and Join the Blackwood Gang

As we welcome 2024, let's reflect on the critical developments in scientific research and innovation shaped by geopolitical dynamics over the past year. This pod (and article on eu.vc) delve into the shifting landscape of international collaboration, emphasizing the roles of major global players and innovative breakthroughs in energy, space technologies, and generative AI.We'll explore how these advancements are influencing our sustainable future and expanding our cosmic understanding. Additionally, we examine the burgeoning world of AI, where rapid growth brings both opportunities and challenges in regulation and industry adaptation.A special focus is given to the evolving dynamics of startup ownership and control, illustrated by Open AI's public board deliberations.This case study highlights the complex balance of power among founders, teams, investors, and boards in guiding the future of pioneering companies.As we step into the new year, let's navigate these changes with insight and integrity, both professionally and personally. Here's to a year of positive impact and innovation. We hope you enjoy and have a great New Year's! 🥳

It was awesome hosting more than 600 European venture investors for our Roundtable on strategies for winning with non-dilutive funding in Europe 📺 In case you missed it, you can rewatch the session above, read the quick recap below or tune in on Spotify or Apple to get it right into your ears 🎧.You’re in for a treat with the magnificent panel consisting of:Gilles de Malbosc, Chief Investment Officer at Harmony Family OfficeBailey Morrow, Managing Director at HSBC Innovation BankingHemal Fraser-Rawal, General Partner at White Star CapitalBenjamin Rieder, Founder & CEO of LevenueGo to eu.vc to read the full recap and watch the recording of the roundtable 👀Chapters: 00:00:00 - Introduction to the Round Table Discussion on Non-Diluted Financing and Revenue Based Financing00:02:52 - The Difficulty of Company Financing00:05:33 - Using Recurring Revenue as Collateral for Financing00:08:12 - Investing in RBF as an MFO00:11:16 - Risk and Reward in Venture and RBF00:13:47 - Varying Capital Stack for Companies00:16:17 - Financing for Entrepreneurs and Investors00:18:43 - The Benefits of Non-Dilutive Capital00:20:45 - Non-dilutive Capital and Cap Table Management00:22:55 - Blending Debt and Equity Instruments00:25:22 - Uses and Benefits of Short-term Working Capital Finance00:27:57 - Complementing Equity in Financing00:30:13 - Investing in Alternatives00:32:57 - Risk and Data in Private Markets00:35:36 - Loss Rates in Private Credit and Alternative Finance00:37:59 - Investing in Venture-backed Companies00:40:25 - Risk Management and KPIs in Lending00:42:30 - Choosing the Right Business Partner00:44:54 - Fraud Stories and Short-Term Analysis00:47:25 - Financing Options for Venture-backed Companies00:49:46 - The Importance of Partnering with VCs and Being Creative in Venture Debt00:52:05 - Short-Term Capital for Companies & Investors00:55:00 - Non-Dilutive Financing00:57:40 - Closing Remarks

In this special feature, we're excited to share a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of venture capital and climate change as we wrapped up COP28 with some of the leading VCs attending COP this year:Lena Tiede from Planet APeter Hirsch from 2150Sonia Weymuller from VentureSouqAreije Al Shakar from Al Waha Fund of FundsIn the episode, we dived into:The evolution of climate tech as a crucial sector in VC as well as in fighting climate change.The increasing role of VCs in shaping environmental policy and driving sustainable innovation.Perspectives from both LPs and VCs on the future of climate finance and technology.Chapters:00:00:00 - Wrapping up COP28 and its Implications00:01:56 - Introduction of Panelist and Funds00:03:47 - Transition Away from Fossil Fuels00:05:28 - Investing in Climate Tech Funds00:07:19 - Investing in the Environmental Space00:09:13 - Investing in Early Stage Climate in the GCC00:10:51 - Climate Investment in the Middle East00:12:24 - Increasing Investment in Early Stage Climate Tech00:14:07 - Tech Tipping Points and Earth Systems Tipping Points00:16:12 - All-Hands-On-Deck Approach in Addressing Climate Change00:17:57 - Generating Collaborative Spaces for Climate Action00:19:26 - The Next Generation and Climate Accountability00:21:04 - Investing Strategies in the GCC00:22:45 - The Global Nature of Climate Innovation00:24:35 - Fundraising in the GCC00:26:16 - Investing in Climate in Emerging Markets00:27:47 - Emerging Climate Solutions in High Growth Markets00:29:21 - The Overwhelming Scale of COP and the Role of VC in Climate Tech00:31:11 - Growth and Construction in Developing Countries00:32:59 - The Role of the Private Sector in Supporting Climate Technologies00:34:43 - The Need for More Public Funding in Europe00:36:41 - Funding Climate Solutions in the MENA Region00:38:26 - Collaboration for Climate Solutions

Today we have Hampus Jakobsson, founding GP of Pale Blue Dot with us for a very special episode dedicated wholly to raising a fund virtually. It came about because Hampus casually mentioned that he hadn’t traveled a single mile in the raise of Fund 2, which of course had us thinking: "Wow, we need to share this story! So strap in!"Hampus is a GP at Pale Blue Dot, an early stage venture fund in Sweden to back European Climate Tech companies. PBD are investing out of Fund 2 with a total 200M$ AUM and an established portfolio of 32 companies and notable investments including Monta, Patch, OverStory, ClimateX and Opna.Prior to co-founding Pale Blue Dot, Hampus was a Venture Partner at science fund Blue Yard and a prolific angel investor with more than 100 angel investments. He is a software engineer turned founder, turned angel investor, turned VC. When not working with ambitious climate people Hampus cooks, reads and thinks.We’ve had Hampus on before (episode #115 🎧) and we whole-heartedly recommend you go check it out if you haven’t yet, ‘cos Hampus is hands-down one of our best guests on the pod. Smart, candid, top performing, and a rapid talker like none other!Go to eu.vc to watch the whole interview 👀 Chapters:00:02:45 - The Motivation Behind Saying No to Traveling for Fundraising00:04:56 - Building a Deck for Fundraising00:06:47 - Defining Your Fundraising Strategy 00:14:28 - Effective Meetings and Learning Opportunities00:16:16 - Building Trust Virtually00:20:06 - Being a Real Person00:22:07 - Working with What You're Good At00:28:09 - Dealing with Different Investment Perspectives00:32:01 - Importance of Handcrafted Relationships00:35:47 - The Quick Fire Round00:37:54 - The Dangers of Coming Into Wealth00:42:26 - Parenthood and the Love for Kids

Today, Freddie Macpherson, analyst at Isomer Capital, and Linda Võeras, associate at Karma Ventures, are joined by Paul Gillespie, Managing Director at Sheffield Haworth, a global executive search firm with a specialty in deep tech. With over 20 years in the industry, he co-founded Gilmore Stevens, focusing on building executive teams for venture-backed businesses. After merging with Sheffield Haworth to expand globally, Paul now leads their deep tech practice, covering sectors from semiconductors to nuclear fusion. An electronic engineer by training, he thrives on the cutting-edge innovation in deep tech, despite the opportunity to retire. His recent projects include a significant investment deal with a French chip company, underscoring his commitment to the ever-evolving world of technology.Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction to Paul Gillespie and the Importance of Talent in High Growth Companies00:02:24 - Deep Tech and the Exciting Era of Technology00:04:43 - Discovering Your Superpower in the Industry00:06:54 - Finding the Right Chief Operating Officer00:08:54 - The process of executive search00:11:11 - Creating a Viable Target List for Candidates00:13:28 - The Importance of Assessing Candidates Beyond Interviews00:15:43 - Approaching the Right Search Agency00:18:03 - The Importance of Having a Mentor and Advisor 00:20:13 - The Importance of Critical Hires00:22:26 - Attracting Talent with the Wow Factor00:24:30 - Key Factors for Startup Success00:26:50 - The Power of Evangelizing and Positioning Propositions00:28:56 - Common Mistakes in Hiring a CFO00:31:18 - Issues with CEO Hiring00:33:39 - The Importance of Feedback Loops and Communication 00:35:57 - The Importance of Good Hiring00:38:09 - The Role of Investors in the Hiring Process00:40:18 - Replacing Founder CEOs00:42:44 - The Role of the CEO in Company Growth00:45:05 - Skills for Success in Investment Roles00:47:18 - Understanding the Difference Between Titles and Skills00:49:24 - The Importance of Mentors and Retention in Hiring00:51:40 - Reflecting on Linder's Career

Join us as Tom Wilson from Seedcamp and Anthony Danon from Cocoa talk to Harsh Sinha, Wise-CTO about his angel investing journey, thesis and strategy and core learnings.Harsh is a seasoned technologist with a passion for creating innovative, scalable, and customer-centric digital experiences. With a strong foundation in team building and a knack for impactful business strategies, he's played a pivotal role in developing server-side technologies and enhancing consumer experiences on web and mobile platforms.His professional journey includes a significant tenure at PayPal as Director of Product, where he spearheaded the product strategy and development of mobile applications and software for mobile wallet experiences. Join us as we dive into Harsh's insights and experiences in powering global financial infrastructure and pushing the boundaries of technology in finance.Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction to the Super Angel Pod00:02:32 - Building Experiences & the Primacy of Passionate Builders00:07:19 - On Non-Technical Founders and Becoming More Objective00:11:42 - Core Learnings from Angel Investing00:13:52 - Finding a Middle Ground00:16:06 - Balancing Diversification and Time to Support Founders00:18:17 - Assessing Founders and their passion for solving problems00:20:25 - Three Core Learnings: Team, First Principles, and Avoiding Bias00:22:35 - Being Naive in Angel Investing and the Importance of Passion00:24:44 - The Reality of Investments00:26:55 - Lessons in Angel Investing & Investing Across Europe and Asia00:31:19 - The Access Issue in European Markets00:33:32 - Building a Global Lens and Investing Internationally

Today we have Greg Dewerpe with us. Greg is a founder & CIO at A/O, a venture firm in London backing European founders that are building innovative technology companies that directly and indirectly solve mission critical problems in the Built World with a unique access to some of the largest B2B customers in the industry.A/O has a total of 250€ MN in AUM, an established portfolio of 23 companies and notable investments including SPAN, Passivelogic, SatteliteVu, Plentific and Enter.At A/O, Greg focuses on building world technology and positive transformation (like decarbonisation, climate resiliency and digitalisation), in Europe & the US, late seed to series B.A/O is also the first VC to ever join as a Global Innovator at the WEF which the attentive listener will know we are big supporters of given our involvement with the UpLink Initiative.Watch the whole interview and our key take-aways on eu.vc 💖 Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction to the European VC Podcast00:04:12 - Overcoming Challenges in Career Transition00:07:55 - The Power of Visualization and Positivity00:11:44 - The Challenges of the Industry00:15:34 - Building Europe’s biggest Solo GP00:19:25 - Keyman Risk vs. Team Risk00:22:54 - The Journey towards Growth and Improvement00:26:34 - On Bullying, Balancing Work and Parenthood00:33:59 - Being Present in Relationships00:38:02 - Confidence, Humility, and Growth in Entrepreneurship00:41:58 - The Challenges and Opportunities of VC in Real Estate 00:45:44 - The Impact of Technology Transformation on Asset Prices00:49:32 - Aligning Doing Good and Making Money00:53:35 - Risk Tolerance and Acceptance of Failure in Venture Capital00:57:14 - The Benefits of Being a Specialist in Venture Capital

We’re kicking the Super Angel series into a whole new gear for 2024 by introducing Seedcamp-partner Tom Wilson as our new co-host 🥳 alongside the existing host team of the amazing Anthony Danon from Cocoa, David and Andreas 🎙️But before celebrating Tom, let us just pause and extend a heartfelt shoutout to Anthony Danon, whose contributions as a co-host have been pivotal to the Super Angel Podcast so far 💖. Anthony's vast network, particularly potent within fintech (but, tbh, generally quite mindblowing), has brought forth some of the most brilliant founders and operators to our platform.But there’s another reason why Anthony is the perfect host for the series: with just shy of twenty angel investments made prior to launching his angel fund Cocoa, his money is where his mouth is - and with two portfolio unicorns, that’s a good place 🦄.Anthony's deep understanding of the VC space and his dedication to bridging the gap between angels and VCs have been invaluable. His efforts have not only sculpted the podcast's feel, but also its success.Thank you, Anthony. We can’t wait to continue on our joint journey for decades to come 🚀Welcoming Tom Wilson to the host team 🎧Tom comes to us with a wealth of experience from Seedcamp, where he has worked closely with some of the most promising startups in Europe. But Seedcamp is way more than just one of Europe’s top tier seed VCs with a ludicrous track. Ever since their founding in 2007, Seedcamp has been dedicated to connecting VCs and Angels across Europe having built its own fully-fledged network economy where 1,000+ founders, experts, angels and VCs come together to make each other stronger.Or as Tom said in connection to the launch of Seedcamp VI:"It does make sense to build a village around the founders for that initial phase and so with our very collaborative approach, and the fact that we had the chance over the past years to work with pretty much everyone that invests early in Europe, we can be a catalyst to really help entrepreneurs find the best partner for that round."Being a catalyst for finding the right partners. That’s exactly what the eu.vc pod is about - be that as an LP, a co-investor or a founder. Connecting Europe. The super angel series being specifically designed to champion the amazing angels across the continent.By joining the Super Angel Podcast, Tom brings the collective wisdom of Seedcamp to the forefront, offering listeners a unique insight into the journey of tech investing from the ground up​​.In case you should’ve missed some of our Super Angel episodes (which you’d be excused for, we’re keeping a pretty good pace on the pod), we’ve collected them all for you on the playlist below 🎧

Today we have Klementina Österberg from GU Ventures & Ted Persson from EQT Ventures with us🎙️. Ted is a Partner at EQT Ventures, a 1.1bn multi Stage venture fund with offices spread across Europe and the US. EQT Ventures are investing out of Fund 3 with a total €2.3bn AUM and an established portfolio of 120+ companies and notable investments including Wolt, Einride, Nothing, Anyfin and Candela.Klementina is CEO at GU Ventures, an early seed investor and incubator in Gothenburg, Sweden, that is fully owned by the Swedish State and is an evergreen investment vehicle. GU Ventures invests in deep tech companies formed out of the research at universities. They are investing up to 200k€, have established over 165 companies, of which 82 are in their portfolio today and notable investments including Bico, I-Tech, Surgical Science, all of which are listed on Stockholm Stock Exchange and Nasdaq today.We’ve reeled in Klementina and Ted for this episode as a warm-up for our participation at the GoWest Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden 🥳 which is proving to a be a real force in DeepTech punching above its wait just as Gothenburg and Sweden is. We’ll be there as there’s lined up for an incredibly cool investor day counting headlines like:Fireside chat with Staffan Helgesson, the founder of CreandumClimate panel with partners from Norrsken, Pact VC and Planet A,DeepTech panel with partners from Speedinvest, Ventech, EQT and NATO Innovation Fund and thought provoking presentations by Sebastian von Ribbentrop at Join Capital and Nicholas Nelson on The rise of Defense TechLP panels with leading pension funds and corporates from the region as well as of course the EIF, Isomer Capital and BFP.As said, just like the region, GoWest is truly attracting the best of the best. So don’t miss it if you’re into DeepTech 🤖Chapters00:00:00 - Introduction to EQT Ventures and GU Ventures00:02:24 - Klementina & Ted’s Journey in the Venture Industry00:07:14 - Investing in Deep Tech Startups00:09:32 - Investing in Startups from Universities00:11:40 - Investing in Companies Coming out of Academia00:13:53 - Building Diverse Founding Teams00:16:14 - The Skills of a Founder and Investor Relations00:18:24 - Investment Strategies and Cap Tables00:20:47 - Investing in Post-Internet Companies00:23:03 - The Need for A Deep Tech Playbook00:25:14 - Investing in Hardware00:27:42 - Capital requirements for deep tech companies00:30:14 - Investing in Deep Tech Startups00:32:37 - Managing Opportunities in the Sustainable Industrial Sector00:34:58 - Investment Strategies and Success Stories00:37:34 - Balancing Expertise and Fresh Perspectives00:39:52 - Building a Strong Portfolio with Balanced Capital Needs00:42:04 - The Potential of Biotech00:44:20 - Managing Technology Risk00:46:31 - Collaborating with Other Investors as a VC00:48:50 - Calling for Co-investors at Deep Tech Event00:51:10 - European Tech Sovereignty00:53:18 - Drop Us a ReviewConsidering joining us at GoWest? Here’s what you need to know 🧠Why GoWest?Two universities. Eight incubators. Many global brands. Industrial heritage. Gothenburg is at the forefront of research& development and home to emerging industries striving to solve tomorrow’s challenges. GoWest is unique. It is fantastic meeting place for investors, startups, scaleups, talent and other stakeholders who want to engage and don’t want to miss out on the opportunities our industries and deep tech spin outs have to offer.What can you expect?There is something for everyone. We facilitate matchmaking and have a dedicated stage for fundraising startups. The hottest topics in deep tech, defense, climate, and health tech will be showcased on the main stage and next year the event will feature a brand-new Deep Tech Investor Day. The Investor Day will add extra value by bringing West Sweden’s investor community together with international peers to discuss current topics and build lasting relationships.Anything else?Yes, Gothenburg is one of the fastest-growing regions in Europe and that adds to our competitiveness on the international stage. GoWest enables easy access to our ecosystem and the region's key stakeholders. The conference has a great line up of speakers and topics on the main stage, side events, networking opportunities and more exciting announcements to come.

Today we have Staffan Helgesson with us. Staffan is the founder of Creandum, a European early stage venture firm with no appointed headquarter but offices (or hubs as they call them) in Sweden, London, Berlin and San Francisco. Creandum just turned 20 years and are investing out of their 6th fund which is a $500m fund to back founders and companies across Europe. In addition to Europe they invest in European diaspora founders in the US.The firm is a generalist investor but have organised themselves in six main verticals; Health, Climate, Technical SaaS, Application SaaS, Fintech and Consumer, where they spend most of their time.Creandum has approximately $2 Bn under management and have done close to 150 investments over the years with notable investments including Spotify, Klarna, Trade Republic, Pleo, Bolt, iZettle, Cornershop, depop, Kahoot!, Taxfix, Kry and Factorial. At Creandum, Staffan leads the climate vertical and is also very active investing in Saas companies.Chapters00:00:00 - Introduction to Staffan and Creandum 00:01:52 - From Small-Town Origins to Silicon Valley Inspiration00:03:49 - Loving Niche Sports and Venture Capital in Europe00:05:47 - The European Investing Advantage & Time as a Solution00:09:35 - Staffan’s Pivotal Moment00:11:37 - The Importance of Bold Ideas and Drive00:13:45 - The Importance of User-Centric Design and Delighting the End User00:15:35 - Focusing on the Top Companies00:17:34 - Combining Transformational Change and Hearing the Train00:19:29 - Investing in the Future of Electric Vehicle Charging00:21:14 - The Benefits of Electrification and the Future of EVs00:23:26 - Shout Out to Co-Investor Angel or LP00:25:18 - Shout out to Creandum during a difficult time00:27:14 - Building a Franchise00:29:12 - Building a Firm for Institutions00:30:59 - Sustainable Competitive Advantage in Venture00:32:52 - Gut Feeling and Logical Analysis00:34:46 - The Importance of Gut Feeling in Decision Making00:36:58 - Approaching Tier One Institutions00:39:10 - Europe's New Beginnings

Join us for the second episode of the NEUVC podcast which is dedicated to those embarking on their journey in the VC. In this episode, Freddie Macpherson, analyst at Isomer Capital, and Linda Võeras, associate at Karma Ventures, are joined by Mari Luukkainen, Principal at Finland based Icebreaker VC. With a background of building and scaling companies and a great eye and dedication to content, Mari has amassed a massive following of 20,000 people on LinkedIn. In this we dive into her journey as an operator as well as share tips and tricks for VCs looking to develop their personal brand ✨Chapters:00:00:00 - Developing Your Personal Brand in VC with Mar Lanan00:02:59 - Finding Value in Your Journey00:05:53 - Transitioning to Startup Growth00:08:43 - From Cleaner Recruiting to VC Investment00:11:40 - From Hands-on Help to Coaching00:14:48 - The Paradox of Finding a Job00:17:56 - Consistency in Content Creation00:21:12 - Consistency and Networking for Building an Audience00:24:18 - Attracting Founders at the Pre-Founder Stage00:27:10 - Building a Personal Brand for Investors00:30:16 - Overcoming the Challenges of Branding00:33:12 - The Importance of Emotion in Branding00:36:20 - The Importance of Emotional Support in Startups00:39:17 - Transferring Writing Skills to Investment00:42:14 - Shifting from Operator to Coach in VC00:45:05 - Building Something Yourself First00:47:54 - The Role of Venture Capital

We always hear from new VCs entering the market, but rarely do we ever hear from giants leaving the market. Today, we bring you such a conversation.Honoring the gravity of the situation and the commitment by Fred Destin to share so openly, we invited Joe Schorge, founding partner of Isomer Capital and one of Europe’s most important LP voices, to lead the conversation.We hope you enjoy listening in as much as we did 💞 watch it in full on eu.vc 👀Chapters:00:00:00 - The EUVC podcast with Joe Schorge and Fred Destin00:02:54 - The Decision to Pause00:04:59 - Journey of Personal Interrogation00:07:08 - Motivation and the Next Iteration00:09:20 - Stepping out of the Noise00:11:19 - The Challenges of Running a Firm and Raising Funds00:13:16 - Investor Reactions to Fundraising Efforts00:15:14 - The State of Fundraising and LP Responsibility00:17:24 - Positive Response to the Blog Post00:19:08 - Triggered Responses and Leaving the Prevailing Narrative00:20:19 - Mistakes and Challenges in Going Public with Cazoo00:23:08 - The Rise of New VC Funds00:25:08 - Knowing Your Value and Purpose00:28:58 - Holding Ambiguity as a VC00:31:00 - Self Awareness and Humility00:32:57 - Investor Alignment and Board Tensions00:35:11 - Shielding Founders and Managing Conflict in Investments00:37:25 - Framing Discussions in the Right Way0:38:40 - The State of the Industry Update for 202400:43:23 - The Importance of Shadow Work and Enhancing the Present Moment00:45:20 - The Importance of Personal Work and Connection00:47:02 - Future Coaching Program for Young VCs

Few periods are as busy as the end of the year. And that is definitely true for us at eu.vc this year as we announce yet another investment that we’ve been working hard on behind the scenes throughout the summer and fall. Consequently, it’s with great pride and pleasure that we announce our angel LP syndicate investment into First Momentum Ventures 🥳.We’ve known the team for a little more than a year now and have truly enjoyed following them and working with them throughout their raise. Excellent execution, great reputation from all who have come across them and a team that’s set on a path that definitely looks like one that will lead to greatness.We’re honored to have been invited along for the ride and will make sure that you will all get to hear much more from this team in the future. But now, we invite you to start by getting to know them via this pod episode and our spotlight article on eu.vc 👀🎧Overview:First Momentum Ventures (FMV), established in 2017, is a pioneering venture capital firm based in Karlsruhe, Germany, concentrating on pre-seed investments in European technology-driven B2B startups. They have been trailblazers in pre-seed venture capital in Germany since 2018, emphasizing a unique pre-seed strategy with a strong technical DNA. The team behind had its start supporting startups from a pre-seed campus incubator they started in 2015, which have collectively attracted over 500m € in capital​​​​.Fund II Overview:The launch of FMV's €35M Fund II targets technical pre-seed founders in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and across Europe, focusing on sectors like Deep Tech, Industrial & Climate Tech, Dev Tools & Data, and Enterprise SaaS. They aim to build a portfolio of around 35 companies, targeting approximately 5% ownership with an average initial ticket size of €0.5m and keeping around 30% in follow-on reserves​​.Investment Performance and Strategy:FMV Fund I (2018 vintage) demonstrates top quartile performance with a portfolio size of 27 startups, a portfolio multiple of 1.97, and a total IRR of 28%. There are already several clear outliers visible that have a large potential to grow into fund returners (i.e. returning the entire fund by themselves). The follow-on capital raised by these startups amounted to 150m€, highlighting the fund's success in backing scalable and investment-worthy ventures​​.Unique Approach and Value Addition: FMV stands out for its deep technical understanding and laser-focused pre-seed DNA. Their team of engineers & scientists, connected to leading European universities and industry decision-makers, brings a unique perspective to investing. They are known for rapid processes, candor, and risk-affine technical founder partnerships - true to their credo of “engineers at heart, investors by choice”. FMV's support extends beyond funding to include a dedicated support platform for a holistic support tailored specifically to super early technical companies.Investment Thesis:FMV's investment thesis is focused on supporting European deep-tech champions at the onset of their journey. They identified a gap in the market where tech founders face challenges due to a lack of true deep-tech VCs, risk aversion, and a limiting focus on SaaS by European investors. FMV aims to address these gaps by leveraging its technical expertise and network to support founders in overcoming these challenges​​.Conclusion:First Momentum Ventures represents a strategic investment opportunity, especially for those interested in early-stage, technology-driven B2B startups in the DACH region. Their technical expertise, strong network, and proven track record in supporting startups from pre-seed to scale make them a compelling choice for investors looking to engage with innovative European startups.Given their performance, unique approach, deep technical expertise, and perfect community fit with our approach to LP investing at eu.vc, we believe investing in First Momentum Ventures' Fund II presents one of the best opportunities currently available in the market to participate in the growth of Frontier Deep Tech Startups in the DACH region at the earliest stages.

Today we have Ondrej Bartos with us. Ondrej is a Founding GP at Credo Ventures, a 75m€ Seed stage venture fund in Prague (and a bit elsewhere!) to back Central Eastern European Tech Startups.Credo are investing out of Fund 4 with a total 250M€ AUM and an established portfolio of 60 companies and notable investments including UI Path, ProductBoard, PriceFX, Resistant AI, and Eleven Labs.Chapters:00:00:00 - Ondrej & Credo Bio00:00:41 - Announcing Roundtable on The Evolution of European Venture00:04:06 - How Ondrej Got Into Venture00:06:34 - Pivotal Moments in Venture Investing00:09:18 - The Challenges of Being an Entrepreneur and VC00:12:07 - Struggling with Success and Collaboration vs Competition Among VCs00:14:31 - Maintaining a Calm & Collaborative Approach in Competitive Deals00:16:58 - The Transformative Power of Success00:19:34 - Managing Expectations and Transparency00:22:17 - Collaborative Competitive Rivalry00:24:44 - The Meaning of Credo00:27:15 - Supporting Entrepreneurs00:29:32 - The Importance of Passion and Hard Work00:32:15 - Respecting Reshma and Co-Investing00:34:44 - Staying as a Seed and Pre-Seed Fund00:37:13 - Building Towards a Franchise00:39:53 - The Logic Behind the Crossover Fund Experiment00:42:26 - Creating Relationships with Late Stage Investors00:45:08 - Failure in Internships and Startups

Satgana is a next-generation Climate Tech Venture Capital firm investing in the Future of Earth. With an established portfolio of 13 companies of which ~40% are from underrepresented backgrounds. But maybe most interestingly to many, Satgana boasts an outstanding Multiple on Invested Capital (MOIC) of 4.2x on the fund that is currently closing - in other words; here’s the opportunity to buy in at 1x to a portfolio that’s already achieved quite a mark-up… Seems like impact can go hand-in-hand returns 💞.What is more, with a community-focused approach and 60+ Limited Partners, Satgana is a great match for us and clearly well-positioned to become one of our strong partners in the climate space giving us exactly what we look for in emerging managers: potential outlier performance, insights and strong co-investment opportunities.In one sentence, Satgana is looking to support purpose-driven entrepreneurs in Europe and Africa who are developing pain-killers (must-haves), not vitamins (nice-to-haves), to the increasingly severe environmental problems we face today. Needless to say, we’re more than eager to share this in-depth episode and article on Satgana, their journey, and the mission and vision that unites the team behind it.Chapters:00:00:00 - LP Syndicate into Satgana Fund One00:02:16 - eu.vc - a union of values00:04:27 - The Challenge and Opportunity of Climate Change00:06:23 - The Journey to First Close00:08:17 - The Decision to Pursue Funding00:10:21 - Building an Investment Firm with LPs as the Focus00:12:19 - Fee Structure and Carry Model00:14:22 - Investing in Climate Technology00:16:22 - Investing with Strategic Angels00:18:14 - Investment Strategy and Fund Size00:20:09 - Co-investment and Diversification with Angels00:22:00 - The complexities of GP angel collaboration00:23:49 - Following On Potential and Portfolio Performance00:25:50 - Promising Trajectory and Revenue Growth00:27:54 - The Power of Small Funds00:30:01 - Investing in Climate Tech00:32:06 - Addressing Methane Leaks in the Energy Sector00:34:13 - Y Combinator and the European Ecosystem00:36:14 - The Success of Y Combinator and Portfolio Companies00:38:12 - Investing in Africa's Impact Potential00:40:16 - Portfolio Overview and Investment Focus00:42:20 - The Importance of Structure and Tracking Investments00:44:02 - Commitment to Diversity and Social Impact00:46:02 - Reaching Out on LinkedIn

Today we have Ben Topor with us. Ben is a Founder & Managing Partner at Titan Capital, an investment firm in Israel backing Israeli, European and American companies by providing growth equity & secondary capital to world-class internet, software, consumer, and financial technology companies, with a bottom-up approach to secondary and growth.Titan is raising a 50m USD Fund, investing in companies and venture capital partnerships directly and via secondary transactions and is backed by top-tier global investment firms, leading corporations and family offices. And, of note, Tiger Management, which is a well-known investment firm that built an impressive track record in seeding some of the world's best fund managers, backed Titan.Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction and Event Announcement00:02:47 - The Future of European Venture Capital00:05:50 - The Pivotal Book: Crossing the Chasm00:08:51 - The Importance of Solving a Pressing Need00:11:57 - Factors affecting investment strategies00:14:50 - Timing the Market and Spreading Your Bets00:17:58 - Different Considerations for Selling Shares00:20:48 - Strategies for Secondary Investments00:23:50 - Finding Bargains in the Secondary Market00:26:56 - Investing in European Startups00:29:57 - LP secondary deals00:36:21 - Winning with a Data driven approach00:39:21 - The Flexibility of Investing in Growth Companies00:42:37 - Fundraising Challenges for VCs00:45:48 - VC Strategies: Long-lasting businesses vs. Threatening categories

Today we have Colin Daymond Hanna with us. Colin is a Partner at Balderton. And I think it goes without saying that I need not introduce this firm; but just in case anyone listening in has just started in venture, I’ll say that in the two decades since Balderton’s founding, they have worked with hundreds of extraordinary European founders, and have raised eight funds totalling more than 3bn Euros.At Balderton, Colin invests in purpose-driven, product-focused founders spanning verticals including Cloud, Consumer, Crypto, and Fintech. Colin has led the investments into Fuse Energy (formerly Tesseract), Ory, Supernormal, AnyType, Clue (note: the links go to Balderton’s annoucements, interesting reading!). Colin is also part of the team at Balderton responsible for driving the firm's Sustainable Future Goals initiatives.Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction to Colin Daymon Hannah00:02:54 - Growing up in Asia & the US and transitioning to venture00:07:28 - Taking a Leap of Faith to Berlin00:09:51 - The Role of Luck in Decision Making00:12:05 - Prioritization and Communication00:14:27 - Balderton's Purpose as a Partner for European Entrepreneurs00:16:38 - Clue: Empowering Women's Health00:18:56 - The Local First Mentality and Censorship Resistance00:21:31 - Lack of Empathy in VC and Overstretching00:23:40 - Importance of Investor Alignment 00:26:03 - On Purpose and Prioritization00:28:35 - Prioritization & Portfolio Management 00:30:49 - Transparency in Investing00:32:54 - Building Networks with Investors00:35:10 - The Importance of Strong Communication and Vulnerability00:37:17 - Communication and Gratitude00:39:12 - How Sports Shape Your Path00:41:31 - The Importance of Trusting the Process00:44:01 - Transparency in Achieving Global Goals00:46:07 - Investing in companies aligned with SDGs00:48:32 - Express Championing of Positive Externalities00:50:26 - Tips for Emerging VCs in Europe00:52:46 - Focusing on the Purpose, Not the Valuation

If there's any market that's not slowing down, it's the secondaries market. And it’s a buyer’s market. But how do you win? We convened some of Europe's best secondaries investors to discuss the current market and how to build your investment strategy, evaluate opportunities and negotiate deals.Expert Secondaries Panelists:- Joe Schorge, Founding Partner of Isomer Capital- Kemper Ahl, Vice President of Industry Ventures- Martijn de Wever, CEO & Founder of FlowwGo to eu.vc for the write up of our key learnings and as well as the video recording 👀 Chapters:00:00:00 - Welcome to the roundtable and introductions00:03:02 - Solving Pain Points in the Private Markets00:11:29 - The Rise of Venture Secondaries00:14:20 - Creating a Systemic Approach00:20:07 - The Need for Innovation in the Market00:23:00 - Liquidity Solutions and the Secondaries Market00:25:43 - The Evolution of Intermediaries in the Market00:28:26 - Creative structuring for late-stage investments00:33:59 - Bridging the Gap in Due Diligence for New Investors00:39:14 - Tactics for Dealing in Secondary Market00:41:51 - The Platform Approach to Venture Secondaries00:44:35 - Timing the Market vs. Timing the Asset00:47:19 - Negotiating a Secondary Transaction00:53:00 - Strategies for Buying into Pre-IPO Companies01:01:13 - Experts needed for private Capital markets

Today we have Max Bautin with us. Max is a Founding GP at IQ Capital, a 700m€ Seed & Early Stage venture firm in London to back European Deep Tech Startups.IQ Capital is investing out of a 185 m€ Fund 4 and also has a 150 m€ Growth Opportunities fund and has an established portfolio of over 60 companies and notable investments including Thought Machine, Paragraf and Nyobolt.Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction00:01:51 - From Startups to Asset Management to IQ Capital00:03:25 - The Cambridge Mafia in Venture Investing00:05:05 - The Success of the Cambridge Ecosystem00:06:49 - Why Avoiding Negative Value Added by VCs Is The Holy Grail00:08:30 - Deep Tech vs Traditional Venture00:10:06 - Defensibility and Scalability in Deep Tech Companies00:11:44 - Deep Tech Investments and Hardware Integration00:13:27 - The Growing Importance of Deep Tech00:19:51 - IQ’s definition of Deep Tech00:21:20 - The Productization Journey00:22:51 - On The Duration of VC Funds00:24:32 - Focusing on Future Opportunities00:26:07 - Shoutout to Max's Bestie00:27:49 - The Success of the Cambridge Ecosystem00:29:25 - The Importance of IP and Academic Support in Innovation00:31:05 - The Rise of Cambridge's Tech Ecosystem and Beyond00:32:47 - Expanding into European Ecosystems00:34:20 - Building Trust and Reputation in the European Tech Industry00:35:54 - Quick Fire with Max

Welcome to the first episode of the special series NEUVC, hosted by Freddie Macpherson, analyst at Isomer Capital, and Linda Võeras, associate at Karma Ventures. Today we have Martin Krag with us. Martin is a partner at byFounders, a seed fund looking to back the best tech founders in the new Nordics. We spoke to Martin to hear how he rose to partner in four years, the firm culture and coaching the courage to do so, and, of course, his own secret sauce of excellence.Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction of Martin & byFounders 00:01:52 - Incentive alignment and portfolio assistance00:03:24 - Joining a Startup Venture Capital Firm00:04:44 - The importance of decisiveness for VCs00:06:07 - Using Analysts for Understanding Spaces and Sectors00:07:43 - Progression and Responsibility Levels00:09:17 - The Importance of Curiosity and Quick Learning00:10:41 - Finding Focus and Prioritizing00:12:09 - Balancing Networking and Board Responsibilities00:13:35 - The Fluid Partnership with Founders and Career Development00:15:09 - Building a Strong Team and Defined Roles00:16:42 - Calibrating New Hires for Long-Term Aspirations00:18:04 - Transparency and Core Values in VC Industry00:19:39 - Career Progression and Future at the Fund00:21:18 - The Responsibility of Partners and Youngsters in Investment Decisions00:22:40 - Avoidable Mistakes made by Junior VC Team00:24:29 - Being Patient and Calibrating Before Making Decisions00:25:58 - The Perspective of a Poker Player-Investor00:27:30 - Dreaming with the Founders00:28:57 - Diversifying Experience in the VC Industry00:30:42 - Choosing between being a VC or Founder00:32:19 - The Challenges of Being a VC00:34:14 - Building a Fund and Firm00:36:15 - Experience and Bad Judgment

Yesterday, Fred Destin shared the news with us all that he’s pausing the raise for Stride Fund III and that he’d “Take a breather and open the door to new possibilities. I have no idea if that includes more investing; what I want to do now is gain some elevation, look at my life and the world around me, and take time to see what emerges.”The day before, David sat down with Fred for an honest conversation about the state of the current market, how to navigate as a VC, and finally ending on faith and spirituality. The conversation did not cover this hallmark decision by Fred, but certainly, you can trace the meaning and bridge narrative."I have to be honest that I'm in a, I'm very much in a kind of pendulum between excitement and concern. And it is difficult for me to look at the state of the world in general, between erosion of democracy, mental health crisis, climate, Ukraine and Israel, and to not take some form of pause to say: where the fuck are we going as a species?"and Fred continued:"I heard someone the other day describe humans as, you know; we're behaving like parasites at the scale of our planet, and I think there's something to that. So I would say that at the moment, I'm trying to sit with that and think about what is our impact and our responsibility … What I'm excited about is, I think, there is an increased level of realization that we need to reintroduce humans at the center of what we do. Community, connection, relating. And that what started as a little trickle is starting to be more of a movement. And I think it's showing up in a bunch of places." From this the conversation covered growing up professionally in an American psycho style environments where it’s all about the money as well as the role of religion.Tune in for the full conversation here or watch it on eu.vc

In today’s episode, Chloe Dagnell from Isomer Capital speaks to Carmen Alfonso Rico, a self-described VC turned Angel at Cocoa. Having previously been at the consumer fund Felix, Series A fund Blossom, and Spanish-HQ’d Samaipata, Carmen is responsible for being the first investor into companies such as Hopin and SideQuestVR.Now, Carmen is leading the charge at Cocoa Ventures, an angel fund providing the first checks for founders across Europe. Investing $250k-$500k angel checks at pre-seed/seed, Cocoa supports founders as their in-house VC, helping them hack the system with independent and unfiltered insights.In today’s episode, we’re discussing everything from how Carmen actually helps founders hack the system to fund economics. And bear with us on that fund economics point, as it’s one of the most interesting and overlooked parts of being a great VC and fund manager, and Carmen claims some pretty contrarian views on how she puts her portfolio together.And of course, we couldn't resist asking the woman behind Cocoa Ventures what her favorite chocolate is 🍫 . So, if you want the hottest tip in town for the best chocolate, then listen all the way to the end 😁

Today we have Fady with us. Fady is a Founding GP at Cybernetix Ventures, a 50m$ pre-seed, seed and Series A venture fund in Boston to back North American and European companies within manufacturing, logistics, construction, and healthcare.Cybernetix are investing out of Fund 1 with a total 50m$ AUM and an established portfolio of 13 companies and notable investments including Realtime Robotics, AirWorks, Bionomous, and Kewazo.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:01:42 - New Beginnings in Venture00:03:44 - Overcoming Challenges and Achieving Success00:05:51 - The Impact and Expectations of Gen AI00:07:58 - The Impact of Generative AI on Industries00:09:46 - Robotics as a Technology00:11:50 - Manufacturing in the Age of Smart Automation00:13:44 - Automation in Manufacturing and Healthcare00:15:47 - Technological Capability vs. Business Model00:17:36 - The Challenges of Humanoids in the Job Market00:19:29 - Investing in Robotics, Automation, and Industrial AI00:21:31 - The Success Story of Universal Robots in Denmark00:25:31 - Considerations for Product Deployment00:29:41 - The Rise of Robotics in Boston and Europe00:31:47 - The Importance of Specialized People in Robotics Investment00:33:54 - Investing in Smart Machines for the Future00:36:11 - Investing in Robotics Solutions00:38:27 - Building a Strong Team in Venture00:40:21 - Robotics Revolutionizing Our World00:42:21 - The Rise of Collaborative Robots in the Robot Cluster00:44:04 - The Rise of Robotics in Odense

Today we have Patrick Murphy with us. Patrick is the co-founder and managing partner at Tapestry VC, a 50m$ seed stage venture fund backing technical and repeat founders across Europe & US. Tapestry VC has its team spread out across the UK and USA.Tapestry VC are investing out of Fund II with a total 100m$ AUM and an established portfolio of over 40 companies and notable investments including Hopin, Pitch, Builder.ai, Nothing and Manna.Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction of Patrick Murphy and Tapestry VC00:02:40 - From Goldman Sachs to Venture Capital00:04:51 - Reversing Investment and Taking Risks00:07:15 - The Challenges of Merging with a Corporate VC00:09:03 - The Importance of Stewardship in Early Stage Venture Capital00:11:21 - Consumer Innovation and Next Generation Users00:13:50 - The Rise of Gen AI in Revenue Growth00:16:04 - Scaling Software and Hiring Globally00:18:09 - The Benefits of Repeat Founders00:19:53 - Unboxing the new headsets and their features00:21:10 - Investing in Repeat Founders00:23:04 - Building a Strong Network and Fostering Global Relationships00:25:18 - The Reality of Repeat Founders and Dilution00:27:18 - The Advantage of Experienced Founders00:29:25 - Building with Serial Founders and High Velocity Talent00:31:35 - The Value of Co-Investors and Check Sizes00:33:32 - Adding Value through Syndicates00:35:54 - Successful Co-investing and Building Trust00:38:10 - Life is About Picking People00:40:24 - The Importance of Distribution and Telling Your Story00:42:36 - Cultural Differences in Pitching00:44:54 - Pitching Skills in US vs European Investors00:47:11 - Prioritizing Amazing and Ambitious People00:49:38 - The Importance of Luck in Success

Today we present Freddie, analyst at Isomer, the venture fund of funds backing Europe's VC champions early and doubling down on their breakout companies, and Linda, associate at Karma Ventures, which is a deep tech VC in Estonia, focusing on Series A companies in the Baltics.We want to welcome you to the NEUVC podcast series, a limited edition series dedicated to those entering and on their journey in VC, sharing the insights, stories, and learnings from different voices in the industry. There are many ways into VC and a number of skills that can make you successful in this industry. Upon closer inspection, many investors possess superpowers that are super useful for finding new deals, helping portfolio companies grow and succeed, as well as getting the deal signed and sealed.The series is dedicated to exploring those unique superpowers in some of the trailblazing venture ladder climbers in Europe, drawing out learnings about how to develop them, use them and leverage them. So to this effect, we spoke to a wide range of voices, managing partners, recruiters, principals, and even marketing specialists, to provide a diverse range of opinions on how to help you improve at your job. Hope you'll enjoy!

Joining us today for a deep dive on the state of diversity in European venture, we have Kinga Stanislawska from European Women in Venture and Juliet Rogan from HSBC Innovation Banking.Juliet works in the investor coverage team at HSBC Innovation Banking – Providing support and access to the HSBC platform to investors and their portfolio companies.Prior to joining HSBC, Juliet spend 10 years at Barclays where she co-founded the female founders forum. Kinga is a co-Founder of the leading CEE (Poland based) VC fund - Experior VC with investments in data driven CEE startups with global ambitions. She is also an Investment Committee Member at EIC as well as the EIC Fund, the largest deep-tech fund in Europe and board member at fast growing companies. As one of Europe's first VC funds to be befounded by women, Kinga also co-initiated the European Women in VC Community which published an annual report on the state of diversity in European Venture - which we dive into today 👀 Chapters:00:00:00 - Introduction to The Episode00:02:07 - Increasing Female Presence in Tech and Venture00:04:16 - Launching the Report at TechBBQ00:06:13 - The Foundation Of The Survey 00:08:27 - The Importance of Diversity in Funding00:12:24 - The Performance of Mixed Teams00:14:53 - The Importance of Getting More Women into the Industry00:16:37 - Equity in Investments and Succession Planning00:18:38 - Affordability of General Partnerships for Women00:20:40 - The Importance of Diversity in Management Teams00:22:26 - Progression and Measurement in Impact Investing00:26:15 - Equality and Support in Venture Capital00:28:26 - The Rise of Female Emerging Managers in VC00:32:24 - Reflections on VC Accelerators & VC Lab in Particular00:34:28 - Broadening Access to Venture Capital for Women00:38:27 - Investing in Diversity for Long-Term Success00:40:25 - Personal Choice and Taxpayer Institutions in Europe00:42:32 - The Speed of Change and Female-led Startups00:44:36 - Collaboration and Unity

Today’s a special day here at eu.vc as we’re announcing our investment into Nucleus Capital 🥳 and of course, we do that by sharing with you a deep dive episode with Max and Isabella, the two General Partners of Nucleus.For those who've been with us for a while, the name 'Nucleus Capital' might ring a bell🔔. And for good reason, as we’ve been tracking the firm's journey right from the launch of Nucleus I. To big hardship, we missed the opportunity to invest in Nucleus I, so of course, we’re now buzzing with excitement as we’re binding the final knots for our Nucleus II Syndicate. Based in Berlin, Nucleus Capital is a frontrunner in the Pre-Seed and Seed venture space, dedicated to supporting purpose-driven founders who are solving systemic challenges to planetary health.Dive in with us 👀 and read the whole article covering Nucleus on eu.vcChapters:00:00:00 - The European VC Podcast Introduction00:04:10 - Pooling expertise and building a community00:08:11 - The Journey of Building Nucleus00:11:30 - Making the Decision to Work Together00:12:56 - Isabella Realizing The Worst Decision She Could've Made00:14:38 - Lessons Learned from Fundraising00:16:18 - Inflection points and supporting founders00:17:43 - Tech Bio: Software-driven models leveraging biological data sets00:19:44 - The Importance of Meta-Level and Environmental Factors00:21:41 - Building Relationships and Effective Decks00:23:30 - Differentiation and Positioning in the Startup Industry00:25:16 - Delivering Change and Driving Returns00:27:14 - Bio-based solutions for industry decarbonization00:29:17 - Sector Focus for Better Returns00:30:51 - Including Sustainability and Deep Tech Premiums in Valuations00:32:53 - Investing in Technologies for Sustainable Production00:34:23 - Repath, Analyzing Risk Exposure and Climate Change00:36:15 - Planet A Foods The CO2 Footprint of the Cocoa Industry00:39:41 - Enabling a Viable Future00:41:38 - Balancing the Portfolio#EUVC #VC #VentureCapital #Investing #TheEuropeanVC #Podcast #Tech #Startup

Today we have Andrew Noble with us. Andrew is a partner at Par Equity, an early-stage venture fund backing health tech, climate tech and industrial tech companies. Par Equity invests in the north of the UK, applies a hybrid investment model (angel approach meets VC), and focuses on B2B IP rich companies to create outstanding results.Par Equity has a total of £213m AUM and an established portfolio of 77 companies, 48 in the current portfolio and 29 exits, and notable investments including Integrated Graphene, AEM, Fuuse, Current Health, Delta DNA and ICS Learn.Chapters02:12 - From Professional Skiing to VC 05:40 - From Intern to VC - Andrew’s journey at Par Equity07:27 - The Grit of Being a Sports Athlete in Business09:10 - Launching a Self-Funded Search Fund15:37 - The Role of VCs in the Startup Journey17:43 - The Evolution of ParEquity and the Benefits of a Melting Pot Approach19:16 - Deep dive on the North of the UK Tech Ecosystem21:07 - Dislocation in the Funding Landscape22:57 - Concentration of VC $$ in Capital Cities & Investing outside of them28:45 - Success Story: Delta DNA32:13 - Andrew’s Three Biggest Learnings from the Last 10 Years34:01 - The Importance of Local Players and Existing Relationships in VC 36:00 - Investing in People in Your Region37:44 - Key Advice for Emerging Managers39:06 - Considerations for LP Makeup40:42 - A VC firm's success indicators

Today we are happy to welcome Robin Godenrath managing director and founding partner of Picus Capital.Picus Capital is managing an investment portfolio of more than 1bn EUR and was the first investor in European unicorns such as Personio and Enpal.

Today we have Sarah Drinkwater with us. Sarah is the General Partner at Common Magic, a pre-seed/seed solo GP fund investing in and supporting founders building products with community at their core across Europe and the US.

Today we are happy to welcome Ambre Soubiran. A mathematician by training, she has spent the first decade of her career working in the equity derivatives and capital markets industry. Amber has a passion for world-changing technologies and is personally interested and invested in the digital assets space since 2012. Amber is currently the CEO of Kaiko, the reference market data provider in the blockchain industry. Kaiko is a global organisation with offices in NYC, London, Paris, and Singapore, servicing top-tier financial institutions and enterprises with reliable and actionable financial data.

Today we have Johannes Weber with us. Johannes is a serial entrepreneur and a pioneer in the field of impact venture capital in Europe. With his team in Munich, Berlin and London, he manages over €200M and invests in technology-based companies in areas such as climate, health and education (the so-called impact unicorns). Johannes has been interested in the interface between entrepreneurship and "personal mastery" for many years and is enthusiastic about bringing and passing on his knowledge to the companies he finances.Ananda Impact Ventures are investing out of Fund IV with a total 200€ AUM and an established portfolio of 35 companies and notable investments including E-DNA Company Nature Metrics, New Space Company OroraTech and Education Company One Day. At Ananda Impact Ventures, Johannes Weber focuses on TechBio, Education and Climate in Europe and led the investments into Closed Loop Medicine, One Day and Auticon.

Today, we have with us Saeed, Vice President of the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy, where he works towards transforming the city of Dubai into an international technology hub. Saeed was previously the Director of Dubai Future Academy, an initiative under Dubai Future Foundation. He has also led projects for the foundation such as the Global Coders Initiative, the 1 Million Arab Coders-project as well as the foundation’s upskilling program. Additionally, he has considerable experience at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center as Mission Strategist for the Emirates Mars Mission and Program Director for the UAE's 100-year space exploration strategy, the Mars 2117 Programme.

Noor Sweid is the General Partner of Global Ventures, a UAE-based international venture capital firm with presence in Cairo, Jeddah, Riyadh, Tunis and Lagos. Noor was the Chief Investment Officer at The Dubai Future Foundation and Managing Partner at Leap Ventures.Prior, Noor joined her family business, Depa, where she scaled the business tenfold, executed four cross border acquisitions and led the region’s first IPO on the LSE and the NASDAQ Dubai, achieving a billion+ dollar valuation. Noor has also been recognized in Forbes’ World’s Top 50 Women in Tech, and the Arabian Business 100 Most Powerful Arab Women list. And to top it off, she has also received the prestigous Arab Woman Award for Finance.

Today we are happy to welcome Philipp von dem Knesebeck, Co-Founder of Blue Future Partners, a European Venture Capital Fund of Funds with a global mandate to back Emerging Managers and start-ups across the USA, Europe, Israel and Asia-Pacific.Prior to co-founding Blue Future Partners in 2015, Philipp spent five years running the Venture Capital activities of a European Family Office from 2011 to 2015. There he started building substantial expertise in both fund and direct investments in early and growth–stage companies. His investment focus was predominantly in the software and internet space with geographic exposure ranging from the US to Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Today we have Sam Endacott with us. Sam is a Partner at firstminute, a $400m seed-stage venture fund based in London & Berlin to back founders across Europe (and opportunistically in the US and Rest of World). The fund has invested across all sectors and is a generalist VC but has typically focused on SaaS, DeepTech, Developer Tools and FinTech. firstminute is backed by over 130 unicorn founders in addition to current and former CEOs of Global Corporates.firstminute are investing out of Fund III with a total $100m AUM and an established portfolio of over 130 companies. Notable investments include A.Team, Storyblok, Robocorp, Engflow, Wayve, Klang, Clockwork Labs, Ramp, Element and Generation Home. The portfolio has raised follow-on financing rounds from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Atomico, Index, Benchmark, Coatue, Softbank, Tiger, General Catalyst, Northzone, Mubadala Capital, NFX, Balderton, D1, Felicis, Bain Capital and Tencent. At firstminute, Sam focuses on SaaS, Developer Tools, AI / ML and FinTech and has led investments into a number of the fund’s high performing companies such as Storyblok (raised $58m) and a number of recent deals in the AI / ML space which are not yet announced!

This episode is a first of its kind, ‘cos we sat down one of the managers we’ve decided to back here at eu.vc for a pitch session with one of our good friends in the LP ecosystem. So in this episode, you’ll hear two voices from each side of the table: that of Marc Penkala founding GP of Altitude, a 70 M€ early stage fund to close the European SME gap, and Michael Sidgmore, Partner and co-founder of Broadhaven Ventures, a US-based global early-stage financial technology investor that invests principal capital into fintech companies, VC funds, and incubates asset management businesses. Broadhaven’s portfolio counts 20 VC funds and 100 early stage companies with notable investments including Carta, Nowports, Republic and Kovi. Michael is also the founder of alternative investments focused podcast Alt Goes Mainstream. Michael is an owner of Angel City FC, the women's soccer team in LA. So with no further ado, let’s get pitching.

Today, we're happy to feature Francesco Simoneschi, Co-Founder and CEO at TrueLayer and angel with 60+ investments.In this episode, Francesco dives deep into his experience going from VC to angel investing, the nuances of angel investing, shedding light on some counterintuitive lessons he's learned along the way. He delves into the importance of trusting your instincts when assessing early-stage startups and why sometimes, early traction can be a red flag.Francesco also shares his strategies for making international investments and the value of building a network of trusted insiders in unfamiliar territories. Plus, he reflects on the soft skills and leadership qualities that he wishes he had focused on earlier in his career.Jump to the parts that matter most to you and watch our core highlights below 👀00:02:52 - On Starting TrueLayer in Italy 00:05:54 - Francesco’s 60+ angel portfolio & striking a balance as an operator00:07:30 - The complementarity of angel investing and being an operator00:08:44 - Angel Investing in the FinTech Ecosystem00:09:12 - Balancing Excitement and Discipline in Investing00:11:00 - Reflections on Investing in a Marihuana delivery startup00:14:16 - Investing in The Development of Wetware Computers00:15:45 - On The Drive of Entrepreneurs00:17:12 - Accessing European Capital for Early Stage Opportunities00:18:34 - Investing in Various Industries00:20:01 - Diversifying Portfolio as a Tech Entrepreneur00:22:54 - Balancing Risk and Fun in Angel Investing00:24:10 - Assessing Founders and Key Ingredients00:22:44 - The Importance of Financial Savvy and Diversified Portfolios00:24:26 - Mitigating Financing Risk00:26:16 - Investing Based on Value and Learning00:28:16 - Investing in Early Stages and Venture Funds00:30:08 - The Importance of Diversification00:32:03 - Trusting Your Instincts in Angel Investing00:34:00 - Capturing Signals in Investment Strategy00:35:48 - The Reality of Bridge Rounds00:37:39 - The Importance of Discipline in Angel Investing00:39:17 - Playing the Long Game00:41:11 - Importance of Soft Skills and Leadership in Education

Our next guest is Gloria Bauerlein, founder and general partner at Puzzle Ventures. Puzzle Ventures is a new pan European 21.5 million euro fund investing in super early stage B2B companies, and it's one of the solo female GP led funds. Before Puzzle, Gloria was a prolific angel investor, but that's not why we're speaking with her today. Uniquely, she has actually sat on all sides of the cap table. As an investment banker, VC investor at TCV and Index, startup operator at Kry and Back, and angel investor, and built Puzzle to continue backing Europe's top founders with larger checks but with the flexibility of an angel.Gloria's LPs include founders and operators that you'll have heard from, from the likes of Kry, Stripe, Coinbase, and WhatsApp, and more who've tread in the founders footsteps. They offer assistance beyond capital to Puzzle Ventures portfolio and can share valuable insights and connections with founders to help them grow.In this episode, we'll hear more about Gloria's journey into VC, her thoughts on ownership versus allocation, tips for micro funds on sorting out the unsexy side of fund management before getting carried away with deploying capital, and how to have a culture of giving first when nurturing relationships and being collaborative in VC.

Today we bring you a roundtable on the impact of artificial intelligence on the wonderful world of venture capital. In this episode, we bring together a stellar panel of Europe's top investors to explore the real secrets of how AI is transforming the VC landscape.Fred Destin, Founding GP of StrideClaude Ritter, Founding GP of CavalryEkaterina Almasque, GP of Open OceanDr. Andre Retterath, Partner of Earlybird Venture CapitalIn this episode, we focus on how AI is changing the way VCs invest. We chose to delve into the "how" rather than the "what" of AI in VC. We're here to uncover the real secret sauce that's driving change in the VC world. We won't waste your time with generic information you can find on the internet. Instead, we've gathered Europe's best investors to share their insights.Our agenda for today includes:Where our panelists see the biggest venture opportunities in AI.The debate on whether AI favors incumbents or startups.Strategies to avoid getting caught up in hype cycles.A philosophical discussion on AI's societal impact and how VCs should navigate it.Enjoy!

Today we have Juliette Audet with us. Juliette is a Partner at Forbion a multi-stage venture fund in Amsterdam and Munich backing biotech companies in Europe and North America to impact the future of medicine.Forbion is investing out of 2 separate funds: Forbion Ventures Fund VI and Forbion Growth Opportunities Fund II, of 750m EURO and 600m $ respectively, with a total of 3b EUR AUM and an established portfolio of 44 companies, with notable investment including NewAmsterdam Pharma, Gyroscope and Inflazome.At Forbion, Juliette focuses on the Venture strategy, investing in biotech companies from pre-clinical stage to Phase 1b and led the investments in NewAmsterdam Pharma, Mestag and Dualyx amongst others.

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Renaud Visage, co-founder and ex-CTO of Eventbrite, the event management company which IPO'd in 2018. Renaud left the company in 2021 and is now based in Paris where he focuses on investing in climate tech startups, and on launching a climate fund focused on the growth stage.With more than 75 angel investments to date, Renaud leverages his operational experience to help founders solving complex technical problems to realise their global ambitions. He also works closely with seed VC firm Point Nine Capital as a venture partner.

Today we have Sean O'Sullivan with us. Sean is a Managing General Partner at SOSV, a global, multi-stage venture capital firm that operates early stage startup development programs, notably HAX, IndieBio, and Orbit Startups. They are the first check in deep tech, starting at pre-seed.SOSV have a $1.5 Billion in AUM and an established portfolio of 1000+ companies including Upside Foods, Perfect Day, Opentrons, and Formlabs. Sean is on the board of Khan Academy, the Tyndall Institute, the Autism Impact Alliance, the Brain Foundation, and a number of private companies.From serving as a janitor to embracing his passions as a musician, filmmaker, and even running a humanitarian organization in Iraq, Sean O’Sullivan’s multifaceted nature reveals a remarkable tapestry of life experiences. Among the intriguing anecdotes is his encounter with a rare viral infection that affected his eye, providing a testament to resilience and adaptability. His ventures extended to the world of television, where he enjoyed a stint as a TV star in Ireland, further exemplifying his versatility.In conclusion, Sean O'Sullivan's venture journey offers a tapestry of experiences, showcasing the significance of perseverance, long-term commitment, and a diverse entrepreneurial mindset. These insights have molded his investment philosophy, guiding SOSV's strategic approach to support startups in their earliest stages and nurture their growth through series B and series C, while emphasizing the immeasurable value of riding the wave with successful companies for the long haul.

Today we’re welcoming Jed Ng on the EUVC pod. Jed is a self-taught angel with 1x exit and has backed 2 startups from seed to unicorn. He started his own syndicate in 2020 and is backed by 1000+ investors today. He is also the Founder of AngelSchool.vc - a venture education program that helps angel investors build their own syndicates in just 8 weeks.As an operator, Jed built the world’s largest API Marketplace with RapidAPI (an a16z backed company).

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Charlie Delingpole, founder of ComplyAdvantage, an AI-driven financial crime risk and detection technology powered by Complydata. They have raised $100m from Index Ventures, Balderton Capital, OTPP and Goldman Sachs with global hubs in London, New York, and Singapore. In this episode you’ll learn:The importance of being part of a strong angel community with peers you trust and whose opinion you valueHow Charlie thinks about activating his network as part of his diligence processWhy Charlie is going from a more international strategy to a more nationally focused oneWhy Charlie believes it’s important to impose systematic professional processes on himself when angel investing

Hello everyone and welcome to “At The Cap Table” podcast - the exciting new series dedicated to hearing from the top European female investors who are taking the VC industry by storm.Our next guest is the brilliant Ruth Foxe Blader, Partner at Anthemis!Ruth is a fintech investor, emerging technology & communications expert with 15 years-international experience at Fortune 500 companies. At Anthemis, Ruth leads strategic investment efforts across Europe and North America. Ruth specialises in technology-enabled business models, insurance technology, risk transfer, early stage investing, product strategy and digital transformation.Prior to joining Anthemis, Ruth worked for Allianz SE, where she led digital innovation efforts. She was a founding member of the AllianzX team, where she led investments in startups including Lemonade, MoneyFarm, Argus Cyber Security and SimpleSurance.A New Jersey native, Ruth has spent the last decade between New York, London and Paris. In 2018 and 2019, Ruth was recognized for her outstanding contribution to the global financial technology ecosystem and listed among the Women in Fintech Powerlist by Innovate Finance. She currently serves on the boards of Axle, Demex, Hokodo, Hometree, Kaiko, Proportunity and Stable.Alongside Sophie Winwood, she is the co-founder of WVC - a movement that promotes inclusion, empowerment and integration of VC in Europe and beyond.

Hi everybody and welcome to today’s roundtable on raising in a bear market. We have some of Europe’s best and most active LPs with us and actually of which three are repeat offenders on our podcast, namely:David DANA, Head of VC Investments at EIFMichael Sidgmore, Co-Founder & Partner at Broadhaven Ventures by Broadhaven CapitalJoe Schorge, Founding Partner of Isomer CapitalAnd ONE entirely new face to our podcast audience: Christian Roehle, Head of Investment Management at KfW.

Today we're happy to welcome Agate Freimane, Founding Partner of Norrsken, one of Europe's leading impact venture capital funds born out of Norrsken Foundation, which hosts events, operates co-working spaces, and runs accelerator programmes across the Nordics, Iberia, and Eastern Africa.Their fund is dedicated to investing in early-stage startups focusing primarily in climate tech and they've led the investments into almost 50 companies, highlights including Northvolt, Einride, 1komma5 and Matsmart.Jump to the parts that matter to you 🎧00:00:00 - "Tear down this wall"00:01:04 - Disclaimer and Introduction00:03:10 - Journey into venture00:12:00 - Impact Investing in Europe00:15:24 - The Decline of Opportunity Funds and LP Appetite00:17:52 - Shifting Topics in the Impact Space00:18:27 - LP Appetite & The Challenging Environment 00:22:09 - The Drive for ESG Reporting in Europe00:24:49 - The Challenge of Impact as a Business Model00:28:19 - The Importance of Finding the Right Problems00:31:02 - Agate’s Core Learnings in Life 00:36:12 - Building Team and Culture as a VC Firm00:38:23 - Assumptions and Feedback in Team Building and Culture00:39:38 - Capital Deployment and Small Bad Bets00:40:31 - Ego in VC & Professional Development 00:45:19 - Regrets and Priorities00:45:35 - Top Tips for Fundraising In Europe

Today we are happy to welcome Niels Fritze, Head of Scale Invest, a young Single Family Office, where he oversees all aspects of the family's financial affairs, including investment management, estate planning, and wealth preservation.Niels utilizes his expertise in financial analysis, risk management, and strategic decision-making to optimize the family's wealth and ensure their long-term financial security.Jump to the parts that matter to you 🎧 and watch the highlights below 👀00:00:00 - European VC on Marc Penkala’s Rooftop Terrace00:02:26 - Transitioning to a Family Wealth Management00:05:25 - The Black Swan Year and Market Uncertainty00:07:18 - Diversifying Your Portfolio with Alternative Assets00:09:13 - The Popularity of Alternative Investments in the US00:11:18 - Family Offices and VC Investment00:14:23 - Understanding Family Office Investment Approaches00:16:54 - The Benefits of Slow and Steady Growth in Startups00:19:07 - The Importance of Deploying Capital Efficiently00:22:17 - The Role of Fees in VC Fund Investing00:23:42 - Assessing the Return on Capital Efficiency in Family Offices00:28:23 - Commitment to Impact Investments00:30:00 - Active vs Passive Investment Strategies00:36:01 - The Importance of Brand Building in the Family Office Space00:36:57 - Co-investment Opportunities and the LP Perspective00:40:06 - Family offices vs venture capitalists00:45:18 - Lessons Learned from LP Investing00:46:45 - Quickfire Round and Tips for Emerging VCs🔫 The Quickfire Round 🔫Q: What advice would you give to your own 10 year younger self?A: Enjoy your life to the fullest.Try to look left and right all the time. Do something else than just VC, like physically, some sort of handcraft work. Q: What advice would you give to VCs fundraising? A: Know how to pitch your VC and get expert help.Q: What is the most counterintuitive thing you've learned since you've started investing in venture?A: Sometimes it really pays out way more when you reinvent an old idea which is already in place, than invent something new which has no use.Watch the full episode on eu.vc

Today, we're happy to welcome you to David de Picciotto, Co-founder and CEO of Pledge, a climate infrastructure platform making it simple for businesses to integrate carbon measurement & offsetting tools into their customer experience. Founded in 2021, Pledge has raised $4.5m from investors like Lowercarbon Capital and Visionaries Club.Before Pledge, David worked for Partners Group, a global private equity firm, where he focused on growth equity investments. Prior to this, David was at Revolut, the UK FinTech, where he led International Expansion. David is also the co-founder of media start-up iRewind where he exited in 2016.

Today is a special one as we have three guests with us, Joe Schorge and Chloe Dagnell from Isomer Capital (Europe’s hands-down best Fund of Fund — full disclaimer, we’re VP at Isomer! lol) and Benjamin Notlev, COO and CIO at TechBBQ, the leading tech conference in the Nordics - and also (announcement alert!), EUVC’s Country Ambassador in Denmark 🚀.As anyone would expect, EUVC is a community play and part of that is being super close with the best people in each ecosystem and Benjamin is one of the best around in Denmark, so we were super excited to have Benjamin invest with us and get closer with him (as well as the TechBBQ gang) as we of course share the same passion for connecting the industry.

Today we have Chris Smith with us, a repeat offender here at the EUVC podcast. If you’re a loyal long time listener you may recall Chris from our episode #14. Chris is a Managing Partner at Playfair, a generalist VC fund with a contrarian approach to pre-seed technology investing.Based in London, Playfair invests across the UK and Europe with an intentionally high conviction, low volume approach: making 6-8 investments a year and preserving time, capital and resource to help companies post-investment. Playfair is investing out of their $70m Fund 3 and has an established portfolio of **100+ companies across two funds including AeroCloud, Thought Machine, Andela, Mapillary, Recycleye and Orca AI.At Playfair, Chris is focused on pre-seed opportunities in the UK, Europe and Israel. He loves finding companies operating in overlooked sectors that are ripe for disruption and is particularly interested in autonomous transportation, business and industrial automation (especially through AI, ML and computer vision), HealthTech (except diagnostics and therapeutics) and B2B SaaS.

Today, we're happy to welcome David Nothacker, angel investor, CEO & co-founder of Sennder, a digital truck freight forwarding business. Together with his co-founders, David has built up a team of over 1,000 employees across eleven offices in Europe. In the process, they have been supported by strong investors such as Scania, Accel and Project A, and have secured over €300 million in funding. They are quite active angels, particularly in the German ecosystem.In this episode you will learn:Why David considers his investments into Gorillas and Cargo 1 his most memorable angel dealsDavid’s learnings from managing startup boardsWhy David has two different, yet synergistic, investment strategies: investing early in logistics & supply chain startups and co-investing with VCs in opportunistic dealsHow LP investing can complement your angel activities when starting to do more international investmentsHow angel investing makes you a better, more experienced business leader

Today we happy to welcome Emma Steele from Ascension VC. Emma is a Partner at Ascension’s Impact Fund a Seed-stage venture fund focused on creating resilient societies by backing impact driven founders that are driving commercial value and, hopefully, on their way to become the next impact dragons.Ascension has an established portfolio of more than 180 companies and notable investments led by Emma including Wagestream, Credit Kudos and Tembo.

Today we are happy to welcome Ameer Awadiyeh, VP of Investments at AlphaQ Venture Capital, a founder-led VC Fund of Funds. Prior to joining AQVC, Ameer was part of the investment team at Israel-based Vintage Investment Partners, where he developed deep expertise within the global VC fund ecosystem through sourcing, conducting in-depth due diligence, and modeling primary and secondary VC investment opportunities in both established and emerging managers, overseeing the fund of funds pipeline and budget allocation, and establishing a broad network of VCs and VC allocators across the U.S., Europe and Israel.Alph Q has 9 funds and counting, Whitestart Capital, Scale Venture Partners, Abstract Ventures, Nucleus Capital, Signature Ventures, Pale Blue Dot, Maple Capital, Symbol Ventures. AlphaQ is becoming the European gateway to a diversified venture capital fund portfolio via one single stock.

Today we are happy to welcome Simone Brummelhuis, Founding Partner & Fund Director of Borski Fund, a VC fund investing in technology leaders and diversity. Simone is Supervisory Board Member of Royal Schiphol group, Rabo Amsterdam and Media Huis Nederland. She previously founded The Next Women, providing access to capital, programs, resources and networks for female entrepreneur and is Founding Investor and Director of The Next Women Crowd Fund.

The U.S. SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), which regulates the country's financial markets, just changed the game for private equity, hedge fund, private credit, and venture capital funds registered in the U.S.Yesterday, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler (above) announced the commission Enhances the Regulation of Private Fund Advisers, a set of rules originally proposed in February 2022. And Europe would never be “out-regulated”, so…Dive in to learn what the meaning and implications of this is!

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Manolis Manassakis, CEO of Qogita, a leading global wholesale supplier revolutionizing the market through technology. He was formerly the Director of Operations for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Uber. Earlier in his career, he worked at Google as an Industry Manager, helping European businesses boost their online sales and make the most out of the web.Parallel to his work, Manolis co-founded Lawspot, providing openness and transparency to the law, to all citizens. Lawspot is now Greece's no1 open online hub for all things legal, trusted by 1M monthly users. Through Cloud Nine Ventures, Manolis is also an active angel investor, passionate about the European tech ecosystem, and loves helping startups and mentoring founders on operations, scaling and international expansion.

Today we have Omar Hassan with us. Omar is a General Partner at MENA Tech Fund (MTF), a $25m, Pre-seed/Seed stage venture fund in Dubai to back Middle Eastern & North African AgriTech, FinTech & B2B SAAS businesses in Egypt, Israel, UAE, Saudi Arabia or UK tech with market fit into the MENA region.MTF are investing out of Fund One with a total 25 AUM and an established portfolio of 9 companies including Soos Lenkie Wuilt Selectika. At MTF, Omar focuses on SAAS and AgriTech in MENA and have led the investments into Wuilt, SwftBox, Selectika, Lenkie.As warm-up for eu.vc delegation going to Dubai for the Expand North Star Conference, we sat down with Omar for a dedicated episode on raising capital in the region.

Today we're happy to welcome Anna Brandt and Noor van Boven, two amazing angel investors, co-founders of Invested. They accelerate growth through consulting and investing, being focused on the Future of Work, specifically when Fintech meets HR Tech.In this episode you’ll learn:- How to think about joining forces as angels, what it takes and the superpowers it can give you- Why Anna & Noor pick their investments based on the problem the startups target, the disruption they can bring about and the connection, belief and match they have with the founding team- How Anna & Noor think about scaling their investment activity and what it takes from them as a team and individuals- Reflections on having invested through the boom and the bust cycle- How the team think about working with the European Venture ecosystem and to optimize their role in it

Today we are happy to welcome Kushal Shah, Managing Director of e&, a global technology and investment group. Previously, he was the Senior Partner at Roland Berger's Dubai office and a Managing Partner for the Middle East. Prior to joining Roland Berger, he spent 12 years with a leading consultancy in London and Dubai.This episode is co-hosted by our good friend Omar Hassan from MENA Tech Fund.

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Michael Wax, Co-Founder and CEO of Forto, Europe's digital freight forwarding pioneer.Forto drives the vision to deliver a highly transparent, frictionless, and sustainable digital supply chain. With more than 600m USD in funding, they are Europe's largest log-tech company.Michael is a true entrepreneur with a strong passion for innovation in global trade and e-commerce. He was part of the founding team at KONUX, an early pioneer in industrial IoT.This episode is sponsored by Vauban. Vauban makes it easy to launch your angel syndicate or VC Fund, check them out at www.vauban.io/euvc

Today we are happy to welcome Daniel, founding partner at Speedinvest. one of Europe’s most active early-stage investors with more than €1 billion AuM and 40+ investors based in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, and Vienna. At Speedinvest, Daniel covers limited partner relations and fundraising both on the fund and portfolio levels.Daniel started his professional career as a stockbroker and private banker with ErsteBank in Vienna and Credit Suisse in Zurich. In 2000, he teamed up with Oliver Holle and Werner Zahnt in their Fintech startup, offering mobile payments to the media, entertainment and information industries. In 2006, they sold their startup NASDAQ listed VeriSign in a €55 million exit.This episode is co-hosted by our good friend Omar Hassan from Mena Tech Fund.

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Julia Morrongiello, an ex VC, turned operator, turned angel investor. She is the Head of Growth Europe for Zero Hash, a crypto-as-a-service provider who's clients include the likes of Stripe, Moonpay, Curve and Interactive Brokers. Julia spent most of her career working as a VC investor at Point Nine and GFC and now continues to invest in fintech and crypto as an angel and scout for Accel. Since starting her career as an angel investor a little over a year ago, she's invested in 10 companies and 1 fund. In this episode you’ll learn:- Julia’s journey from VC to Operator to Angel & the value it brings to her both professionally and personally- How investing in women can be a better investment on both the hard and soft metrics- Why angel investing is the most giving hobby in the world!- Reflections on power law investing, upside maximization and why you can only get as much as you give- The importance of paying attention to unconscious biases and how to create processes that protect you

Today, we're happy to welcome Sara Rywe, partner at byFounders, a Nordic and Baltic's early stage tech investor with a difference.They stand toe to toe with founders and have a community driven approach to investing. Founders know exactly what they're getting into when they engage with byFounders from the metrics they're looking for to ticket size, investment terms, and the fund standard term sheet. It's all published on their website.Portfolio founders also have access to the wisdom of the byFounders collective, a group of experienced founders, tech experts, and more who can help them through the company building journey. The firm has two funds under its belt and invests across tech sectors. Sara joined in 2019 as an associate with a focus on finding funding and having the back of founders across the new Nordics.But for someone who's had a meteoric rise through VC, Sara describes herself as someone completely ordinary. In many ways, Sara's prior experience at McKinsey, her MBA and the fact she's a Kauffman Fellow gloss over the fact she did not originally pursue a conventional path. She'll talk more about her journey starting work in her teen years at McDonald's through to her entrepreneurial journey, starting up a dance school, and how this led her to catch the founder bug and lead to opportunities in tech.Sara's deep interest is in impact aware startups. She's mentored and invested in startups in sectors that combine profit with purpose and has a particular focus not just on responsible companies, but responsible founders. In this episode, we'll hear more about Sara's journey into VC, her path to partner, and how she's turned her interest and impact into a core pillar of the investment strategy and decision making process at byFounders.

Today we’re excited to introduce you to Stefan Walter, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Cavalry Ventures, one of Europe’s leading early stage funds or as they say themselves:"Rather than focusing on a particular vertical, we focus on a specific stage, which is the “as early as it makes sense for the company” stage. We invest early, often pre-product and pre-revenue."And the Cavalry stable is full of champions, counting the likes of Afilio, Aleph Alpha, AMPECO, Anyone, BRYTER, Charm, Clarisights, Flip, Forto, Kinnu, Lhotse, Loctax, McMakler, Nory, Oblivious, Origin, Patronus, PlanRadar, Plantura, Planetly (acq. by OneTrust), REKKI, Rouvia, SERA Intelligence, ShowHeroes, Sofía, SPREAD, Upper, Usercentrics, WhenThen (acq. by Mangopay), and many more incredible companies. Check out their Crunchbase profile for a full overview.Dive in for an episode covering:Stefan’s Journey into VentureThe Birth of Cavalry: A New Kind of Fund Taking a stance on "VC is a people's business, and it's not scalable"The Deep DiveThe Origins of the Cavalry name & how to turn your LP base into a CavalryThe Cavalry SystemStefan’s shout-out to some special people in the ecosystem 💌Stefan’s Three Biggest LearningsTeam Beats Idea.Conviction Over Hype.If It Seems Too Good to Be True, It Probably IsThe Quickfire Round 🔫Think about the difference between urgent and importantEmbark on your fundraise with eyes open and realistic expectationsVC can be a surprisingly tough balancing actVertical consumer software is super exciting.

Today, we're happy to welcome Ellen Moller, Watershed’s Head of Europe. Watershed helps companies measure, report, and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Some of its clients include organizations like Walmart, Klarna, and Spotify.Prior to joining Watershed, Ellen spent a decade scaling technology businesses, including more than six years leading EMEA Partnerships and Operations at Stripe out of London. Prior to joining Stripe in 2015, Ellen worked in business development at Marqeta and at Visa.This episode is sponsored by Vauban. Vauban makes it easy to launch your angel syndicate or VC Fund, check them out at www.vauban.io/euvc

Today we are happy to welcome Anubhav, Founder and CEO of Tactyc. Anubhav founded Tactyc in 2019 combining his passions for engineering and finance to solve the major pain points fund managers face with portfolio management and fund modeling. They work with 250 VC clients globally and have a large and growing European presence including clients such as Anthemis and Atomico. At Tactyc they believe in empowering all GPs to be more data-driven.In this episode we will deep dive into the exciting world of portfolio construction and best practices.

Welcome to the next episode of “At the Cap Table”! In today's episode, we are speaking with a remarkable individual who needs no introduction. Her name is Check Warner, a prominent figure in the venture capital industry in the UK.Check is the co-founder of Ada Ventures, an inclusive venture firm. Ada Ventures finds and funds extraordinary talent building breakthrough ideas for the hardest problems we face. Check invests £250,000-1m in UK technology companies across climate, economic empowerment and healthcare & ageing. One of Check's notable contributions to the venture capital industry has been pioneering initiatives like Diversity VC and Future VC. These initiatives aim to drive positive change and foster inclusivity within the industry. Check also received an MBE for services to diversity and inclusion in Venture Capital for her work with Ada Ventures and Diversity VC in the King's New Years Honours 2022. In this episode of At the Cap Table:- We explore Check's journey into venture capital and what makes her excited about the current state of entrepreneurship in the UK and the opportunities it presents, - We will discuss the origins of Diversity VC and Future VC and explore the impact they have had on creating a more diverse and equitable ecosystem. - We’ll hear about Check’s work with Ada Ventures, a venture capital firm she is dedicated to right now- And finally, raising a fund can be a complex and opaque process, so we'll discuss Check's experience in starting a fund and gaining and maintaining the trust of limited partners. She'll also share key learnings from her years in the VC industry and highlight common mistakes that investors make when embarking on the fundraising journey.

Today we are happy to welcome Fred, Founder and Partner at Stride. Stride is investing out of Fund II with a total £123M AUM (Fund I was £100M) with an established portfolio of 25 companies per fund and notable investments including Triver, Conceivable.Life, TechWolf and Hofy. At Stride, Fred focuses on late seed in London and Paris, in companies that "reinvent the UX of the world" by going deep on the areas founders care about: strategy, brand, culture, talent, leadership and fundraising.

Today we are happy to welcome you to Alexandre Berriche, one of Europe's absolute premiere Super Angels and Sequoia scout with more than 80 seed investments under his belt. Alex is also the CEO and co-founder of Fleet, a french B2B startup focused on simplifying the equipment, management and renewal of computers and cellphones for startups and SMBs.In this episode you’ll learn:- How Alex has leveraged Fleet in his angel investing and vice versa- How humbly Alex, as one of Europe’s very top angels, present himself, his investing and thinking. Truly remarkable!- The role of round leads, trust, networks and trends in Alex’s investing- Why Alex is finding himself more focused on founder ambition level, and the ability to attract the best of the best, articulating their vision and thinking.

Today we are happy to welcome Daniel Schex, Private Equity & Venture Capital Investment Professional at FINVIA, a leading Multi Family Office in Germany, serving the special needs of high-net-worth individuals. FINVIA has 4,5bn EUR in Assets Under Management on their platform, investing in funds and building a global portfolio across different strategies and verticals. This episode was recorded on a very special location, our dear friend from Altitude and special co-host Mark Penkala's house, while we were at SuperVenture in Berlin.

Welcome to At The Cap Table podcast, a new series that shines the spotlight on the investors who are changing the vc industry in Europe. Today your host Savs Tan welcomes Deepali Nangia, Partner at Speedinvest. Speedinvest is a hands-on, pan-European early stage tech investor, partnering with founders from their early stages and helping them to grow game changing businesses. The Speedinvest team is one of the most active investors in Europe and last year announced 500m€ of fresh capital to invest in new ventures, and to continue to back their existing portfolio. The firm manages more than €1 billion in AuM and although it started in Austria, counts a team of over 40 investors based in Berlin, London, Munich, and Paris.Deepali joined Speedinvest as a Partner with a focus on finding, funding, and supporting investment in underrepresented founders but the majority of her time in venture capital has been as an angel investor, supporting startups from day 1.In this episode you’ll learn:– About how Deepali’s thesis in investing in female founders came through her own experiences of being underestimated in the workplace – How cleaning up the cap table is a myth: angels can continue to add value beyond capital and are a vital support for founders in a way that VCs cannot be, particularly in the early stages– Demystifying investment for operators could create a better angel ecosystem and is just as important as access to deal flow– Deepali’s move from independent Angel to Partner at Speedinvest was not planned - she got to know the team and look at deals together before they developed a Venture Partner role for her, and she gradually became more and more involved with the firm before joining full time

Today we are happy to have Tobias Schirmer with us, Founding Partner of Join Capital, a 150m€ early stage venture capital investor in European technology startups providing access to industrial companies.Join Capital has an established portfolio of 20 companies and notable investments including Flexciton, Valispace, Opteran Technologies, Digital Spine, Frenetic.Joining Tobias as a guest on this episode we have someone who'll need little introduction to all of you: Joe Schorge, founding and managing partner of Isomer Capital, one of Europe’s absolute strongest Fund of Funds.

Today, we're happy to welcome Joe Cross, early stage angel investor, with a portfolio of around 25 companies so far, and LP in Cocoa. He focusses on companies with the potential to make a positive impact at scale, and helps founders on growth & marketing challenges across a whole mix of sectors. Previously, he was employee #12 at (Transfer)Wise, where he wore various marketing & growth leadership hats from 2012-2020. In this episode you’ll learn:- How Joe thinks about applying his ex-operator skill set to add value to founders & why it’s often operations and tactics over strategy!- Why Joe’s investment thesis is centered around Good, Big & Fast and how he thinks about impact investing.- Why Joe is changing strategy from having done 25 investments in just 2 years to doing fewer more concentrated bets in the time to come- How Joe thinks about building valuable networks to access and win the best deals

Today we are happy to welcome Sabina Wizander, partner at Creandum, one of Europe’s leading early-stage venture funds with offices in Stockholm, Berlin, London and San Francisco. Creandum backs European Enterprise and Consumer Companies and are currently investing out of a 500m€ Fund. Creandum have made more than 100 investments including notable companies like Spotify, Pleo, Kry, Depop, iZettle, Kahoot!, Vivino, and Klarna. At Creandum, Sabina focuses on Climate & Health in the Nordics and DACH region, and has invested in the likes of Passionfroot, Scapin' and Prewave.In this episode you'll learn:- Europe & late-stage capital- Startup funding — a marathon, not a sprint- VC & Founder relationship misconceptions

Today we are happy to welcome Keith Grose, Head of International for Plaid, an open finance platform and data network that powers over 3,000 digital financial apps and more than 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada, UK and Europe. Keith leads the strategy and operations for Plaid’s international products. In this episode you’ll learn:- How Keith thinks about solo founders and why he believes having angels & VCs around you is even more important for these- Why Keith thinks grit is the number one thing to look for and how he tests for it- Why establishing trust and psychological safety is so important to angel investing- Why Keith prefers Whatsapp and email to regular reporting and how that can save communications from going bad

Welcome to "At The Cap Table" podcast, a new series that shines the spotlight on the investors who are changing the VC industry in Europe.Our second guest is Judith Dada, General Partner at La Famiglia. La Famiglia is a Berlin based European seed stage venture capital fund that invests in B2B technology companies disrupting or enabling large industries.Earlier this year, La Famiglia raised €250 million for its combined third seed fund (which is €165 million) and its first growth co-investment fund (€90 million).Judith's focus areas include the future of work, data-driven business models, and machine learning. In addition to this, she serves as an advisor to the German government on technology, diversity, and migration matters.Before joining La Famiglia VC, Judith was at Facebook where she managed Amazon Europe's marketing strategy and worked on Facebook's VC Initiative.In this episode of "At The Cap Table," Judith will be sharing her insights and experiences in a dynamic and wide-reaching discussion.The topics covered will include:- Judith’s background and personal journey into investing, including her route into VC- The current state of entrepreneurship into the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) and Europe given the abundance of talent moving into the space solving big problems and wanting to have a bigger impact in the region- Building and strengthening a strong ecosystem in Europe- La Famiglia's investment focus- A quick fire round of final and probing questionsStay tuned for an engaging and informative conversation!

Today we are happy to welcome Seda Ambartsumian and Peter Roos, from Target Global.Target is one of the largest and most successful technology investment firms in Europe with more than €3bn AuM and a portfolio of well-known industry champions including Revolut, Wefox, Delivery Hero, Auto1 and many others. Seda is the Head of Marketing & Comms. She joined in Jan 2022 (while 2 months pregnant) and is responsible for ensuring that Target and its portfolios shine at every opportunity. Prior to Target she spent 12 years advising private equity firms and hedge funds like Apollo and Pershing Square on their brand, positioning, and corporate reputation.Peter is the COO of Target, joined the firm 3 years ago to build out its Middle East activity. Since then Target has made several investments in the region including Fresha & Tarabut Gateway + helped their portfolio expand to the region with companies like Rapyd opening up local offices and most recently, Target opening an official office in Abu Dhabi. Peter is an experienced operator, having held senior role at Johnson & Johnson as well as having led diversified industrials businesses in both Germany and Austria. He also had brief stints in Hong Kong, London and Switzerland and is a truly cosmopolitan individual holding down the forts in the Middle East while ensuring teams across London, Berlin, Tel Aviv and Barcelona are happy and thriving!In this episode you'll learn:- Why parental leave policy is so important in VC- How you can learn from Target’s process and findings- The importance of building a culture to back up the policy- Why being small shouldn’t be an excuse for not having thought things through

Today, we're happy to welcome you to the second episode diving deep on the story of a Super Angel on EUVC! Say hi to Charley Ma, the man responsible for building and scaling multiple enterprise software startups and leading their marketing, sales, and customer success teams from $0 to $200m dollars as the first revenue hire for companies such as Plaid, Ramp, and Alloy. But Charley's career as an operator is definitely matched by his career as an angel having been an early investor in breakout companies such as Stytch, Unit, Codat, Moov, Finch, and many more which have gone to raise from giants like A16Z, Bain, Benchmark, Coatue, First Round Capital, Founder’s Fund, Index and Sequoia.In this episode you'll learn:Charley's journey from JP Morgan to Plaid and into angel investing despite "not having that much money" at the time - in fact he decided to invest his B-school savings on building his angel career instead of academic rap sheet!How Charley thinks about building relationships in angel investing and the importance of being opinionated and selective at the same time as maintaining a broad networkHow Charley employs his experience from his angel investing to make him a better operator and how that allows him to navigate the current market betterHow Charley thinks about portfolio construction, ownership and how he has gone from being purely founder centric to now being more thematically focusedThis episode is sponsored by Vauban. Vauban makes it easy to launch your angel syndicate or VC Fund, check them out at www.vauban.io/euvc

Today we are happy to welcome Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, Partner at Speedinvest, one of Europe’s most active early-stage investors with more than €1 billion AuM and 40+ investors based in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, and Vienna. Andy found his way into Venture via politics - and is always up for a debate. This gave him an exceptionally good eye for promising ideas and trends.In this episode you’ll learn:- Andy’s journey from politics to VC and the edge having a different background gives him today- What 6000+ VCs say about how they make decisions- A discussion of how the European results differ from the US results- Where funds choose to domicile, why and the implications of this on a policy level- A discussion of why IRR and MOIC requirements are the same for US and EU VCs and why that surprises Andreas- Why 90% of EU VCs say Europe is fragmented and what the causes of this is

Today we have a special episode, because it’s the very first Super Angel episode launched on EUVC. We’ve got so much great feedback from people hearing this pod and many of them are regular EUVC listeners so we realized we had to bring it on to the EUVC main playlist. We are trilled to welcome you to Roxanne, Director of Station F, the world's biggest startup campus located in Paris, where she is recognized as one of the most influential figures in the French startup ecosystem. French media have called her the "young empress of startups", the "queen of tech", and "the new pope of high-tech and startups in France." Roxanne is an Iranian-American who grew up in Silicon Valley, was formerly a journalist and startup ambassador before being personally selected by Free founder to spearhead the development of Station F. In this episode you’ll learn:- All about Roxanne's angel journey- What's been Roxanne's most memorable moments investing- What angel investing has given Roxanne professionally and personally- How Roxanne thinks about investing cross borders and being a "baby LP" in VC funds

Earlier-than-expected first close of Isomer Capital’s third flagship fund continues proven strategy of investing in Europe’s best venture capital funds and their breakout companiesThe TL:DRIsomer Capital’s track record and reputation as a ‘partnership’ investor has enabled the firm’s third flagship fund to reach a substantial first close ahead of schedule, despite headwinds in the macro-environment.Since inception, Isomer Capital has invested in more than 70 early-stage venture capital (VC) firms across Europe, gaining exposure to 29 unicorns to date, including the likes of UiPath in Romania, Tractable, Deliveroo, Oyster in the UK, ManoMano, Sorare in France, Wefox in Germany, and Dune Analytics in Norway.Isomer’s proven hybrid fund of funds strategy is one of the best ways for institutional investors to access the high potential of European technology venture capital, by supporting European entrepreneurs creating the technology products of tomorrow. As a testament to this, IC II saw its net asset value (NAV) continue to increase in Q4 2022 against macro headwinds, maintaining its ranking in the top 5% of its kind globally.Isomer Capital has attracted investment from British Business Investments, the European Commission, and a range of endowments, pensions, corporates, and family offices from across Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Rana Yared, General Partner at Balderton Capital - one of Europe's most successful venture capital firms, that has raised almost $5BN, across 10 funds over the past 21 years. Balderton has backed some of the continent's most incredible companies including Revolut, CityMapper, Workable, Go Cardless, amongst other global tech leaders! Before Balderton, Rana was a Partner at Goldman Sachs, first in the Principal Strategic Investments Group where she led the bank's fintech strategy and then later in GS Growth.In the first episode of “At the Cap Table”, we discussed the state of entrepreneurship in Europe and why the startup scene is booming like never before, Balderton’s investment strategy and why being a great investor involves producing returns while also improving the world around you, how Rana has supported founders from seed to successful exit, lessons and reflections on every founder should consider, plus more!In this episode you’ll learn:• The thriving European startup scene and the drivers behind its unprecedented growth.• Unveiling the distinctions between US and European investors and founders, and identifying opportunities across Europe.• Delving into Balderton's investment strategy, emphasizing the significance of generating financial returns while creating a positive impact.• Rana's invaluable journey in supporting companies from their early stages to successful exits.• Lessons and reflections on driving impact as a board member and the qualities that define elite performers.• Exploring strategies for making informed investment decisions in a highly competitive startup landscape.

Welcome to "At The Cap Table," the exciting new podcast series brought to you by your hosts, Sarah Finegan from Antler, Savitri Tan and Chloe Dagnell from Isomer Capital. Coming to you from London to showcase the top European female investors who are making waves in the VC industry.In this episode, we want to give you a glimpse into what this podcast is all about, who it's for, and why it stands out from the rest.As the European VC fund ecosystem evolves and diversifies, 'At The Cap Table' is dedicated to amplifying the voices of top female investors who are driving the VC industry forward.Each episode will feature a different leader who will share their insights, experiences, and strategies for backing the next generation of unicorn founders across Europe. We aim to cover a wide range of VC profiles, including partners at established funds, emerging managers, angels-turned-VCs, operators, and family offices.Expect fascinating stories from Balderton's Rana Yared about her invaluable experiences taking companies from seed through to successful exit, hear from industry experts like Deepali Nangia, who will share what it's like to make a move from angel investing into VC. And Check Warner who will discuss building a global movement to address barriers to entry in the industry, amongst many others.This podcast will bring you perspectives from investors all across Europe and beyond. We'll hear from investors in the UK, Germany, France, and more!This podcast series is proudly supported by our respective VC funds; Antler and Isomer Capital and brought to you by EUVC.Antler is the world's leading day zero investor and the most active early-stage VC firm in Europe, making 102 investments into European startups in 2022. We are committed to further increasing our investment rate this year to support the emerging world-class founder talent in Europe.Isomer Capital, on the other hand, is an LP supporting entrepreneurs throughout Europe through VC fund commitments, co-investments, and providing liquidity via secondary purchases of funds and companies. We’ve backed over 70 funds across Europe, and counting!Whether you are an investor seeking to learn from top investors across Europe or a founder looking to raise capital, this podcast is a must-listen for all early-stage investing enthusiasts.So, let's dive into the exciting world of venture capital and uncover the stories behind the success of Europe's most influential investors.Let's go!

Welcome to a very special feature of one of our Super Angel Episodes that we did together Anthony Danon from Cocoa and have gotten so much great feedback on from VCs that we wanted to give it a special feature here on EUVC.Today, we're happy to welcome you to Eduardo Ronzano, a Spanish tech entrepreneur and angel investor. He founded KelDoc, one of the top online booking platforms for hospitals in France and sold it to NEHS insurance group. Eduardo is the managing director of Secret Fund - an undercover entrepreneur fund based in Paris.In this episode you’ll learn:- How Eduardo’s mom got him into angel investing following the sale of his first company- How to stay aligned with your entrepreneurs and the importance of being authentic- How Eduardo follows a strategy of only doing initial investments and what this gives him as an angel- Why reputation is the number one thing in angel investing- The importance of asking yourself why you are angel investing and how connecting with founders has been the biggest personal take-away for Eduardo- Why angel investing is like being a boxing coach, not a football coachThis episode is sponsored by Vauban. Vauban makes it easy to launch your angel syndicate or VC Fund, check them out at www.vauban.io/euvc

Today we are happy to welcome Chris and Alexis.Chris Wade is an all-time favorite guest here at the EUVC Podcast, the co-founder of Isomer Capital is undeniably one of Europe's true OG LPs. With an extensive career as a founder, startup mentor and LP with more than 50 Venture fund investments under his belt, Chris co-leads Isomer's fund investments and leads their co-investment program.And we brought along for this episode Alexis Houssou, the Founder & Managing Partner of HCVC, an community-first early-stage venture capital firm that helps hardtech founders tackle problems with capital, resources and collaboration.In this episode, you'll learn: - The origin story of the relationship between Isomer and HCVC- Reflections from both sides of the table on managing LP relations in co-investments- Why Alexis thinks it's paramount that you only do co-investments with LPs/GPs when there's a lot of trust on both sides.- Why Chris thinks the overwhelming most important thing an LP can ask of a GP is to be transparent and trustworthy.- Reflections on the inconvenient yet fundamental truth: Funds don't make money, companies make money.

Today we are happy to welcome Umerah Akram and Martijn De Wever.Umerah is Head of Private Markets at the London Stock Exchange, helping grow the Group’s offering for private companies. Martijn is CEO & Founder of Floww, a digital platform connecting start-ups, venture capitalists, investors, and business partners. LSEG works in collaboration with Floww to create a new standard for data in private markets and connecting the innovation ecosystem to traditional private capital on a single transaction platform.And we must say, we’ve seen quite a few firms come up in Europe lately trying to disrupt exactly this. And some have looked quite similar, if not indistinguishable. So when we first heard about Floww, we were suspicious. But we do actually think there’s something to pay attention to here. ‘Cos Floww has partnered with LSEG, yes - that LSEG. The London Stock Exchange Group. And they’re not playing the game of building a centralized platform for private markets, but rather the game of empowering the decentralized nature of private markets.So what’s the stock exchange getting into this for? Well nothing less than the ushering in of a new type of wholesale market in the UK. An ambition which the government is committed to and is referred to as the Intermission Trading Venue by the UK Treasury, which, in short, is about giving private companies opportunity to access periodic liquidity. Exactly that is what the LSEG is leveraging their public market assets to deliver. Tune in for a deep dive that will paint a journey from today's private market to the future’s.This episode is brought to you in partnership with LSEG and Floww.

Today we are happy yo welcome Bruno Raillard, Co-founder & Managing Partner at Frst, a “Day 1” VC focused on founders building global-scale companies out of the French ecosystem. Launched in 2015, Frst now has over 200m€ under management and has invested in the likes of Payfit, Owkin, Pigment, Electra and Shippeo. Before launching Frst, Bruno has built his career in financial consulting and general management working with startups, SMBs and large enterprises across a broad spectrum of industries.In this episode you’ll learn:-The journey from financial consulting, to running a family office and finally launching Frst- Bruno’s reflections on the French tech and VC ecosystem, why it’s considered closed by many and why an old adage would have said that French startups are destined to max out before unicorn status- Bruno’s reflections on pivoting from running an FO to running an independent fund- A deep dive on Frst’s recently launched paper “Appel au Génie Français” (loosely translated to “Call to French Genius”) and how it relates to their investment thesis and strategyThe paper discussed in the episode can be read in English on episode page on eu.vc and in original French on https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/appel-au-génie-français-bruno-raillard

Today we are happy to welcome Enrique Alvarado Hablitzel and Christin ter Braak-Forstinger, Co-Founders of Chi Impact Capital, the conscious impact investor that is creating strong financial returns by investing in core-regenerative business models that advance the most burning Sustainable Development Goals in Europe. Through the Burning Issues Impact Fund, Chi is scaling early growth stage companies using breakthrough technologies to transform the sectors they operate in.In this episode you'll learn:- An honest discussion of SFDR and the reason why it’s at risk of being more red tape than real change- Reflections on the future of vertical farming and the business models and technology being applied in the space- TTying fund carry to positive impact and the design of governance bodies

Today we are happy to welcome Augustin Sayer, General Partner at OVNI Capital, a VC seed fund specialising in France-based tech startups. Based in Paris, Augustin manages the company's investments in France and Israel. He was previously Partner at Newfund, a french-american fund, overseeing 20 investments in companies such as FairMoney, the largest African neo-bank, and Umiami, a plant-based texture technology company.In this episode you will learn:- From Banking to PE, to founder to VC to now emerging manager- How Gus’ journey as monoentrepreneur made him realize that VC was the way to go- Everything about the French ecosystem and how to think about it- Why OVNI’s thesis of backing French founders who are international from day-1 positions them incredibly

Today we are happy to welcome Kim Lundberg, Senior Portfolio Manager at the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark, formerly known as Vækstfonden, a Danish Growth Fund that he joined in 2017. Kin has been supporting numerous Danish startups with venture debt and growth loans in collaboration with both investors and other venture debt lenders, offering a great overview on tech lending.In this episode you’ll learn:- Everything about tech lending in Europe, it’s history, role and who it’s for (and not!)- The core terms you need to know and how to think about them- The intricacies and nuances of Venture debt and Revenue-based financing and how to employ these services as a VC for your founders- Kim’s take on the effect of tech lenders not having an equity reward as part of their deal structure- Where to seek more knowledge and key resources about venture debt

Today we are happy to welcome Nick de la Forge, Co-Founder and General Partner of Planet A, a leading European GreenTech Fund looking to invest into scalable, sustainable innovation. Before following the calling of building Planet A, Nick worked in different roles at leading firms at European deep-tech startups and funds, his own company Scalewonder, and he has a long-ranging track record as an angel investor in the WEB2.0 and WEB3.0.In this episode you will learn:- Nick’s surprising journey from his university studies to Web 3 to finally launching Planet A- Nick's views on ReFi as investment vertical and solution to our climate issues- How to build from a theory of change when building your fund and why causing systemic change is a success criteria for Planet A- The importance of ensuring that prospective LPs understand and accept the core assumptions of your fund- How Planet A employ Life Cycle Assessments to measure impact and use science in your investment decision making

This is the second part of Miguel Pinho's episode. Today we will explore the common misconceptions about the VC techstack and check his top tips for emerging VCs building their techstack. Miguel is the head of technology at Seedcamp, the European seed fund launched in 2007 that helps European entrepreneurs to compete on a global scale. He works on internal and public-facing projects ensuring they leverage the right tool suite to continue to identify, invest and support the most exciting companies out there.In this episode you will learn:- Why following the herd and FOMO is the worst, yet one of the most pervasive way to select tools for your VC tech stack- Why Airtable is an absolute power tool for VCs and Miguel’s perspectives on leveraging it’s power- Why Miguel believes there’s too little deep thinking about the VC tech stack and too many looking for a magic bullet rather than making the effort to build their own path- How to think about the organizational development to leverage the power of data and tech as a VC - when to hire a Miguel!? Should you even?- How Miguel thinks about the trend of data driven VC and if it’s more than just big words

Today we have a special episode, brought to you by Latitude 59, the flagship startup and tech event of the world’s first digital society taking place in Tallinn, Estonia, from the 24th to the 26th of May. Latitude59, in collaboration with a syndicate by Estonian Business Angels Network and TeraVC, is looking for bold and promising startups that are shifting paradigms and changing the world for the better, to compete for €1 million in 2023. The application deadline is April 9th. Make sure not to miss it!And on that note, we are happy to welcome Andrus, Founding Partner of Tera VC, and Martin, Head of Business Development at TEHNOPOL, member of EstBAN and co-lead of the 1M€ investment during Latitude59 conference.In this episode you’ll learn:– Why you should consider having Latitude59 on your event plan this year– Why Andrus and Martin have committed to the 1m€ prize pot for the Latitude59 Pitch competition– A look behind the scenes of the process, deliberations and decision criteria behind the 1m€ prize pot – A discussion of the Estonian venture scene and how it’s positioned in relation to the New Nordics and Baltics

If you are a EUVC regular listener you know we've had a few of Seedcamp's stars on the show, but this will be a whole new ride. This is the first of a two-part special episode. Today we are happy to welcome Miguel, head of technology at Seedcamp, he works on internal and public-facing projects ensuring they leverage the right tool suite to continue to identify, invest and support the most exciting companies out there.In this episode you will learn:- Miguel’s journey to becoming one of Europe’s leading voices on the VC Tech stack & the path to being a truly data-driven VC- How Seedcamp’s journey with tech took Miguel from a Fireman-phase, through a Gandalf-phase, then MacGiver-phase to finally arrive at the Architect-phase- Why simple and unsexy things like Password managers are things VC managers need to think about when building their tech stack and why- Why, how and when VCs should think about hiring a head of tech- Why FOMO might be a good thing in venture, but a terrible thing in building the VC tech stack - and pervasive in the industry nonetheless

Today we are happy to welcome Bryan Duarte and Keyona Meeks, the CoFounder and Managing Partner and the General Partner of BlackTech Capital, a Toronto based pre-seed fund that invests in Black and other Underrepresented Founders focused on CleanTech, leveraging partnerships with top organizations, universities & accelerators and the managers’ expertise, networks and track record in growing several companies to 9x valuation increases.In this episode you'll learn:- The story about how BlackTech Capital’s founders decided to build their firm together without ever having met in person- Why there’s a true need for funds focused on minorities and how doing so can give an edge to your fund- How fighting consumerism and fast fashion presents a venture investment opportunity- A discussion of how we can collaborate across the pond to promote CleanTech founders from diverse backgrounds

Luca is the Managing Partner and co-founder of Una Terra, a €200M Venture Capital fund to accelerate European scale-ups fostering solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss, and targeting the removal of 2 Gtons of CO2 and 1Mtons of plastic waste per year from the environment by 2030. In this episode you’ll learn:- The value that the WEF network and Una Terra’s involvement in the Uplink challenge for Innovative Funds For Our Future- Why Una Terra have tied their carry to impact metrics, how they’ve thought about it and implemented it- Why Luca has dedicated himself not only to VC but also to advising the world’s leading PE funds- The importance of governance in the Climate Tech sector and how Luca and Una Terra have built their setup to protect against greenwashing

This is a special episode, recorded on the snowy mountains of Villars-sur-Ollon during the WEF's Uplink & Villars Institute Summit, where we had the pleasure to talk to Rokas Peciulaitis, Founder & Managing Partner of Contrarian Ventures, a Seed stage VC mobilising resources for climate action in Europe & Israel with a founders-first approach, and Christian Jølck, Co-founder and Partner of 2150 VC, a venture capital firm investing in technology companies that seek to sustainably reimagine and reshape the urban environment.What you will learn in this episode: - The role of venture capital in shaping and saving the future and why impact will give birth to Venture 2.0- Reflections on the application of the VC & Startup creation playbook and it's applicability for the challenges of the future- Why the military is incredibly important for climate investing & why the next trillionaire will be made in climate- Exactly what Climate50 is and how you can get involved as a VC or LP

Today we are happy to welcome Isabelle O'Keeffe, partner at Sure Valley Ventures, an AI-focused VC firm which helps early-stage software entrepreneurs in the UK and Ireland grow and scale. Isabelle joined SVV in 2018 and was involved in building out the fund as well as relationships with founding teams innovating in immersive tech, e-sports, Metaverse, Enterprise AI and cybersecurity.In this episode you’ll learn:- Raising fund 3 in the current market- LP environment in Europe, where it’s evolving to and the growing collaboration- How to think about balancing two funds with similar mandates but different geos- Dry powder turning wet and the timing of a new fund in today’s market

Today we are happy to welcome Eleanor Kaye, Executive Director at Newton Venture Program, a joint venture of LocalGlobe and London Business School. Newton trains aspiring and practising venture capital professionals with an explicit mission to diversify the VC Ecosystem. Previously, Eleanor worked at Palantir Technologies across multiple operational roles during Palantir’s period of hyper-growth before Direct Listing. A passionate hiker, mother and now, gardener, Eleanor also dedicates time to mentor, encourage local impact initiatives, and supporting those in need. In this episode you’ll learn:- Why & how LSE & Local Globe are involved in the Newton Venture Program- How blind recruiting and evaluation leads to more diversity in VC- The impact of the Newton Venture Program and who it’s for- Why Eleanor believes VC could do with a little less naïvety amongst emerging managers- There’s no right way to do venture, so how does the Newton Venture Program teach?- Reflections on role models and who to learn from

Today's episode is one for the geeks! 🤓 We are happy to welcome Dmitry, General Partner at Runa Capital in Berlin. He invests in cloud infrastructure, deeptech and quantum computing. He has a PhD in physics, was a visiting researcher at the University of Ulm and Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany. Come and join us as he discover what the hell photonics are.What you will learn in this episode: The importance of patience and why your career path in VC must tie closely to your expertise and backgroundHow deep tech thesis can evolve over time to incorporate new topics and technologies as they emergeWhy the majority of VC investments in quantum computing go to creating more powerful machines, but applications remain important to keep an eye on

Today we are happy to welcome Thomas Otter, General Partner at Acadian Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm that helps founders around the world build enduring companies. Recent European investments include Techwolf, Fifty, and Figures. Thomas has an operator background in HR Tech and the Future of Work, having been a Research VP at Gartner, and led Product at SuccessFactors.In this episode you’ll learn:- A deep dive on The Future of Work vertical and why it’s vertical special to its own- Why there’s a need for a specialised VC like Acadian for Future of Work- How Acadian wins as a global, but small investor

Today we are happy to welcome Matthias Engel and Sven Heiligtag, Managing Partner and Partner of Vireo Ventures, an early-stage VC investing in seed and pre-seed highly scalable start-ups that drive electrification, in the energy, mobility and smart city space. Matthias has served 5 years as Managing Director of innogy’s corporate venture capital activities building and managing an investment team and portfolio with a dedicated investment volume of €130m with investment activities in Europe, Israel and North America. And Sven has been 20 years with McKinsey & Company in the Electric Power & Natural Gas practice, leading practices in Germany and Japan.In this episode you’ll learn:- How the Vireo team think about the energy vertical and why electrification plays such a big role- The Vireo team’s take on the energy crisis and it’s affect on the startup and LP landscape- How big firms don’t always follow through as you would expect

Today we are happy to welcome Siim Teller, Founder and General Partner of Lemonade Stand. After 20 years growing products in a number of startups (most notably at Skype) in Tallinn, London and Berlin, Siim set up Lemonade Stand in 2019 to invest in early stage Baltic and East European startups. Lately he’s being looking for AI and Machine Learning applied to boring business problems.In this episode you’ll learn:- A deep dive on the Baltic ecosystem and the VCs to know in the region- Family Office motivations to do venture and how Siim used LP investments to guard against adverse selection- Reflections on the limitations of the solo GP model

Today we are happy to welcome Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Managing Partner at Seedcamp, arguably, Europe's leading seed fund, first launched in 2007 to support European entrepreneurs truly compete on a global scale. With investments in over 460 companies including publicly listed Romanian-founded, UiPath, Wise and unicorns Revolut, wefox and Pleo. Carlos is a published author, fellow podcaster and made it onto Forbes Midas List of 2022 as one of the most influential VCs in Europe in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. You are in for a treat.In this episode, you will get a rare look into the top four funniest objections that Seedcamp and Carlos have had to endure from LPs on their journey to building Seedcamp to the hallmark it is today. Objection #1: "Your fund model will break when it goes from 5M to 20M€"Objection #2: "You're just spraying and praying and your portfolio will be far too big for you to manage"Objection #3: "Why don't you just invest in the winners?"Objection #4: "Who led deal X, Y and Z and how will you retain that person and keep him/her motivated?" And some extra reflections by Carlos on opportunity funds, VC decision-making and incentive structures and firm management.

Today we are happy to welcome José, Founding Partner of Samaipata. Before joining the early-stage pan-European VC fund, José was the co-founder of La Nevera Roja, the leading food-delivery platform in Spain. José has also worked at PWC and Accenture in Strategy and M&A Advisory.In this episode you’ll learn:- VC Brand building from one of the best brands in the space- Why you must build your brand for founders and not LPs & how to balance personal and firm brand- What’s behind Samaipata’s ethos of go beyond, think big and stay real- How José thinks about building LP relationships from first touch to conversion and beyond

Today we are happy to welcome Anne Solhaug Tutar, Partner at Antler Nordics, former entrepreneur and startup expert. At Antler, Anne has made more than 40 investments in early-stage startups and was named Company Builder of the Year in 2021 as well as top 10 Leadership Talents 2021 in Norway by E24. Anne's entrepreneurial background comes from Turkey where she founded one of the country's first health food FMCG with customers such as Starbucks and Carrefour. In this episode you’ll learn:- How relocating to Turkey led Anne into entrepreneurship and then VC- How hustling as an entrepreneur carries into the hustle of being an emerging VC- How Antler Nordics has built a model to optimize collaborating with industry

Today we are happy to welcome Jon Coker, Founding Partner of Eka Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that invests in Seed and early Series A consumer technology companies building sustainable economy. Jon founded Eka alongside Camilla Dolan to build a leading venture firm that integrates impact investing with mainstream venture. Prior to Eka, Jon has spent 11 years at MMC Ventures, ultimately as Managing Partner and led venture investments in 17 companies, been the investor representative at the board of 21 companies.In this episode you’ll learn:- Everything about assessing founder development capacity and the pillars of self-awareness, impact awareness, systems and process thinking and speed of self-development- Jon's views on coaching and coaches in venture capital and the difference between looking for A players and Growth Mindset founders- How Jon and Eka build their founder assessment around honest interviews that uncover the story and person behind the startup- Why Jon has seen more value taken away by VCs than added by VCs

Today we are happy to welcome Diana Florescu and Piyush Puri. Diana is the CEO and Founder of mediaforgrowth, a media for equity advisory firm, specialised in Series A to pre-IPO media capital fundraising. Piyush leads the Brand Capital International team in Silicon Valley as Vice President of BWI, the strategic investment arm of The Times Group – India’s largest multimedia conglomerate. In this episode you’ll learn:- How media for equity came to existence as a category of venture investing and why media companies are increasingly active in the space- The story of Times Group of India and its journey to investing media capital in more than 900 brands over the last 18 years- What the typical media for equity deal looks like and how media is priced in such deals

Today we are happy to welcome Edward van Wezel, Founding and Managing Partner of BioGeneration Ventures. Launched in 2006, BGV has managed over 250 million euros across four funds. They invest in medical and healthcare innovations that have high potential to positively impact patients.In this episode you’ll learn:- Edward’s route from chemical engineering to VC- How BGV thinks about sourcing from all of Europe and why certain geos have risen to be their core focus- On working with universities, research institutes, TTOs and the status of IP ownership in Europe- On building your ideal LP base and the importance of designing for diversity

Today we are happy to welcome Sara Rywe, Partner at byFounders - a €110m early-stage, community-powered, founders-led VC fund. Sara is an entrepreneur at heart with experience from a range of tech startups and has also worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and led the global strategy implementation at Danske Bank.In this episode you’ll learn:- Going from a simple town in Sweden to partner at one of the leading funds in the Nordics- The story behind the framework and building of a fund pioneering true founder friendly terms- Why impact awareness has become central to byFounders even though it’s not a full-fledged impact or climate fund- An exciting look under the hood of building and running the byFounders Collective to leverage their Angel LP base

Today we are happy to welcome Ali Karabey, Founding Partner at 212, a venture capital firm that backs B2B tech startups with 85 million dollars of commited capital and 170 million dollars in Assets Under Management. This year are launching their Fund III aiming for 70 million in size.In this episode you’ll learn:- How the Turkish ecosystem has developed since 212 launched as the first fund in the region back in 2012- How understanding LPs and having a long-term approach to the relationship can make a real difference in your fundraise- How Ali thinks about investing in emerging markets and scale to invest outside of your region of comfort- How Ali has dealt with geopolitical risk and how - in that light - VC’s fluctuations can seem relatively small

Today we are happy to welcome Rune Hven-Jensen and Andreas Green Rasmussen, Co-Founders and General Partners of Ugly Duckling Ventures, a VC firm that invests in Nordic companies at the pre-seed, seed and early stages, currently raising their first fund and about to announce their closing.In this episode you’ll learn:- How they pivoted their raise from the tech ecosystem to family offices- Raising through the best and the worst time possible to raise a fund- The rationale behind allocating 75% of their fund to follow-ons- Why the team targets the layer just below the consensus layer of normal VC and how this led an LP to refer to Ugly Duckling as “the PE firm of VC”

Today we are happy to welcome you to our favorite type of episode: our memo episode! That means we’ll be diving deep on a fund that the EUVC LP Syndicate is investing into together with the GP team. So, please welcome Borys and Diana, Founding Partners of SMOK Ventures, an operator-led VC fund focusing on top serial founders from the CEE region.At EUVC, we’re hyped about this investment because SMOK Ventures have risen to become the first-choice fund among many serial entrepreneurs in less than two years of operation by delivering on their promise of connecting the CEE and Global venture ecosystems with more than 80% of the money raised by portfolio startups coming from outside the region.What is more, Borys and Diana are amazing human beings who our syndicate investors can count on to not only deliver returns, but also insights, learnings and access to the region. We hope you’ll enjoy meeting Borys and Diana in this episode and invite you to reach out if you wanna learn more about how to join the EUVC LP syndicate.

Today we are happy to welcome Premysl Rubes, Founder and Managing Partner of Presto Ventures, a Prague-based VC firm investing in early-stage (pre Series A) startups built by exceptional founders from Central and Eastern Europe.In this episode you’ll learn:- Premysl’s journey from entrepreneurship, to angel investing to VC- Learnings going from a single GP & LP firm to multiple-partner team with a large LP-base- The importance of alignment of interests in a single LP set up- Why Presto Ventures double down on a high velocity investment strategy with multiple deals done per month and investment cycles of 2 years

Today we are happy to welcome Annie Theriault, Managing Partner at Cross-Border Impact Ventures (CBIV), an impact venture capital firm investing in health technology companies addressing large international markets. Cross-Border focuses on expanding access to world class technologies within North America and Europe as well as to reach people living in emerging economies. Prior to founding CBIV, Annie worked with high impact companies to mobilize more than $100 million in non-dilutive capital as a venture capital investor and advisor.In this episode you will learn:- How come Cross-Border is one of the funds selected for the Innovative Funds at WEF and what's to come on the Program- Why the only way to make money is with great co-investors- And why any VC telling you they did it all by themselves is full of sh*t

Today we are happy to welcome Michiel Kotting, Partner at Northzone, a venture capital fund shaped by lives as entrepreneurs and investors. He leads Northzone’s investments focusing on SaaS, marketplaces, healthcare and AI.In this episode you’ll learn:- The journey from entrepreneur into VC- How Northzone have managed to be relevant to founders as they’ve far outgrown their Nordic outspring- The importance of culture and why the art of investing lies in mentoring people- What emerging themes Michiel sees coming in VC- How Michiel thinks about the tech crash, Northzone’s role and going forward from here

Today we are happy to welcome Monik Pham, co-founder of Pact VC, an early stage tech fund backing mission driven founders with global ambitions. They have over 40 years’ experience building businesses in Asia, Middle East and India, and a strong track record investing in them in the UK and Europe. Pact invests in seed-stage companies under three themes which they call their ABCs - Access, Betterment, and Climate.In this episode you’ll learn:- On Pact’s origin story and raising a fund, the route to their name and having Anne Hathaway as an LP- Everything about Pact’s ABC thesis and how it connects and leverages the team’s track record and experience- Why Pact enters with large initial tickets and how it impacts their operational setup- A deep dive on impact & diversity in VC

Today we are happy to welcome Fridtjof Berge, Chief Business Officer and co-founder of Antler, a day zero investor and early-stage venture capital firm. Fridtjof works with a global team dedicated to developing the next generation of world-changing technology companies. He oversees external activities across the firm globally and serves as a member on its investment committees.In this episode you’ll learn:- The founding story of Antler, where the name came from & where the team drew inspiration from- Why and how Fridtjof and the team built a rapidly scaled global VC firm- The Antler GP Talent Thesis- How Antler thinks about marrying local and global and the role of process and systems in doing so efficiently- How Antler thinks about building GP teams for new locations- Why Antler launched out of Singapore

Today we are happy to welcome one of Europe's true OG LPs: Chris Wade, co-founding Partner of Isomer Capital. With an extensive career as a founder, startup mentor and LP with more than 50 Venture fund investments under his belt, Chris is a guy you should want to know. At Isomer, Chris co-leads their fund investments and leads their co-investment program - and has a weekly section in the EUVC newsletter where he shares his perspectives and learnings from the week gone by. Tune in for the second of a two-part episode where we reflect on the year that has gone by and predict what is in stock for 2023.In this episode you’ll learn:– Why Chris believes 2022 was a year of landmark achievements in technology that we should all remember and why perseverance and necessity are key to innovation– Why 2022 was also a year of tears, how Chris thinks about the war in Ukraine and it’s impact on society and venture capital– What gives Chris hope going into the year of 2023

Today we are happy to welcome one of Europe's true OG LPs: Chris Wade, co-founding Partner of Isomer Capital. With an extensive career as a founder, startup mentor and LP with more than 50 Venture fund investments under his belt, Chris is a guy you should want to know. At Isomer, Chris co-leads their fund investments and leads their co-investment program - and has a weekly section in the EUVC newsletter where he shares his perspectives and learnings from the week gone by.Tune in for the first of a two-part episode where we, in this instalment, explore .In this episode, you will learn: How Chris’ path as an entrepreneur has formed his thinking and behavior as a limited partnerWhy Chris chose to devote his life to found and build Isomer CapitalWhat guides Chris as an LP and how it informs you in your work with LPsWhy venture capital is like the road to enlightenment for a buddhist monk

Today we are happy to welcome Patrick Newton, co-founder of Form Ventures, an early-stage VC focused on investing in startups that are disrupting regulated markets, or building in new markets that will face regulation. Patrick helps founders break down policy barriers and shape winning regulatory strategies.In this episode you’ll learn:- How Patrick got to found Form Ventures to fund the future regulated markets- The surprising story about how Form was started as a 1M€ fund I to a 30M€ fund II- How Patrick thinks about VC brand building from a strategic and tactical point

Today we are happy to welcome Sergey Jakimov founding partner of LongeVC, a venture capital company supporting early-stage biotech and longevity-focused founders that are changing the world. Sergey is a serial entrepreneur, having co-founded 3 deep-tech ventures and raised more than $40 million in venture funding for his own ventures and as an entrepreneur in residence.In this episode you’ll learn:- How Sergey ended up doing longevity from a non-medical background- How to think about longevity as a vertical and the frontiers of the space- A deep dive on longevity techs frontiers: 1) Consumer adoption, 2) Age-related diseases (therapeutics and non-therepeutics), 3) Systemic rejuvenation of the human-being- An usually light-hearted deep dive for the EUVC show on how we can all live longer and have better lives

Today we are happy to welcome Sasha Kaletsky, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Creator Ventures, a firm that invests and collaborates with content creators. This year they closed their first $20m fund, to invest globally in early-stage companies innovating in consumer-internet.Together with his partner Caspar Lee, Co-Founder of influencer.com, a content creator with an audience of over 10 million across social channels, they help founders navigate the social media and influencer marketing landscape.In this episode you’ll learn:- All about how Creator Ventures leverages a strong network of celebrity co-investors- Why Sasha has opted for a model with celebrity co-investors rather than celebrity LPs- The direct & indirect value-add of celebrities, influencers & athletes for founders as well as VCs- What Sasha’s advice to other emerging managers is and why quality LP updates are high on his agenda

Today we are happy to welcome Enis and Kaan, General Partner and Investor at 500 Emerging Europe, who the EUVC syndicate is investing into. In this episode, we dive deep on their recent rebrand from 500 Istanbul to 500 Emerging Europe, their emerging talent thesis and the value chain drift that’s causing emerging Europe to be such an overlooked opportunity. It was an absolute pleasure to meet up with the guys at How To Web and experience exactly how hot the ecosystem and the support for what Enis is building is.**In this episode you’ll learn:– How to think about growing a 10M€ fund I to a 70M€ fund II– Why brand is the only competitive advantage in VC and how to build it– The 500 Emerging Europe Talent thesis & it’s connection to the value chain drift that 500 is leveraging– How Enis thinks about building a truly sustaining firm that may rise to dominance

Today we are happy to welcome Jean Bourcereau, President and Managing Partner at Ventech. He has joined the company in 2000, acting as a facilitator of the Partners Committee defining Ventech’s global development strategy and is a veteran driving investments notably in hardware and communications. In this episode you’ll learn:- The founding story of Ventech and how it grew out of a large bank- Why Jean and Ventech said no to 150M€ from a single LP but rather built a diversified LP base- The importance of having a solid shareholder agreement in place when there’s a cornerstone LP with big impact on the fund- Jean’s thoughts around the concept of CLPs vs CVCs- Why Ventech grew to China rather than the US & the centrality of being an active and relevant dealmaker in the region- How and why Ventech has expanded via a distributed partnership model

Welcome to a very special episode of EUVC where we dive deep with Oliver Holle, founding and managing partner of Speedinvest, for a one-of-a-kind (and super nerdy) discussion on Speedinvest’s newly launched fund 4 of 500M€! Speedinvest is one of Europe’s hands-down best seed stage investors and a household name in the industry that takes a perfectly oiled and scaled investing machine to be able to achieve. So stay tuned for some unique insights from the man who’s built it and who continues to pioneer innovation in our ecosystem.In this episode, you will learn: - Why Oliver believes a new model is needed to deliver on the promise of Seed at Scale- A rare look under the hood of Speedinvest talking everything from carry, remuneration, decision-making structures and much more- Why and how Oliver has built Speedinvest around five core beliefs: 1) VC is a team sport, 2) Expertise is essential, 3) Being pan-European has a lot of perks, 4) VC is more than picking, 5) Large portfolios managed well offer better diversification and top performance.

Today we are happy to welcome David Peterson and Gil Dibner, from Angular Ventures.Gil is the General Partner and Founder of Angular. He has been an active venture investor focused on enterprise technology companies born in Europe and Israel since 2005. As a venture investor and angel, he has backed over 30 companies. Prior to founding Angular, Gil was a Partner at DFJ Esprit and a Principal at Index Ventures in London, where he helped manage their pan-European seed portfolio.David is a partner who, prior to joining Angular, was employee #16 at Airtable, where he led growth and partnerships, developing full-stack GTM strategies and scaling the company to over 500 employees, grew from zero to 200,000 customers, and reached a $5.77B valuation.In this episode you’ll learn:– The founding story of Angular Ventures and how Gil & David think about complementarity in their partnership – How Gil & David think about navigating the current market climate & why they leaned into their biggest bet ever this July– Why Gil advises that alignment is kept front and center for emerging managers raising their fund

Today we are happy to welcome Guillaume Fournier, partner at Credo Ventures, a venture capital company focused on early stage investments in Central Europe. His mission is to identify and back the most interesting early stage companies in the region, support them in their growth plans (including expansion to the U.S. and global markets) and help them to achieve their objectives.In this episode you’ll learn:- The founding story of Credo, what’s behind the name and what took Guillaume from London to Prague - and what’s made him so happy about that move- Why Guillaume would rather spare on a deal that he ends up competing with than forego the honest conversations with fellow VCs- How Guillaume thinks about building strategic VC relationships and the role of strategic LP investments- All about how Guillaume thinks about succession planning in VC

Today we are happy to welcome Alan Poensgen, Partner at Antler, a global early-stage VC active in the major startup ecosystems across six continents. Alan has an extensive experience in building and scaling technology businesses. He was previously MD and Co-Founder at Westwing, a home & living e-commerce company, and one of Europe’s few e-commerce IPOs of the past years. Before Westwing, he built the software development hub at Rocket Internet, and was CEO of a SEA e-commerce company, along with working for a VC and starting his own company in Spain.What you will learn in this episode: - The story behind Antler Berlin & how they institutionalize the friends and family round- How Alan found his way into venture and how he thinks about building founding teams- Why Antler isn't a hypothesis-driven investor and what this mean for their strategy & operations- How Alan navigates the thin line between helping and meddling- A deep dive on the multiplier effect and flywheel of serial entrepreneurs

Today we are happy welcome Charlie Graham-Brown, CIO & Co-Founder of Seedstars, a platform that educates thousands of tech founders each year and facilitates the scale-up of high growth companies. Charlie is an investment professional and entrepreneur focused on emerging and developing markets, responsible for global seed stage VC investments.In this episode you’ll learn:- Exactly what Seedstars is and how it’s grown to become one of the dominant global players in creating and funding entrepreneurs in emerging markets- How Charlie has put together an investment strategy to double down on the emerging markets and how that differs from developed marked investing- How Charlie thinks about geo-political and currency risks as a VC- How Charlie has thought about putting together his LP base to serve his goals

Today we are happy to welcome a real legend to the show; Reshma Sohoni, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Seedcamp. With Seedcamp, Reshma has not only pioneered seed stage investing in Europe, but also built what’s become one of Europe’s consistently highest performing funds. Consequently, we thought we had no choice but to dive deep with Reshma on firm building to tease out some learnings from one of the greats. In this episode you’ll learn:- Origin story, where the name SeedCamp came from- The importance of staying true to your north star and building an ever stronger flywheel around your firm- How to think about brand building, recruiting & onboarding new talent and keeping the brand lived by all team members- How Reshma thinks about their LP base, why they’ve doubled down on small ticket LPs and requiring value-add and not just money- How Reshma thinks about follow-on investments and raising opportunity funds vs single-opportunity vehiclesWith a special guest on the Quick Fire Round: Jeroen van Doornik from Pacenotes

Today we are happy to welcome Romain Diaz, Founder and CEO of Satgana, a Climate Tech Venture Capital firm, investing in early-stage pre-seed with follow-on reserves for the seed round up to €500k. Romain is a passionate entrepreneur, a pragmatic idealist, and genuinely a nice guy! In this episode you’ll learn:- How Romain’s journey into VC took him from Rocket Internet in Germany, to a venture studio in South Africa and finally now to finally land in Lisbon- How Romain thinks about the venture studio model for an emerging VC and how his own path has made him smarter- How Romain thinks about their value add to founders and ability to pick and win the best in a time with increasing competition in Climate Tech- How Romain has thought about building Satgana from scratch to now announcing it to the world

Today we are happy to welcome Frederik Groenewegen, Co-Founder and General Partner of 415 CAPITAL. He has been an investor in more than a dozen of innovative medical technology companies and currently serves as a Board Director at Cardiac Success and R3 Vascular.In this episode you’ll learn:- How Frederik and his family’s experience and position in MedTech led them to building 415 Capital- How 415 Capital is leveraging a proprietary commercialization and distribution platform to win the best deals- What Frederik has learnt from Fund I and how the team is adapting for Fund II- How Frederik thinks about COVID as well as the current market’s impact on the MedTech space

Today we are happy to welcome Bogdan Iordache, General Partner at Underline VC. Bogdan is also the founder of HowToWeb, the go-to conference for startups and investors in CEE. This year’s event in Bucharest Romania was amazing, we were able to do a shit load of live interviews and host some of the craziest EUVC dinners. Will we be seeing you in the next ones?In this episode you’ll learn:– How sticking to the vision of a fund for 5 years can lead you to become one of the best emerging funds in Europe– How asking friends “Who would invest in my fund?” can pop the “well I would!” answer if your timing is right– How fundraising is an exercise of building trust and identifying & expanding circles – How Bogdan’s fund is tailored specifically to access the best deals in Underline’s target geo and verticals– Why the most important element of selection is the team and what that means in reality

Today we are happy to welcome Julia Padberg and René Savelsberg, partner and managing partner at SET Ventures. Julia's mission is to reduce the climate impact of the energy sector through digital innovation, together with industry-leading entrepreneurs. René co-founded SET Ventures in 2007. He has 25+ years of experience in technology investing in both deeptech and in energy transition with a background in corporate venturing and venture capital.In this episode you’ll learn:– The origin story of SET Ventures, where they got their name from – How the climate VC landscape has evolved over time and where we are headed– What allowed SET to survive - even thrive - through the big CleanTech wipeout in the early days– Culture & firm building and its importance to building and retaining talent

Welcome to a very special episode where we've brought the founders of Vauban, Rémy and Ulric on for a deep dive on the story behind the acquisition of Vauban by Carta. You'll hear all about the founding story of Vauban, how they continue hustling to create the infrastructure for European venture and what's to come.In this episode you’ll learn:- The love story of Rémy and Ulric and what the future has in store for them as founders, investors and people- The big reveal of the story behind the sale to Carta - and where Vauban will go to next- How Ulric and Rémy see the future of private markets in Europe and beyond

Today's episode is a special one, as we are happy to welcome John Dutton, Head of UpLink at the World Economic Forum, as our co-host. John will tell you all about the Innovative Funds for our Future. And as our guest, we welcome Sandra Osborne Kartt, Managing Director of Investments at ImpactAssets.– A rare peak into how the WEF’s Uplink supports the VC ecosystem – How Sandra as an important LP in multiple climate funds thinks about their investments– How the funds were selected for the Innovative Funds Program and what's to come– An opinionated but loving run-through of the selected funds by Andreas, John and Sandra

Today's episode is a special one, as we share with our audience the amazing content from Nada, from the Braving Innovation Podcast. Nada hosts conversations with global leaders in the field of Innovation, Technology and Leadership. She dives into transformational stories from startup founders and thought leaders in Innovation and Venture Capital. And this time, the tables were flipped, as David and Andreas acted as her guests.In this episode you’ll learn:– Why David and Andreas found their way into venture and hooked up to build EUVC– Why we need to preach VC to the wider ecosystem more and how it might be done– How syndicated LP investments can help build your career in venture and get you ready for greatness at any stage of your journey– Why and how skill, network and diversification are the key factors that the EUVC LP syndicates focus on building

This is a special EUVC episode straight from the Engaged Investments conference in Prague, hosted by our friends from Depo Ventures. Shout out to Petr who was kind enough to invite us. This is the recording of the panel “Perspective of LPs and VCs on the current market situation” which had the participation of our hosts Andreas and David; Ondřej, general partner at Credo Ventures; Vuk, venture capitalist at RSJ Investments; Michal, managing partner at DEPO Ventures; and Michal, principal at VentureFriends.In this episode you’ll learn:– How have the panelists have adapted their thinking and actions to fit the current market situation – Why Ondrej & Credo chose to bring their fund size down from 100M€ to 75M€ for fund IV & How Vuk as their LP thought about that– The contrarian theses that the panel holds on how to win big in the current market– What the panel thinks investors should be most wary of when it comes to investing into VC funds and startups these days

Today, we are happy to welcome Tim Draper, founder of the Draper Venture Network, a global network of venture capital funds. He funded Baidu, Tesla, Skype, SpaceX, Twitch, Hotmail, and numerous other well-known unicorns at the seed stage. He is a supporter and global thought leader for entrepreneurs everywhere, and a leading spokesperson for Bitcoin, Blockchain, ICOs and cryptocurrencies.In this episode you’ll learn:– The origin story of the Draper empire and why Tim built and scaled via a completely different model - including a TV show that now has 11 million viewers! – How Tim thinks about succession and partnership structures as well as putting his name behind the business – How Tim thinks about Europe and what our biggest opportunity and challenge is– Why Tim thinks the EUVC LP Syndicate model is “very interesting”!

Today we are happy to welcome Bo Ilsoe, managing partner of NGP Capital. From his current base in Geneva, Switzerland he has developed NGP Capital from initial commitments of $25M to more than $1.6B investing in the US, Europe, and China. Bo has through his portfolio exits created more than $3.0B in shareholder value during his time as an investor. A technologist at heart, he believes in the positive transformative effects technology has on society.In this episode you'll learn: - The origin & development story of NGP, the highly successful global VC, backed by Nokia- Why NGP has focused on the Series A and onwards stage - How Bo thinks about innovation horizons and how it affects the investment thesis of NGP- How Bo thinks about firm building, decision making and winning as a global team of 25 of which 15 are investors and 5 partners- Why Bo believes VCs owe founders to push them and be wary of becoming too founder friendly

This is a special EUVC episode straight from the Engaged Investments conference in Prague, hosted by our friends from Depo Ventures. Shout out to Petr who was kind enough to invite us. This is the recording of the panel “Why should business Angels invest in VC?" which had the participation of our host Andreas Munk Holm; Petr Sima, partner at DEPO Ventures; Mikk Orglaan, founding partner at Fstage.vc; Vojta Rocek, partner at Presto Ventures; and Tobias Rataj, who is an angel investor.

Today we are happy to welcome Borys Musielak, Founding Partner at SMOK Ventures. They help fund top early stage entrepreneurs (checks from €50k to €1M) based in Central & Eastern Europe, focusing on software and gaming startups. We were fortunate to record live with Borys during this years edition of How To Web.In this episode you’ll learn:– Why Borys is in love with Bucharest and the How To Web (hint: it’s not only coffee!) – The hilarious story behind the name SMOK and how it ties into a small kiss, a hairy ball AND a dragon – What the Silicon Valley roots of SMOK impacts how Borys and his team acts, works and invests– How Borys thinks about growing from a 10M€ Fund I to a 50M€ Fund II and its impact on SMOK- Borys’ views and insights on the state-backed VC programs that have been run in Poland and the CEE region. - How Borys thinks about the Russian/Ukranian crisis and how the VC market is reacting to it.

In this episode, we’re happy to welcome Juan Alonso-Villalobos, Partner of Startup Wise Guys. This year, we had the pleasure of recording with Juan at How To Web in Bucharest.In this episode you’ll learn:– How the SWG accelerator works and interplays with their funds – How Juan thinks about LP profiling and why nailing this is so central – How SWG builds their ecosystem around verticalized accelerators and funds– What FinTech solutions Juan sees coming to the venture industry and how it’ll impact us

Today we are happy to introduce you to Mick Halsband, Founding GP of Lunar Ventures, a deep tech seed stage investor, backing technical founders solving problems in big markets.Mick is a past CTO and a software architect. He has two decades of key roles at startups and multinational leading tech firms. Led software development for embedded mobile, realtime systems, computer graphics, computer vision, and trading infrastructure.In this episode you’ll learn:– What's happened at Lunar Ventures since their launch last year and how founders have reacted to their position as the most technical VC in Europe – How Mick thinks about the state of deeptech in Europe and the technologies he’s most excited about – Why Mick sees Bucharest and Romania as one of the most promising deeptech hubs in Europe

Today we are happy to welcome Marvin Liao, Partner at Diaspora VC and Board member at Game Groove Capital, an International Gaming Holding Company. He was previously a Partner at VC Fund 500 Startups. Marvin has invested in over 414 Pre-seed & Seed stage startups and we were lucky enough to record this episode with him during How To Web.In this episode you’ll learn:– Why Marvin as a successful Silicon Valley investor doubles down on Europe and what he brings to his founders– A very honest conversation about the collaboration environment in Europe and the US – How the best European founders can get juiced up by seeing the US ecosystem and experiencing that they're just as good as those backed by the world renowned firms– Learnings from investing in 414 pre-seed & seed startups over the last decade and why Marvin calls himself the Forest Gump of Silicon Valley

Today, we are happy to welcome Hampus Jakobsson, General Partner at the early stage climate tech venture fund Pale Blue Dot. Prior to co-founding Pale Blue Dot, Hampus was a Venture Partner at science fund Blue Yard and a prolific angel investor with more than 100 angel investments. He is a software engineer turned founder, turned angel investor, turned VC. When not working with ambitious climate people Hampus cooks and reads.In this episode you’ll learn:– The hilarious story behind Hampus’ first entrepreneurial ventures and route into venture, all the way to founding one of the signature climate funds in Europe– The magic of being focused and absurdly curious as a VC – How Hampus walked into his first VC meeting dressed up in a suit thinking he’d fit in, only to be proven that VC is actually a group of cool people doing amazing things– How Hampus thinks as a thesis driven investor, first with BlueYard and then with Pale Blue Dot

This is the last of a four episode long special on the MENA region here at The European VC. This special series of episodes focuses on everything MENA VC, bridging the gap with its European counterparts. We intend to shed light on the ins and outs of venture in the region and promote collaboration between Europe and MENA.For this special series of episodes we welcome our dear friend and special co-host Mostafa Gado.And as a guest, we welcome Sharif, Chief Executive Officer of the Dubai Future District Fund, the evergreen venture capital fund of funds of Dubai, anchored by the Dubai International Finance Centre and the Dubai Future Foundation with an initial 1 billion Dirham in committed capital.In this episode you’ll learn:– How Sharif built a stellar operator career in Silicon Valley and came back to the MENA region with the ambition, skills and network to make a true difference– The most complete overview of what Dubai Future District Fund as one of the region’s most powerful LPs have in store for us – Sharif’s views on the state of VC in MENA, where we’re headed and how European VCs should think about raising from MENA-based LPs

Today, we are happy to welcome Peter Sandberg, Founding Partner & Managing Director of Nordic Secondary Fund, the first and only fund in the Nordics to exclusively invest in secondaries. Peter has 35 years’ experience from investments and asset management; 5 years’ experience as an early-stage investor and 30+ investments in a.o. LegalDesk & Sky. We had the pleasure to be together with Peter, recording this episode during TechBBQ in Kopenhagen.In this episode you'll learn:– The origin story of Nordic Secondaries Fund – The inner workings of one of Europe’s first secondary funds and how they think about pricing, investment strategy and negotiation– Why Peter Sandberg sees a future with much more secondary activity in Europe – Fundraising advice from a natural talent solidly rooted in the angel world– The importance of karma in venture capital and especially the secondaries market

Welcome to yet another Memo-episode where we dive deep on one of the funds that we’re raising an EUVC community syndicate for - in other words; one of the funds that you can join us in backing, with minimum tickets at just 1k€.For this, we’re talking to Cristobal Alonso from Startup Wise Guys. You’ve met him before in past episodes, so you know he’s quite a personality and that it’s an incredible mission they’re in. Join us as we look behind the scenes of the Startup Wise Guys investment into Fractory and the journey from pre-seed to series A leading to a 120x multiple.

This episode is completely different. Actually, it’s not even an EUVC episode! We’ve just launched a new partnerpodcast “The UrbanTech VC” which is hosted by KJ and Mark. This is the go-to podcast for European Founders in the UrbanTech space. So give it a listen and if you don’t think it’s for you - share it with someone else!For this debut, we're happy to welcome you to Thibault Chavanat, Senior Project Manager at the SIGNA Group. He is in charge of the development project ‘Karstadt am Hermannplatz’ in Berlin and shared some super interesting insights about the project, Circular Construction and sustainable buildings.In this episode you’ll learn:– Why “waste” in old buildings is of surprising high value– How challenging it is to find architects who don’t see the re-use of materials from the building itself as limitation, but as opportunity– How discussions about future regulations like the outlook of the CO2 tax coming can lead to creating something new beyond known paths– How the availability of historical, detailed plans of a building can come with both advantages and disadvantages for developers

Today we are happy to welcome Audrey Soussan, General Partner at Ventech in its Paris office. The firm is deeply implicated in the evolution and diversity of European tech. Audrey focuses on Product Led Growth, Retail Tech, HR Tech and Marketplaces. She has unique insights on entrepreneurs’ business development, impact investing, and women in tech. She has joined the company since 2011, starting as an analyst and grew all the way through to General Partner.In this episode you’ll learn:– All about Audrey’s journey from analyst to partner inside Ventech– How long term orientation has shaped every part of Audrey’s life and path as a VC– How Audrey thinks about culture, carry and leadership in VC – Succession preparation in VC firm-building

This is the third of a four episode long special on the MENA region here at The European VC. Today, we’re welcoming Laila Hassan, General Partner at Algebra Ventures. She has joined their second, $90 million fund, and her appointment marks progress in Egypt’s VC ecosystem, becoming the country’s second female partner at a VC.This special series of episodes focuses on everything MENA VC, bridging the gap with its European counterparts. We intend to shed light on the ins and outs of venture in the MENA region and promote collaboration between these two beautiful regions.For this special series of episodes we welcome our dear friend and special co-host Mostafa Gado.In this episode you’ll learn:- The conditions that give the Egyptian Market a kind of crystal ball effect- The trends and opportunities in the MENA region through the eyes of a first-time fund manager- Why relationship-building is key in such a small ecosystem like VC- Laila's values, core learnings and suggestions for emerging managers

Today we are happy to welcome Maria, founding managing partner of Beacon, a London-based fund that invests with a laser-sharp focus in enterprise tech venture across Europe. Maria is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD Business School and serves on the Committee of the Chairs in Emerging Technologies as well as the Enterprise Hub of The Royal Academy of Engineering. She is also angel investing and on the board of a number of fast growing companies. This greek engineer used to fence the foil so watch out for her ripostes! In this episode you’ll learn:– How Beacon accelerates the J-curve by focusing on capital gap of founder secondary investments at pre-series B to complement their pre-series A primary investments in enterprise tech– Why off-cycle founder secondaries are an integral part to build a strong ecosystem that can generate 1 bn€ exits - and why the big sovereign LPs need to wake up to this– How Maria thinks the preference stack, discounts and terms for secondary transactions– The three core stakeholders of putting together a secondary transaction and how to make them reach an agreement that all see as a win-win– Why the founder CEO is central to putting together a secondary transaction

Welcome to another hot-off-the-press episode in our special series on navigating the current market with Europe's absolute VC elites.Today, we welcome back Lindsay and Kemper from Industry Ventures. They certainly had a lot more to share.Lindsay is the Managing Director at Industry, and focuses on originating, valuing and managing primary fund commitments and direct co-investment opportunities for the Tech Buyout team. Kemper is the Vice President at Industry and focuses on the firm’s Secondary and Tech Buyout investments, as well as driving business development efforts across their platform.Brace yourselves for some new and exciting advices.

Today, we are happy to welcome Francisco, Partner and Executive Director of Bynd Venture Capital, an Iberian VC investor with more than 30 active investments in the portfolio in different funds. Bynd is dedicated to seed / early stage technology companies in different verticals strongly connected to Iberia.In this episode you’ll learn:– All about Francisco and Bynd’s journey from being an angel club to a VC firm– Why Bynd focuses on all of Iberia & the Iberian diaspora– How Francisco thinks about divesting and sourcing buyers for partial exits– Why Francisco thinks consistency is central to being a successful VC

This is the second of a four episode long special on the MENA region here at The European VC. This special series focuses on everything MENA VC, bridging the gap with its European counterparts. We intend to shed light on the ins and outs and promote collaboration between these two beautiful regions.For this special series of episodes we welcome our dear friend and special co-host Mostafa Gado.And as our guest, we're happy to welcome Omar Almajdouie. He is the founding partner and CEO of Raed Ventures, a Saudi venture capital firm that invests in seed and early stage startups. Raed has invested in more than 40 companies. Omar believed early on that corporations must adapt in order to survive in the digital age, and that tech startups will have a transformative and disruptive impact on the traditional business landscape.In this episode you’ll learn:– The founding story of Raed charting the path from family office to CVC to finally become a strictly financial and independent VC– An insider’s view on VC in MENA and specifically Saudi Arabia - and what’s going on with market there these days?– How Omar has devised their strategy to double down on the strongest tech hubs in MENA– Omar’s advice to European managers learning how to navigate geopolitical risk

Today we are happy to introduce you to Gesa, General Partner of Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund and Board Member of the German Startups Association. Auxxo is a venture capital firm co-investing into startups with at least one female founder in Europe. Besides that, Gesa founded the Evangelistas, a network of female business angels with more than 170 members in Germany.In this episode you’ll learn:– Gesa’s perspective on the biases for and against female focused funds – Why Auxxo invests in female founders and how that focus gives Auxxo a competitive advantage in winning competitive deals– How Auxxo is thinking about their co-invest strategy in the light of the new market– How Auxxo managed to raise their fund with more than 50% of their LPs being women (in terms of €€ as well headcount)– How Gesa thinks about firm development, fund II, and what’s in store for Auxxo

In today's episode you will meet Daniel Tomov, Founding Partner of Eleven Ventures. Daniel is a pioneer in seed investments in Bulgaria and an entrepreneur in technology, cleantech, and consumer retail. Following his passion for building successful companies, he co-founded Eleven together with Ivaylo Simov in 2012.We first met Daniel at HowToWeb last year and can’t wait to reconnect for this year’s event on the 21st and 22nd of September in Bucharest, Romania. Will we be seeing you there?In this episode you’ll learn:– Reaching escape velocity and the story behind the name “Eleven Ventures” – The story of how Eleven Ventures have grown from being an accelerator to fund III of 60M€– Daniel’s eye on the the LP scene in Eastern Europe and how it’s developing– Why Eleven Ventures are investing out of their own pocket to double down on building their value add platform– Why emerging managers must be wary with overpromising to founders

In this episode, we're happy to welcome you to Rando Rannus, General Partner of Siena Secondary Fund. Rando is a founding member of Estonian Startup Leaders Club, a leading figure in EstBan, and is an excited entrepreneur with a portfolio of 30+ startups. With everyone talking about secondaries these days, we thought it was natural to sit down Rando to talk about talk about the opportunity he's capturing, the market he's navigating and the fund he's building. In this episode you’ll learn:– The founding story and opportunity that led to the raise of Siena Secondary Fund - and the surprising story behind the name– Juxtaposition of the early stage market and secondaries market - and why defaults in the portfolio are a complete no-go–  Why Rando prefers to buy secondaries off of founders, early employees or local champions

This is the first of a four episode long special on the MENA region here at The European VC. This special series focuses on everything MENA VC, bridging the gap with its European counterparts. We intend to shed light and promote collaboration between these two beautiful regions.For this special series we welcome our dear friend and special co-host Mostafa Gado - Venture Builder, Innovation Strategist and Tech Enthusiast. Mostafa has led the Project Management and Business Development for Fetchr, the #1 MENA startup in 2017 according to Forbes, in Saudi Arabia. He is a former Innovation Strategist at Accenture Middle East and Advisory Manager at PWC Middle East.Our first guest is Kenza Lahlou, co-founder and General Partner at Outlierz Ventures, an early-stage Africa-focused VC fund dedicated to Seed and Pre-Series A companies.In this episode you’ll learn:– How Kenza broke into VC in the first place and how the journey into VC in MENA differs from that in Europe– Why the rise of certain startup ecosystems is promising in the Morocco region– How Kenza thinks about helping take MENA startups go global– Why Africa's near-boundless VC opportunities if approached in the right way

Today's episode marks the 100th episode of The European VC so we’ve shifted things up and turned the tables on your usual hosts. This time, David and Andreas are the interviewees, lifting the covers on the vision behind The European VC and how an incurably optimistic former Danish bodybuilder and over-thinking Portuguese VC protégé ended up betting everything and tying themselves and their families’ fortunes together by the hip. To interview them, nobody better than Tom, Affinity's European Regional Director and one of EUVCs long-standing supporters and friends. Besides that, Tom is a Data and Technology leader with 18 years experience in the European Venture Capital and Private Equity industry. We cannot wait to bring you this story and hope you’ll enjoy hearing a bit more about your usual hosts. In this episode you’ll learn:– The vision and origin story of The European VC – Why angels, VCs and ecosystem champions should connect around LP syndicates– What’s been learnt from 100 interviews with European VCs and which episodes are the hottest!?– How the team behind The European VC is working to connect and democratize European VC - and what the pitfalls are.

Today we are happy to welcome Jamie, CEO and Founder of Creator Fund - Europe’s leading university student focused fund. Jamie launched the fund in 2019 and has since grown its presence to more than 25 UK universities. The inspiration for the model came from his time at Stanford where he was an investor at Dorm Room Fund. Jamie is a true thought leader in the space and is leading the charge pioneering a new generation of funds that we expect to see from in the future! Buckle up, ‘cos Jamie is going places - fast.In this episode you’ll learn:– Why the Creator Fund is investing in top European universities and the new founder's profile coming out of those academic environments– Their strategy of not just backing great founders but supporting a generation of student investors, leaders and technology talent– How can phD founders have more ownership of the IP in their universities with Creator's alternative negotiations– Why transparency is a key value on a VC's relationship with its LPs

Today we're happy to welcome John Frankel and Maciej Skarul.John founded ffVC back in 2008. ffVC is a leading New York City-based VC firm which has demonstrated success scaling global tech business. And you might be asking: “A US based fund in The European VC pod?!”. Listen to this episode and you’ll understand why.Maciej, our other guest, is a partner at ffVC and has over 12 years of experience in investment banking and M&A. Based in Poland, he is one of the two partners leading ffVC’s European arm in Warsaw. ffVC Warsaw works in conjunction with the rest of the ffVC network to bring to Poland everything that ffVC has done over the past twelve years in the US.In this episode you’ll learn:– Why a US focused VC decided to invest in Poland and the ecosystem challenges they are facing with more conservative investors– How the European culture can grow from million to billion-dollar exits– How their early investments are turning into a global seed stage footprint– The attraction of building US focused businesses using European tools and teams, since CE startups are 3x more cost efficient than their western pears

In today's episode, we're talking to Anthony Danon, co-founder of Cocoa, one of the hottest emerging managers in Europe these days pioneering a strategy of being VCs turned angels. Cocoa are deliberately small (17 M€ and nearly 3x oversubscribed). They are backed by some of Europe's top decacorn and unicorn founders. Prior to launching Cocoa, Anthony has been with Anthemis and Speedinvest and his partner Carmen Alfonso Rico with Samaipata and Blossom. They’ve both led high-profiled investments into companies like Hopin, TrueLayer, Primer, Wayflyer, Tide, and many more. In this episode you’ll learn:– The investment thesis of being VCs turned angels and Anthony’s reflections on the rise of micro funds – The fundraising tactics and narrative excellence that allowed Cocoa to close their fund in record time and heavily oversubscribed– Why Cocoa said no to VC money in their LP base and prioritized founders and operators– How Anthony thinks about the current market and the need to adapt as VCs

In this episode, we're happy to introduce you to Lindsay and Kemper, the UK-based team from Industry Ventures, a global 5 bn euro Fund of Funds. Lindsay is the Managing Director at Industry, and focuses on originating, valuing and managing primary fund commitments and direct co-investment opportunities for the Tech Buyout team. Kemper is the Vice President at Industry and focuses on the firm’s Secondary and Tech Buyout investments, as well as driving business development efforts across their platform.In this episode you’ll learn:– All about Industry Ventures, the 5 bn € quiet giant investing into early stage funds– Why Industry run 4 strategies in parallel and how they work together to yield a competitive edge for their LPs as well as managers– The state of the secondaries market and how Industry navigates it in Europe– What the future holds for Industry in Europe

Today, we're happy to welcome Apostolos Apostolakis, founding partner of VentureFriends, a leading European VC firm based out of beautiful and sunny Greece. Apostolos is a founder, turned angel, turned VC and has been investing and supporting startups since 2010, and focuses on consumer software and marketplaces.In this episode you’ll learn:– Why tech plays such an important part in the democratization of venture– All about the thesis and strategy of VentureFriends and why they focus globally– An insider's view on the Greek Market and the effects of the pandemic – The essential value of having people on the ground, cultivating a network and creating awareness

Join us as we're talking to Laurens Groenendijk, co-founder of Dutch Founders Fund, an founder-led early-stage venture capital firm from Amsterdam and focuses on marketplace businesses and products or services with strong network effects. Just as the rest of the founding team behind Dutch Founders Fund, Laurens is a successful entrepreneur having previously founded Just-Eat, Treatwell, Miinto and nano-satellite challenger Hiber. In this episode you’ll learn:– Why Laurens love markets that are considered unorthodox or unusual – What’s behind Laurens’ thesis of letting crazy ideas flourish and why it’s important to remember that just 1 line item can make all the difference– Why Laurens built an LP base 100+ founders and operators– How Dutch Founders Fund manages and serves their LP base via weekly updates and whatsapps

Welcome to another hot-off-the-press episode in our special series on navigating the current market with Europe's absolute VC elites.For today’s episode, we sat down with Tom Wilson, Partner at Seedcamp. Seedcamp requires little intro, so suffice it to say that he team has backed more than 430 companies and are early investors in European successes like Hopin, Wise, Revolut, Sorare, wefox, Pleo, UiPath, viz.ai and Grover. So with that, let’s dive in!

In today’s episode, we’re talking to Jimmy, co-founder and partner of Heartcore Capital. He founded Heartcore in 2007 to challenge the traditional venture landscape which today’s conversation will also show you is still very much on his mind as we’ll be talking about the macro trends driving European VC today and how Jimmy thinks about how to navigate these. In this episode, you'll learn: - Where Jimmy sees the venture capital market going long-term- Why the LP/GP model is an era of the past- How globalization and the entry of players will affect European venture- Why the time of illiquidity will come to an end- Why being small and nimble will become more difficult- Jimmy's key learnings from founding Heartcore

For today’s special series episode on navigating the current market with Europe's absolute VC elites we’re talking to Chris Wade, Founding Partner of Isomer Capital - The O.G. of European LP investing. With investments in more than 50 European early stage VC funds counting anything from first time managers to the known greats like Seedcamp, Semantic, Hoxton, and Kindred, we thought Chris would be the perfect guest to dive deep on the effects on the current market on VC fundraising. On a final note, we should say that this episode is an edited version of a virtual event earlier hosted on LinkedIn, so in case you missed it; enjoy! and in case you’re part of the 5.000 VCs that have seen it thus far; we hope it’ll be worth revisiting.

Today we’re talking to Alex Santos, founding partner of Chamaeleon, an early stage fund based in Silicon Valley doing first checks between 1 and 5 million primarily in the US and Europe but can invest globally. Chamaeleon invest on the basis of a thesis revolving around product-led companies, with technology differentiation and clear end-user flows that the team can test. Alex is an experienced investor and operational handler having spent 15 years in telco and tech and 6 years as an angel & VC. Alex has also co-founded the Portuguese corporate venture builder studio Bright Pixel.In this episode you'll learn: - How to raise successfully from corporates and use them actively afterwards- How Alex and his team have innovated on the LP value add model - Why Alex never reached out to FoFs and large institutional investors - A sneak peek into Chamaeleon's quant and tech stack strategy

Welcome to another hot-off-the-press episode in our special series on navigating the current market with Europe's absolute VC elites. For today’s episode, we sat down with Jimmy Fussing, founding partner of Heartcore - one of Europe's leading consumer VCs. Heartcore has invested in more than 90 companies counting the likes of Templafy, Podimo, Peakon, Reddit and many more. What a team. Let's dive into it!

Today we’re happy to introduce you to David Braga Malta, a Life Sciences Entrepreneur, Inventor and Investor, currently managing the health focused fund of Pictet Group, one of Europe’s largest private banks. He was previously a Venture Partner of Vesalius Biocapital III, one of Europe’s leading Life science funds and got his experiences in VC with Caixa capital investing in a mix of funds and startups.What you'll learn in this episode: - How being an LP formed the foundation for a solid VC career and why everyone should seek to get VC LP exposure in their own wealth management- David's reflections on fund investment policies in Europe and why reformation is integral to reduce societal asymmetries- The business case for life sciences in Europe and David’s reflections on why we’re not capturing the opportunity

For this episode of our special series on navigating the current market, we’re talking to an old friend of The European VC; Oliver Holle, founding and managing partner of Speedinvest. As one of Europe’s leading seed funds with 6 teams investing across as many verticals and great exposure to both the early and the late stage in their portfolio, Oliver has the perfect vantage point to comment on the status of the current market.

Join us as we're talking to Tom Wilson, Partner at Seedcamp and recovering lawyer. Seedcamp requires little introduction to most, but let’s do it anyway; Seedcamp was founded in 2007 with the strong belief that exceptional talent can come from anywhere, a belief that remains deep-rooted in the firm’s DNA and actions today. The team has backed more than 430 companies and are early investors in European successes like Hopin, Wise, Revolut, Sorare, wefox, Pleo, UiPath, viz.ai and Grover. In otherwords; say welcome to one of the greats.In this episode, you'll learn: - Tom's route into venture as a lawyer and how his background has helped him as a VC- How Seedcamp pioneered the investment strategy of building a large portfolio of small tickets & ownership in European VC- What's behind the concept of "Seedcamp Nation" and how network effects help drive the outlier performance that Seedcamp has achieved- What Tom misses from the early days of Seedcamp and where he sees opportunity in the future- Tom's best advise for emerging managers raising their capita for their first funds.

Today, we’re excited to bring you the first episode of a Special Series on navigating the current market. For this episode, we sat down with Shmuel Chafets, Chairman and Founder of Target Global, one the largest and most successful venture funds in Europe with more than €3 billion under management. They invests in companies across all stages, from pre-seed to pre-IPO and have backed global winners including Delivery Hero, Revolut, Auto 1 Group, Copper, Rapyd, Wefox, Flink, Cazoo, and many others. Their portfolio includes 15 unicorns, 19 exits and 7 IPOs - a European force to be reckoned with. So listen up, ‘cos Shmuel knows what he’s talking about.

Welcome to yet another Memo-episode where we dive deep on one of the funds that we’re raising an EUVC community syndicate for - in other words; one of the funds that you can join us in backing, with minimum tickets at just 1k€. For this, we’re talking to Cristobal Alonso from Startup Wise Guys. You’ve met him before, in episode 49, so you know he’s quite a personality and that it’s an incredible mission they’re on with Startup Wise Guys. Today, we’re zoning in on the fund we’re investing in; Challenger Fund II, a 20 M€ fund to back and double down on the amazing startups coming out of the Europe-wide Startup Wise Guys accelerator program.

We’ve assembled a panel of LPs to discuss the current turbulent climate and give some insight into how they advise their VCs to act and react. Please welcome Marcus Börner, founding partner of AlphaQ, João Vale de Almedia, Investment director at August and an old friend of EUVC; Jeroen Van Doornik from Pacenotes. We hope you’ll enjoy this roundtable and invite you to DM us with topics you’d like us to bring for future LP roundtables. We’re here to serve you.

Today we’re joined by Maria Palma, the latest addition to the famed Kindred partnership. She joined Kindred from NY-based VC fund RRE, where she spent five years, both building their platform team from scratch and leading investments into some of their most exciting break-out companies. Prior to that she had a decade long operating career spanning roles in startups and large corporations.In this episode you’ll learn:– How Maria broke into venture by creating FOMO and going deep– All about Kindred’s founder carry sharing scheme and how it helps drive 40% of their top of funnel deal flow and 60% of their end of funnel!– A deep dive on how Maria and Kindred works with founder community development as a core value add– Marias views on the current market and what she feels most VCs are missing out on in crypto!

Dilek is the founding and managing partner of ScaleX Ventures, a 30M€ Turkey-based pan-European fund investing in B2B software, AI, bioinformatics, robotics, cyber and focuses her value-add on scaling and growing globally. In this episode we dive deep with Dilek on ScaleX’ founder carry sharing scheme, how they thought about initially, its reception with founders as well as LPs and how they optimize their founder portfolio community. What you’ll learn in this episode:- All about why and how the ScaleX team built their founder carry sharing scheme- How ScaleX works to build founder community in their portfolio and how the carry sharing scheme connects with that - Dilek’s learnings from the first years with the founder sharing scheme and how her narrative has changed towards LPs

Today we're happy to introduce you to Stephan Heller, founding partner of AlphaQ, a newly launched Fund of Fund in Berlin. The team is raising a 1 bn euro fund to back both emerging and established VCs in Europe and beyond. We dive deep on their model and mission to democratize access to the asset class, what they look for and what you can expect from them. So strap in and welcome Stephan and his team to the European VC scene. In this episode, you’ll learn: - All about the on-going journey of raising a 1bn€ FoF- What AlphaQ are looking for in managers- What mega trends Stephan see changing the world (and have the most potential!)- What AlphaQ are bringing to the table besides capital

The hosts of The NextGen VC, Audrey and Ved, are joined by Michelangelo Valtancoli of Stride VC. The Stride team have invested in the likes of Cazoo, Zefir and Unibuddy. Before Stride, Michelangelo interned at PayPal and Wayra, Telefonica’s accelerator, and was also a student partner at Entrepreneur First. With his contagious energy and love for acting, Michelangelo is one of the few people we know that broke into VC straight out of university.In this episode you’ll learn: - How Michelangelo broke into VC straight out of university- How his acting career made him a better VC- Michelangelo’s advice for those who want to break into venture

Breaking news: First time Isomer Capital talks openly about their emerging manager cornerstone program. For our in-person interview with Joe Schorge, founding and managing partner of Isomer Capital, at TEDxAthens, Joe Schorge revealed yet undisclosed details about their cornerstone program for emerging managers. In this episode you'll learn: - How Joe thinks about being an optimist in the current market- What advice he gives to managers - A first-ever lift of the curtain for a sneak peak into Isomer’s extremely selective cornerstone program for emerging managers We also want to give a huge shout out to Dimitris Kalavros-Gousiou, founding of Velocity Partners for having invited us to host this talk with Joe Schorge at TEDxAthens this weekend.

Today’s episode is a bit different as we’re joined by Catherine Dupere, Partner at Isomer Capital and John Dutton, head of the World Economic Forum’s Uplink to talk about the Forum’s “Innovative Funds for Our Future”-challenge which calls for innovative VC funds who invest in people and planet-focused entrepreneurs that can strengthen innovation ecosystems and strive for the achievement of the 2030 Global Goals. Selected funds will receive the magical recognition and visibility that only highly acclaimed organizations like the WEF can give you. So pay attention to see if this challenge is something for you and apply here 👉 [https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-issue/a002o0000136S2vAAE/innovative-funds-for-our-future](https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/uplink-issue/a002o0000136S2vAAE/innovative-funds-for-our-future)In this episode you’ll learn:– Why and how the WEF is involved in startup and VC finance – Exactly what is WEF’s “Innovative Funds for Our Future”-challenge– How the challenge can give GPs recognition, visibility, access to LPs and deal flow– A deep dive on the application process and the thinking behind it- Why Isomer Capital is supporting the project

Today, we're happy to welcome Will Klippgen, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Cocoon Capital, a Singapore-based venture capital firm focusing on early-stage enterprise tech companies across Southeast Asia, specifically focused on B2B enterprise and deep tech. The fund prefers to act as lead investor and normally takes a board seat. Will has also invested in over 35 companies since 2004 after co-founding Zoomit.com which was sold to Yahoo in 2004 through Kelkoo.com in one of Europe’s largest internet transactions to date.What you’ll learn in this episode- What made Will double down on Southeast Asia - What trends and verticals to watch in SEA - Key learnings from raising a fund in emerging markets - How Will has adapted his investment thesis and ops to the SEA markets

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Danijel, founding partner at the World Fund. The fund was launched just this October 2021 focusing on funding climate-tech companies and has the ambition to be there largest climate-focused VC fund in Europe at 350M€. In their investment criteria, they have the amazingly ambitious rule of only backing startups that have the potential to save at least 100Mt CO2e per year. The fund focus on the key emitting sectors Energy, Food & Agriculture, Manufacturing, Buildings and Transport aiming to fill two significant investment gaps for climate tech: when it goes from lab to market and when it leaves the pilot stage to scale. What you’ll learn in this episode:- Why Danijel and his team believe the time is right for a 350 M€ climate fund in Europe - The origin story of World Fund and key learnings from their fundraise- Where the World Fund team sees the biggest climate opportunities in Europe- What metrics really matter when it comes to climate and sustainability

Today we’re happy to welcome Pedro Ribeiro Santos, Partner at Armilar Venture Partners, a Portuguese VC firm with a history of more than 20 years, a high-performance track record and an international footprint with 300 million under management. Pedro leads Armilar’s sustainability investments and has a strong focus on enterprise software, SaaS and IoT technologies. Pedro has a BSc in Physics Engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico and started his career as a Researcher in Physics for the University of Oxford (UK), and holds an MBA and an MSc in Economics from Universidade Nova de Lisboa.In this episode you’ll learn: - All about the MBO story of Armilar and how you can think of spinning out of a corporate/captive VC- How to think about putting together a syndicate for a big secondary transaction and balancing the interests on both sides of the deal- The journey of Armilar from founding in early 2000 when Portugal could hardly be placed on a map by international VCs to today where Portugal seems to be on the lips of almost everyone.

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Mathias Ockenfels and Julian Blessin, general partner and partner at Speedinvest’s Marketplaces & Consumer team. Speedinvest is one of Europe’s most active early stage investors with more than €600m of assets under management and Mathias’ and Julian’s investment team focuses on backing startups who are shaping the future across B2B and B2C at the intersection of marketplaces, eCommerce 2.0 and consumer subscriptions. Not only are Speedinvest one of Europe's top VC players, they're also experts in building community and network effects which is something we can't get enough of here at The European VC!What you’ll learn in this episode- What Mathias & Julian believe is the secret behind Speedinvest’s success in the consumer & marketplaces vertical.- Where Mathias & Julian believe the next great European marketplace & consumer startups will spawn.- How Speedinvest evaluates early stage deals and how they think about evaluating and committing to startups prior to traction.- A deep dive on the cold start problem and how to overcome it.- How the team thinks about Web 3.0, DAO and the crypto-hype.

Today, we're happy to introduce you to Mads Jensen, managing partner of SuperSeed, a UK-based fund seed fund backing B2B software startups that use software and machine learning to automate the way the world does business 🤖 Mads and his partner Dan Bowyer are doing amazing work and we love them for the fact that they’ve democratized access to their fund by listing it on the stock exchange 😍 So effing awesome! In this episode, you’ll learn:- All about SuperSeeds journey listing on the Aquis Stock Exchange- How SuperSeed thinks about differentiating themselves in one of Europe’s most competitive places and spaces- How Mads thinks about the adjusting to the market - higher ticket sizes? Lower equity stakes? Early stage investments? 🤷‍♂️- How Mads thinks about funding hardware startups and overcoming the problems of securing financing for CAPEX heavy business models.- Why Mads believes in the statement “sales solve all problems for early stage startups” and how it informs their value add strategy.

Today, we're happy to introduce you to Andris Berzins, Managing Partner at Change Ventures, the first and largest truly pan-Baltic pre-seed/seed fund. Change Ventures backs ambitious Baltic founders and are searching for founding teams that have the "grit" to succeed. Andris was also recently awarded the Human Development Award by the President of Latvia for an outstanding contribution to the future of the nation, what a guy 😍.What you’ll learn in this episode: - All about the Baltic ecosystem - what’s happening, what to look out for and how to approach the market- Why Andris sees many commonalities between the Baltics and the Israeli ecosystem and how this informs Change Ventures’ thesis & strategy- How Andris collaborates with Angels in the region and have brought them into his fund for a close and vested relationship- Important reflections on building a remote-first VC firm, living on slack and key learnings for anyone looking to grow their firm internationally.

Today, we're happy to introduce you to David Ventzel, formerly a founder and the GP of not one, but TWO VC funds, Accelerace Invest and Overkill Ventures 👏 In this episode, we dive deep on Accelerace Invest, being the pre-seed fund backing Denmark’s leading startup accelerators’ amazing alumni. Accelerace has helped spawn more than 800 Danish and international startups and David’s learnings from being an integral part of the team cannot be overstated. 🚨 Do tune in for one of the best “breaking into venture”-stories on the pod so far 😍 and an amazing walk-through of David’s framework for diligencing founding teams pre-traction. In this episode you’ll learn: - How David has transitioned from being a founder to a VC and key learnings from going through this - including how to build a GP team that can complement each other.- Key learnings from having accelerated >800 startups and all about the “Accelerace Invest Framework” distinguishing between entry criteria and the excellence criteria of Impact, Smartness, Leadership and Crazy.- The importance of having original insight and the difference between investing in beta and alpha growth.- All about the “momentum-framework” and how to track progress in startups pre-revenue.

Today we’re joined by Mike Suprovici, Head of Acceleration at VC Lab, the 16 week VC Accelerator spun out of Founders Institute with a vision to help launch no less than 1.000 enduring VC firms by 2025. We’re excited to bring you this interview as Mike and his partner in crime Adeo Ressi have made quite a splash worldwide with their program helping more than 100 firms be launched across 5 cohorts and make important VC conceptual innovations like the Proof of Concept-fund, Fund-in-a-box and LP Love be disseminated in the ecosystem. Go register your application for the 7th VC Lab cohort on vcl.to/VC

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Andrea Traversone, Managing Partner at Amadeus Capital Partners. Since 1997, the firm has raised over $1bn for investment and used it to back more than 180 companies. Andrea’s experience as a VC is something to envy, having lived and invested through the boom and bust of three bubbles! What you’ll learn in this episode:- The views and reflections on the current market - by a man who has lived and invested through the boom and bust of three bubbles!- Why Andrea loves their operational model of having a strong in-house backoffice, involving them early and creating cross-fund deal teams for each investment.- Andrea’s thoughts on carry distribution in VC funds, why junior personnel should be included in the scheme and how they’re setting aside significant carry reserves for employees growing in the firm- Why they define DeepTech on the company level and what’s behind the three core pillars of 1) tech must be a key differentiator, 2) the startup must own the IP, and 3) tech must be the key to the company’s operational leverage.- How the 3 P’s of Power dynamics, Post-rationalization and Persistence creates a virtuous cycle for VCs building their fund narrative

Today we’re welcoming Johan van Mil, co-founder and managing partner of Peak to The European VC 😍 Johan is a life-long entrepreneur, who has built, bought, and sold over 11 companies, from data marketplaces and social marketing software, to email marketing platforms, and more. Making the move from founder to investor, Johan founded Peak with 5 fellow entrepreneurs in 2008, which now invests in fast growing marketplace, platforms and SaaS companies. And what we REALLY love, their LP base is all operators putting their money to work to change the world - absolutely amazing 💕😍In this episode you’ll learn: - All about Johan and Peak’s journey from their first fund to today.- How Johan thinks about brand building in VC (and they’re great at this! So pay attention! 👀)- What’s behind the quote “Don’t try to please everybody, look for alternative ways to get things done, give 100% on one big goal – and do not move on before it is done.”- Why Johan and Peak have chosen to build an LP base of operators and founders, what value that brings and how they use them to deliver value to founders

Today we're happy to introduce you to Mike Reid, Founder and senior partner at Frog Capital, a growth stage fund focusing on the opportunity emerging between venture capital and private equity. Mike brings perspectives on a part of VC that we rarely speak about, but many founders need; the intersection point between VC and Private Equity. In this episode, you’ll learn:- All about Mike and Frog’s focus on risk capital without the pressure to grow at all cost- Why Mike bets on M&A deals of 150-250 M€ rather than unicorns and how this relates to building a portfolio of Ferraris, Landrovers and BMWs- Deep dive on Mike’s and Frog’s scale-up methodology

We’re excited to bring to you the EUVC LP roundtable! We’ve gathered three of Europe’s master minds in VC fund investing for a candid, upfront discussion about topics core to European VCs. In this episode, we’re joined by Chris Wade, exited entrepreneur and founding partner of Isomer Capital, David Dana, head of ICT Investments at the EIF, and Ertan Can, founding partner of Multiple Capital. In this episode you’ll learn:- What the GP of the future will look like- What trends are driving the EUVC landscape today- Why secondaries are on the rise and likely to grow stronger- What bad LP behavior our panelists see in the market and which GPs should pay attention to and be wary of

Today we’re happy to welcome you to Radu and Andrei, founders of SeedBlink - one of Europe’s upcoming platforms enabling investors to easily syndicate and participate in deals. Radu has a 30 year long experience founding and developing companies and have exited to companies like Microsoft, Naspers and Fitbit. Andrei comes from 20 years in banking but with the insights and ambition to build new experiences and solutions for the financial world - and what better place to do that than by democratising access to VC? In this episode you’ll learn:- The mission of Seedblink and what made Radu and Andrei bet on building a platform for deal syndication in Europe- What learnings Radu brings with him from his time as a founder and VC to building Seedblink- Where Seedblink are in journey to democratize access to VC, where they see the platform in 10 years and what benefits building out of Romania gives them.

With this special memo episode we’re launching the 3rd investment opportunity in the EU🔵VC Investment Club 👉 As always we dive deep with the GP team going through all the specifics of their fund - investment thesis, strategy, team, track record, deal flow, value add, etc. 🕵️‍♀️ The TL:DR just for you is 👇 Acrobator Ventures is an operator-led fund backing Eastern founders building global software companies. Focus is on arbitrage opportunities in data heavy B2B pre-seed/seed companies sourced by a combination of proprietary tech & insider networks in the tight-knit Eastern diaspora tech founder communities.The mix between operator experience and AI-expertise, allows the team to be a constructive partner and earn the trust of founding teams quickly which grants the team unparalleled access to these initially undervalued, yet proven unicorn builders.The team has an absolutely sick track-record of 70+ investments over more than 15 years in the Baltics/CEE/CIS-region yielding a double digit DPI and TVPI from another world [won’t spoil the fun here! You’ll have to listen to the episode or join our investment club to get those details 🤐 !] Suffice it to say that pitchbook rated Acrobator as the #2 Dutch fund by IRR in 2021 📈 We love their investment strategy focusing on early access by allocating significant capital to acquire defendable entry ownership positions in target startups and retaining relevance across stages by allocating super-pro-rata rights via SPVs for the LP-base. Backed by institutional LPs, the fund has been actively investing through the fundraise with called capital already marked-up significantly.Intrigued? Join us in backing this amazing team in the EU🔵VC Investment Club at http://theemergingvc.substack.com ✊ We’re always looking for new amazing operator LPs to join our syndicates 💪 Minimum commit at 1k€ 💸

We're psyched to introduce you to Marc McCabe, founder of Nomad Capital and one of the latest and greatest European micro VCs in our opinion. We love Marc and are sure you will too. Marc has done angel investments for more than a decade in consumer tech and has held operating roles at AirBnB and been part of the team at SV Angel as well as a **Sequoia Scout.** He has worked on investments in Stripe, Pinterest, Kaggle, Hipmunk, ElaCarte and many more. Marc has also co-managed a **Y Combinator** focused micro-fund where he invested in 50 companies across 3 funds including **6 Unicorns** and leading their seed investments to be followed by many great funds like **A16Z**, Founder's Fund, Tiger and Spark Capital.With Nomad Capital, Marc focuses on finding SaaS tools built by incredible teams that can help the next generation of companies build better products, faster and more effectively. We hope you will come to love Marc as much as we do. In this episode you'll learn:- What Marc learned at AirBnB and SF Angels and how he applies it in Nomad today - Marc's take on scout models and reflections from having been one for years- All about the thesis behind Nomad Capital and how he as a solo GP executes multiple deals per month- Why Marc doesn't lead rounds with Nomad and what kind of value he as an Operator and hyper connected investor brings to the table

In the 61st episode of The European VC, we're introducing you to Sapphire Ventures’ founding partner Andreas Weisskam and general partner Kevin Diestel.Many newcomers to European VC don’t know this, but Sapphire was actually originally established as the corporate VC arm of German software giant SAP, before becoming an independent VC in 2011. They now have $8bn funds under management. Andreas led the launch of Sapphire's first European office last summer, bringing the fund back to the continent 💞 and they've been busy since 💪 having established a team of 7 investors and having invested in companies like Cazoo, Wise, [Monday.com](http://monday.com/) and CurrencyCloud and many more household names. In this episode, you’ll learn: - What drove Sapphire’s decision to double down on Europe and what learnings Andreas & Kevin have made leading the charge- How the European Sapphire team leverages the connection to Silicon Valley to deliver their value add- What the team thinks they’ve brought with them from the Valley that’s especially valuable and what has surprised them in the European ecosystem- Why consensus decisions don’t always make for the best investment decisions and how the team thinks about the necessity to be make non-consensus decisions to make non-consensus investments.

It is with great excitement that we announce the second investment by The European VC Operator LP Syndicates 😍 In this special “Memo episode” we’re diving deep on Pacenotes with the founding team: Jeroen Van Doornik and Menno Rijnsburger. The TL:DR being 👉 Pacenotes gives us access to a proven strategy of investing in top tier funds and co-investments in the winners of their portfolio for strong risk-adjusted returns. To sprinkle some hotness on it, Jeroen is an exited founder and tech investor who, together with Menno, has built two tech funds of €285 M, which gives them a much coveted skillset of the next generation of FoF investors. In this episode, you’ll learn: - How a top-tier fund of funds strategy leverages direct investing to create strong risk-adjusted returns that actually rival top-quartile VC funds.- What Pacenotes looks for in their managers and why they focus on the more established VCs with a proven ability to replicate multiples of 3x and above.- How Jeroen thinks about diversification in their strategy.- How Pacenotes use SPVs to expand beyond the fund’s main strike zone on direct investments.

Today, we're happy to welcome you to a slightly provocative episode on VC Memes and well-intentioned founder-advise from VCs. It all started with David and I wanting to bring Julius Bachmann on to shed some light on the world of a founder coach who had formerly been a VC. But he declined! However, a couple of months later, Julius came back with something to say to the VC ecosystem 👉 Think less about doing VC memes and consider staying quiet a bit more often! We hope you’ll enjoy this episode as much as we did making it.In this episode you’ll learn about:- What problems Julius most often have founders coming to him with as a coach.- Why VCs should recognize that they can’t always be as good a friend to founders as they want to be (and pitch that they are).- How Julius would wish more VCs would behave in the board room and how they can make room for founders to be more candid.

Today we’re excited to introduce you to Vlad Tropko, Partner of Digital Horizon, a multi-stage VC fund investing in immigrant founders globally but with a special focus on Europe. Vlad is a seasoned VC/PE executive with over 15 years of experience investing in European and American startups. Vlad has closed more than 50 deals and is an active member of international VC communities like On Deck, 2hearts, and Alma Angels. In this episode you’ll learn- How Vlad with both Ukranian and Russian heritage thinks & reacts to the current geopolitical developments- How Vlad and his team have used late stage deals to hack traction with LPs- Why Vlad and Digital Horizon have built their thesis around backing immigrant founders and how that gives them an edge

Today we’re happy to introduce you to Dick Sietses, founding and managing partner of Health Innovations, an early stage fund for Dutch healthcare innovations. Dick has been in VC since 2000 and founded **Health Innovations** with a strong eye to the market rather than the technology and thereby brings a different vantage point to the VC-world of healthcare than most funds in the space. We hope you'll enjoy this episode as much as we did making it.In this episode you’ll learn: - Why having a market-driven thesis rather than a tech-driven thesis is a differentiator for Health Innovations and how it unlocks new opportunities- How Health Innovations have made the notoriously heavy regulatory space a strength rather than an obstacle and how they work with founders to scale out of their homemarket- Dick’s learnings from going from Fund I to Fund IV, what they’ve changed in their initial thesis and what they’ve doubled down on.

The 56th episode of The European VC is out and we’re talking to Matthew Le Merle, co-founder & managing partner of Blockchain co-investors, a blockchain FoF investing in the leading pure-play blockchain VCs and managing partner of Keiretsu - one of the biggest and most active angel networks in the world. What you’ll learn in this episode:- Learnings on community building from building Keiretsu up to have global coverage and be one of the premier global angel clubs.- How Keiretsu collaborates with VCs and how Matthew has taken that to the next level with his blockchain co-investors’ fund.- What led Matthew to founding Blockchain co-investors, what they’re looking for in VCs and how they pick them.- Why Matthew believes specialization is coming for the blockchain investment landscape and how he pursues this thesis- Exactly what are the key learnings from Matthew’s book “The Fifth Era” and what it means to VCs

Today we’re hyped to be introducing you to Sean Seton-Rogers, Partner and co-founder of PROfounders Capital. PROfounders invests 500k to 2M$ tickets into young digital startups that fix broken customer experiences. They’ve supported and invested in [Made.com](http://made.com/), GetYourGuide, Unity/Applifier, Small Giant Games, and others. Sean also happens to be a recurring name on the Forbes Midas list, so if you need more than our validation that he’s worth taking cues from, there you go. In this episode you’ll learn: - How Sean has built pro-founders as a pan-European fund from day-1 and it’s impact on their operations- How Sean thinks about the entry of the bigger American VC firms in Europe- What’s the thinking, strategy and tactics behind PROfounders PROmoter strategy to source and win deals across Europe- Sean’s take on different scout models and learnings from himself as well as the market.

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Sam Cash, newly named Partner at Project A, a pan-European focused seed and Series A fund, with $600m under management and offices in London and Berlin. Sam is heading the company’s London office and has helped build up its investment activities in the UK. He has written about technology entrepreneurship for TechCrunch, VentureBeat and occasionally shares his thoughts in his newsletter, [Socratic Tech](https://samcash.substack.com/), which is well worth a read! In this episode you’ll learn- Sam’s route into venture and making partner- How Sam thinks about fintech, crypto and communications and how to leverage being part of a platform VC with a huge operations team- How to think about the last couple of year’s markets, new dynamics and the introduction of more US capital in Europe and phenomena like micro-VCs, super angels and the tiger cubs

Gary Leyden, co-founder and GP of Leyden Ventures an early stage fund operating out of Dubai and have invested in breakout companies like Coinbase, Superhuman, and Instacart long before they occupied the front page of TechCrunch. And importantly, he’s also the host of [🌮⭐ TacoStars](http://tacostars.org/), the largest founder social community in the UAE and is hands-down one of the funniest guys we’ve brought on to the show 😍In this episode you’ll learn- What has Gary so excited about the MENA region’s ecosystem and what he thinks everyone gets wrong- Gary’s views on fundraising in the MENA region and- The story behind Tacostars, Leyden VC and Gary’s love for rolling funds, SPVs and plug and play fund admin

Claus Rehfeld is a Danish Business Angel with a unique thesis around health tech and some strong contrarian perspectives. Claus sold his company that did business intelligence for the health care sector in 2018 and has since made 8 investments. Join us for an episode that’s certain to lift your mood. In this episode, you'll learn: - Why the Nordics is a perfect sandbox for VCs in HealthTech and a deep dive on importance of collaboration between hospitals, universities and the tech world.- The primacy of data in the future of health care and why many VCs struggle to capture the opportunity it holds- Why HealthTech should be perceived as distinct from from biotech, medtech, and digitalhealth- What’s behind the quote “founders want the glamour of startups, but not the sweat and tears” and how Claus thinks about investing and mentoring early stage founders.

Today, we’re happy to introduce you to Winter Mead, co-founder of oper8r, one of the world’s leading VC accelerators and which, since recording, has rebranded to now be operating under “Coolwater Capital”. So sorry for the confusion this might cause!Winter has also authored the book “How To Raise A Venture Capital Fund: The Essential Guide on Fundraising and Understanding Limited Partners” which is a thorough and enlightening read for any emerging VC. So do go and check that out!**In this episode you’ll learn:**- The amazing journey he’s been through to write his book “How To Raise A Venture Capital Fund”- Winter’s take on good practices for GPs trying to raise their first fund- His take on the skills of a good founding managing partner- The incredible process of co-founding Oper8r, where they strive to build the next generation of institutional VCs with their amazing program

Meet Finn Murphy, newly-named Partner at Frontline Ventures, one of Europe’s leading B2B Enterprise VC firms. Finn is a true “Product-&-Growth-Marketing-Person” turned VC - Looking to find and help grow the best new business ideas in Europe & the US. As a teenager, Finn wanted to be a professional ocean racer after which he went on to ace Engineering & Maths at Trinity College, then start a series of startups and finally go into VC with Frontline Ventures.In this episode you’ll learn:- Finn’s journey and learnings with Frontline drawing key lessons for VCs aspiring to make partner- How Finn and Frontline adapted to the bull market that has been characterising the last few years and extenuated during Covid.- How Finn thinks about collaboration in VC, how to foster it with fellow co-investors and his analysis of why collaboration seems to come and go as markets go up and down- Why being a junior in the industry can actually be a strength and why you should remember that your relationships are yours, not your fund's... until you make partner that is.

Episode #49: Cristobal Alonso, Startup Wiseguys Today, we're happy to introduce you to Cristobal Alonso, founder and CEO of Startup Wiseguys, one of Europe’s leading and ambitious B2B accelerators. Cristobal and his team have made more than 180 investments into early-stage SaaS, Sustainability CyberSecurity, and Fintech B2B startups and are set to scale their accelerator model in globally in the coming years. Welcome to an episode packed with Cristobal’s knock-out energy and bold thinking. In this episode you'll learn:- How Startup Wiseguys contrast to YC, Tech Stars and Startupbootcamp- How Cristobal leverages the accelerator model to hack VC and employ a contrarian investment strategy involving bagging early wins at Series A.- How Cristobal thinks about building a culture and org that can grow to become “YC of the rest of the world”- Why the legal team is loved by founders, what the secret is behind getting to an 80% survival rate in the accelerator portfolio and what has got Startup Wise Guys to a 50% follow-on rate.- Most importantly, where and when the Startup Wiseguys Party will be this coming year

The Power Law by Sebastian Mallaby has been capturing headlines in the VC community lately. We sat down with him at The European VC to dive into his book and shed light on some of the stand-out quotes and stories from the book. If you love VC, you’ll love this book (and hopefully also our interview with Sebastian 🤣)**Join us to learn the story behind the quotes:**Vinod Khosla: Most people think improbable ideas are unimportant. The only thing that’s important is something that’s improbable.Matt Clifford: Silicon Valley is gripped by the cult of the individual. But those individuals represent the triumph of the network.Michael Moritz, Sequoia: The great challenge at venture partnerships is that the principals must refrain from killing each other.Paul Graham, Y Combinator: Spend as little as you can, because every dollar of the investor’s money you get will be taken out of your ass.Andy Grove, Intel: John [Doerr], venture capital, that’s not a real job. It’s like being a real estateagent.

Today we're talking to Contrarian Ventures’ founding partner Rokas Peciulaitis and GP Tomas Kemtys. Contrarian focuses on Energy tech and smart mobility at the seed-stage and by doubling down on community their reputation and brand has far outgrown Fund 1’s modest 12.5 M€ AUM allowing them to punch far above their weight class and raise for a many times bigger Fund II. We have to say, this episode is an amazing inspiration for any emerging manager thinking about new ways to cement their presence in European VC. In this episode you'll learn:- How Rokas & Tomas has built a brand and community that far outweighs their fund size.- How Contrarian balances investing in the notoriously difficult interface of hardware and software & what they think about solving for frontier VC verticals- How Contrarian plans and builds the fund narrative to go from a tiny fund I to a many times bigger fund II and how they prepare for the changes it will bring to the firm.

Welcome to the inaugural launch episode of The EUVC Investment Club where we’re bringing everyone in our beautiful ecosystem together around backing emerging managers. We’re honored and hyped to bring back to the show Enis Hulli, General Partner of 500 Istanbul, one of the best performing funds in the 500 Global fund family. Join us as we dive deep on Enis’ fund and explore why we’re so hyped about Enis and his thinking. We’ve long been wanting to democratize access to invest into European VC and this episode marks the true beginnings of this. In this episode, you’ll learn: - The investment thesis and strategy that has led to Fund I’s massive success yielding a 4.7x Gross TVPI & 53% IRR- What has allowed Enis and his team to execute 40 investments in founders from 11 countries with a cumulative 500M$ annualized revenue (97% from foreign markets) and 3000 people employed.- What Enis has learned and adapted from Fund I to Fund II & why Enis doubles down on talent arbitrage and tech transfer.- How Enis thinks about firm building, why he is so wholly dedicated to deal sourcing and what his strategy is to access the best deals in Turkey and Eastern Europe

Daniela is a PhD-trained Biomedical Engineer with more than 10 years of experience in venture capital and building early-stage biotechnology companies, such as Staten Biotech - resulting in a $485 million transaction at the pre-clinical stage. Science has been at the core of Daniela's career and she's now making a true difference at BGV by coupling that with her entrepreneurial experience and eye for judging people as well as investments.In this episode you’ll learn:- Daniela’s story transitioning from founder to VC- The importance of having a strong entrepreneurial & scientific background as a #biotech investor- The growth story of @BGV from 17M€ AUM in Fund I to 140 M€ AUM in Fund IV- The amazing outcomes from the companies BGV has invested in

We're joined by the famed Al Ramadan, author of the seminal book “Play bigger: how pirates dreamers and innovators create and dominate markets” which first introduced Category Design to the world. The book has since sold more than one hundred thousand copies and been heralded by people like Marc Benioff of SalesForce and Jim Goetz of Sequoia. We’re diving deep on category design, how it has evolved since inception in 2016 and how it’s being applied by forward thinking VCs throughout Silicon Valley and the world. In this episode you’ll learn:– What is Category Design and why it’s so central to creating the major outcomes we’re all chasing in VC- What Al Ramadan would wish he had done differently when first launching the book and category of “category design” - How some of the best VCs employ category design in their work with startups- What’s next for the category of “category design” and what we should be keeping our eyes peeled for.

Today we’re talking to Luis Shemtov and Elad Verbin are two of the three founding partners behind Lunar Ventures - Europe's hands-down most technical early stage VC investing in frontier computer science deep tech. The result was an episode full of learnings packed in great one-liners for emerging managers - from a team that closed 4 Fund of Funds. In this episode you’ll learn:- What made Lunar so sexy that they managed to land four European Fund of Funds & bounds of established GPs- How months of iteration around European deep tech founders’ problems led to the founding of Lunar Ventures- Why emerging managers need to solve for the question of why LPs should invest in the first close & how Elad thinks about it.- Why raising SPVs is a poor entry route into deep tech VC & what it means to be trailblazing in the VC Twilight Zone.

Denny Chared is the founder and CEO of The DC Finance Family Office and High Net Worth Community which has more than 2 thousand high net worth individuals, family offices, and investors who collaborate with each other worldwide. In this episode, we’re diving deep on how he has built this network and learnings for VCs fundraising and engaging with family offices and High Net Worth Individuals. In this episode you'll learn:- Denny’s journey into the wonderful world of Family Offices- Understanding Family Offices from a VC perspective and do’s & don’ts in working with them- The importance of respecting privacy in the Family Office world- Why VCs need to understand that talks with Family Offices can’t be all about money

Viktor is an entrepreneur turned venture-builder turned venture investor and has hands-on experience from - as he says himself: "making all the classic mistakes" with his own startup to founding a highly successful venture builder (called VNTRS) across 4 countries and now also launching VEQ to fund pre-seed/seed founders in the Nordics and Baltics.In this episode you'll learn:- What Magic the Gathering, Kebnekaise, Fasting & VC has in common- The path from founder to venture builder to Venture Capitalist- The do’s and don’ts for venture builders- How VCs should collaborate with Venture builders- The investment strategy of VEQ & how they’re using their background as venture builders to create a competitive advantage

We're diving deep with Ron Diamond on the future of family offices, their interaction with and impact on VC. Ron is the Founder of Diamond Wealth representing more than 100 Family Offices ranging from $250 million to $30 billion AUM. Center stage for our conversation today, Ron is on the Advisory Board of the Digital Cities and Disruptive Technology Program at Stanford and is helping to launch the Family Office Initiative at Stanford to help bring together the heads of billions of family office assets to charter the future of family office investing.In this episode you'll learn:- What’s behind The Stanford Family Office Initiative and how they managed to bring thousands of family offices together - Why Ron sees an explosion of Multi Family Offices around the corner - Why Ron believes the venture industry is poised for disruption by family offices - How VCs should think about family offices, the importance of trust and ways to collaborate in the future

This is the second part of “Grilling & Myth-busting with the EIF” where we’re talking to David Dana, head of ICT investments at the EIF. In this episode we cover more wide-ranging topics and questions that our community and former guests requested. In this episode you’ll learn:– Why the EIF is raising their own private funds and how they fit in the market– Why the EIF serves to stimulate skew the market, how they do so & avoid competition with private actors– How the EIF picks emerging managers (team size, track record…) when evaluating new GPs. Notice! Herein lies the answer to why the EIF doesn’t invest in solo-GPs!– EIF’s views on GP compensation & carry distribution when evaluating VC funds– How the EIF thinks about their response times & recommendations to plan for a raise involving the EIF as an LP– How investors are chosen for the EIF’s angel program– What we can expect in the future from the EIF and David Dana

This is a very special edition of The European VC called "Grilling & Myth-busting with the EIF" as we're talking to David Dana, head of ICT investments at the EIF. The episode builds on (tough!) questions sourced from our community and former guests and the lines were hot, so the episode ended up as something truly special.In this episode you'll learn:- The EIF's investment strategy, what they look for and what they shy away from.- To what extent do member country contributions impact EIF allocation- The interplay with the EIB - the European Investment Bank and how the EIF manages their (many!) different mandates- The gaps that EIF seek to fill in the European capital market and what they're doing to improve university tech transfer - as well as what David personally loves- What the EIF is doing to solve the lack of LPs with risk appetite and understanding of VC also touching on their initiative of raising their own private Fund of Funds.

Oliver Holle is the founder and managing partner of Speedinvest with a whopping 600M€ AUM. We're diving deep into Oliver's investment strategy, his thinking behind vertically focused teams, talent development, the state of the current market and what's next for Speedinvest. All in all, an episode packed with learnings for anyone aiming to build a true VC franchise that's recognized and sought after by founders all across Europe.In this episode you'll learn:- The origin story of Speedinvest & how Oliver’s thinking has evolved as he has grown the firm from 10M€ AUM in fund 1 to now 600M€.- Oliver’s take on the current market, why he’s bullish on the future of VC & why there’s plenty room for growth- How Oliver thinks about firm brand, talent development and incentives with the firm- Oliver’s reflections on portfolio construction – everything from stage, ownership targets, price sensitivity, etc!- Why Oliver believes in the value of the Platform VC and how he thinks about building it

Enis Hulli is General Partner of 500 Istanbul. Enis has founded and manages the best performing fund in the 500 Global fund family. In this episode, we're diving deep with Enis on his experience founding a 500-fund and how he has grown it from 10 to 50 M€ and exactly what Enis believes is his secret behind his fund's stellar performance. We're of course also getting into Enis' views on the potential of the Turkish and Central & Eastern European ecosystems and his super intense approach to deal sourcing requiring all on his team - including the CFO - to source deals 50% of the time.In this episode you’ll learn:- How the 500 Global fund origination scheme enabled Enis to rapidly advance up the learning curve when he launched his first fund- How Enis has built out his fund, firm and strategy from 10M€ in Fund I to 50M€ in fund II- All about the Turkish VC & Startup landscape and how Enis thinks about winning deals by always having a prepared mind and executing with incredible speed- Enis thinking around portfolio mix and price sensitivity and how it has changed over the last few years.- Why Enis doesn't want more inbound and everyone at 500 Istanbul must dedicate at least half of their time to deal sourcing

Jeroen van Doornik is the managing partner of Rabo Frontier Ventures, a €200M FoF and co-investment fund with Rabobank as the sole LP. With Rabo, Jeroen leverages his unique access to tier-1 VCs like: Balderton Capital, NorthZone, HV Capital, Speedinvest, and Seed Camp as well as his ability to identify and move quickly on co-investment opportunities in breakaway portfolio companies. Prior to joining Rabobank Frontier Ventures, @Jeroen was an investment director at the VC firm StartGreen Capital, managing its €250m venture fund providing equity, debt and project finance. He has also held investing roles at growth stage tech investment firms in energy, mobility and software and has founded a motorsports startup for eight years after a four-and-a-half-year stint at Accenture.In this episode you'll learn:- How Jeroen has built his investment strategy around co-investing with European tier-1 VC firms- Why Jeroen believes venture is all about access & speed - for VCs as well as LPs.- What Jeroen believes are the defining characteristics of good VC firms and what mistakes he sees GPs do too often- What gets Jeroen excited about a VC

Ulla Brockenhuus-Schack is the managing partner of the Danish seed fund "Seed Capital." To many international VCs, Seed Capital is the local deal flow partner in Denmark, a result of Ulla's untiring work to champion Danish startups on the European Venture scene for more than 15 years. Seed Capital is on their 4th fund, have invested in 47 companies and their portfolio counts greats like TrustPilot, Vivino, Lunar, Cardlay and Templafy. And their exit track counts notable companies like Endomondo, Libratone, and Mofibo.You'll learn in this episode:- Why Seed capital has doubled down on a narrow vertical and geographic focus- What COVID taught Ulla & Seed Capital and how they adjust going forward building in a post-COVID world- How Ulla has managed to attract international Top VCs like General Atlantic to their portfolio companies- What has allowed Ulla to achieve a whopping 70% graduation rate from Seed to Series A - a stark contrast to the average rate of 20% in Europe!

Cristina Fonseca is a Venture Partner at Indico Capital Partners and one of Portugal's most successful tech entrepreneurs and a true pioneer in the ecosystem. Cristina has co-founded Talkdesk, a cloud-based help desk software that became Portugal's third unicorn and is valued at over 3 billion euros. In Cristina's own words she has: "worn various hats, be it engineering and coding, design and user experience, product management, customer relations, processes or knowledge management." And, in fact, the list could go on. In this episode, you’ll learn:- How Cristina has transitioned from founder to VC & why she believes there are no shortcuts- What Cristina's startup experience brings to Indico and how the team at Indico complements each other.- What Cristina has learned from Indico's move into new geographies and what to expect and invest & how to avoid getting the bad apples

We're doing something different for this episode as we dive deep with James Vanreusel, CEO & founder of Vanreusel Ventures CFO-advisor to a whole string of venture-backed startups. James resides in Silicon Valley but heralds from the Netherlands and we focus on teasing out learnings for VCs helping startups prepare for funding rounds and get ready to cross the Atlantic. In this episode, you’ll learn:– How to think about building out the finance department in the early stages where hustling is key - How to help early-stage companies get funding ready from a CFO-perspective- How to think about landing in the US and the importance of partnering with local firms- Why it's so important to be prepared for the worst ahead of funding rounds and how to be so.

In this episode we dive deep on the wonderful Romanian ecosystem as we try to understand if Romania really is going to repeat the UI Path-success or if they were a one-trick unicorn-pony. We're talking to two of the country's favourite sons; Vlad Sarca from Sparking Capital and Cristian Munteanu from Early Game Ventures.In this episode, you’ll learn:- Romania is poised to deliver many more unicorns than just the famed UI Path- Where to look next in Romania, who to partner with and what you should keep in mind when thinking about Romania- Why Cristian & Vlad are bullish on Romania and all of CEE as the driving force of the next wave of VC tech success stories- Why Cristian doesn't want to hear about founders' passions or high-browed thoughts about work/life-balance

This is the second part of our interview with J Skyler, the founder and general partner of Venture University, the world's leading investor accelerator & VU Venture Partners, a multi-stage venture capital fund focused on Consumer, Enterprise, Fintech, Frontier, Healthcare, and PropTech. With $1.8 Billion invested in more than 250 companies, including greats like Beyond Meat, Facebook, Uber, Twitter, Wish and the list goes on, we're excited to bring you the second part of our interview with Skyler. In this episode, you’ll learn:– Why Skyler is hoping to see European founders focus more on what's unique to Europe, impact being a pillar example- Why Skyler thinks European startups actually have a better global outlook than what he typically sees in the US - How Skyler thinks about partnering with the best VC funds from a co-investment as well as LP perspective - Why Skyler would rather have an A-market with a B-team, than an A-team with a B-market & why he doesn't think operator experience is core to being a good VC

J Skyler is the founder and general partner of Venture University & VU Venture Partners, a multi-stage venture capital fund focused on Consumer, Enterprise, Fintech, Frontier, Healthcare, and PropTech. VU Venture Partners has offices in San Francisco, New York City, and Hong Kong. Skyler is also the Founder & CEO of Venture University, the world's leading investor accelerator for individuals breaking into venture capital, private equity, and angel investing. The team have invested over $1.8 Billion in more than 250 companies, including Beyond Meat, Facebook, Uber, Twitter, Venmo, FabFitFun, Oculus, Oscar, Wish, and other great tech success stories. In this episode, you’ll learn:– How J Skyler has built one of the world's leading investor accelerator programs as well as a top performing fund yielding 4x net cash returns to LPs.- Why VC must be learnt on the job and university education is a lame duck to entrepreneurial innovators - How VU thinks about the European opportunity & how they're approaching their expansion to our continent- Why J Skyler is 100% satisfied with the current female & minority representation in their cohorts

Christian Hernandez is a founding partner of the newly launched VC firm 2150, a climate VC fund focused on technology companies that seek to sustainably reimagine and reshape the urban environment by solving major problems across the Urban Stack. With a whopping 270 M€ raised in just one year, 2150 is the biggest VC fundraise for a European first-time fund ever and we're diving deep on exactly what allowed them to do that.In this episode, you’ll learn:- How a mid-life crisis led to the formation of Europe's biggest first-time fund ever- What made the difference for 2150's founding team when fundraising- How 2150's LP-base is much more than financial investors looking for returns- What's a Gigacorn, why Christian made up the term and how he hunts for them

Kjartan Rist is the founder and managing partner of Concentric, a UK/Denmark based Seed+ and Beyond fund focusing on B2B and B2B2C startups building software companies solving nontrivial problems in traditional sectors. Kjartan has been in VC for 20 years so naturally, we dive deep with him on how the European startup & VC scene has changed over the last two decades as well as his firm, his thesis and his vehement belief in being a hands-on investor.In this episode, you’ll learn:- How the European VC scene has changed over the last 20 years & why the perception of Spaniards being on siesta and the French on strike no longer applies to Europe. - Why the best founders are like cockroaches and what's underlying the current growth in European entrepreneurship- Why Kjartan hunts for startups that solve non-trivial problems in traditional sectors - What's causing the funding gap in seed+ to series B and how Kjartan & Concentric delivers value to founders in this space

In this episode we shed light on the growing phenomenon of Venture Builders in Europe which is becoming an ever more used entry path into VC for emerging managers & thus also a more common co-investor for early stage VCs to work with. We're talking to two seasoned vets from the VB world, Stephane Guinet and Michael Niddam founders of Paris/Tel Aviv/London-based Kamet Ventures. In this episode, you'll learn:- What are the strengths & weaknesses of different Venture Builder models- How Kamet thinks about idea origination and founder team creation- How VCs should think about having venture builders on the cap table- How VCs should work with venture builders both prior to and after an investment in a VB portfolio company

At just 25 years of age, Simão already has the achievements of a lifetime under his belt; Found a watch brand, check. Join corporate bank and rise to become sub-director, check. Co-found Portugal's strongest Fintech association, check. Raise VC Fund to invest in blockchain startups. Well of course! In this episode we dive deep on the ever-changing blockchain space & Simão's strategy to capitalize it.In this episode, you'll learn: - How blockchain is more than million-dollar-cyberpunks & meta-verses- Why & how blockchain is changing the traditional VC model- Why Lightshift is part VC fund, part hedge fund- Raising for a crypto fund, how to approach LPs & Simãos learnings for other emerging managers raising

Ertan Can is the founding managing partner of Multiple Capital, one of Europe's truly visionary Fund of Funds pioneering micro-VC and Seed fund investing. Prior to founding Multiple, Ertan was Investment Director at a Family Office, which led to developing his thesis for Multiple. Ertan has invested in 30 funds with a portfolio of 500+ early-stage tech companies in Europe across more than 50 sectors and hubs.In this episode, you will learn: - Why many emerging managers should think twice before raising- How to communicate to limited partners & why Ertan misses differentiation from GPs- Why Ertan really loves solo-GPs & micro VCs and how Ertan hunts for new managers across Europe- How Ertan develops his thinking around new markets & upcoming funds- Why Ertan is the opposite of a good fundraiser and what he has learned about the effect of outreaches in fundraising.

Ertan Can is the founding managing partner of Multiple Capital, one of Europe's truly visionary Fund of Funds pioneering micro-VC and Seed fund investing. It's no coincidence that Ertan has named his fund Multiple, as the word holds the key to his strategy; democratize access to a diversified portfolio of multiple managers across multiple geographies, multiple sectors, and multiple vintages. In this episode you'll learn:- Why Ertan started Multiple & what it's like to raise for an FoF in Europe- Why Ertan focuses on emerging managers and what he looks for- Why track-record cannot be your main criteria when evaluating Emerging Managers- The role of KPIs and reporting for emerging managers- Why investing is more about being a cockroach than a hero

Cyrus Shey is the managing partner of Bregal Milestone, a 500 M€ growth fund investing all across Europe. Bregal Milestone pioneers a sourcing strategy focused on people, process and technology that allows them to engage nearly 100 companies weekly & has resulted in Bregal having closed all deals without a competitive process. Bregal Milestone stands out as a value-add investor with a hands-on team that Cyrus refers to as both a SWAT-team and in-house M&A department. In this episode you’ll learn: – The differences between the EU and US growth-stage markets – The benefits of raising a fund embedded in an established investment firm – Bregal Milestone’s use of data to create a competitive advantage – Bregal Milestone’s endemic diversity and how that helps scale-ups grow in Europe – M&A as a core tactic to fast-track European expansion.

Vinoth Jayakumar is a Partner at Draper Esprit - one of Europe's very few publicly listed VC firms. They were first founded in 2006 and now manage more than a billion euros, they've made more than 125 investments and have created more than 5 billion in returns for their investors. At Draper Esprit, Vinoth focuses on the future of finance, Insurance, fintech, proptech and cybersecurity. He's interested in all of it, but what gets him truly excited is companies that aren't afraid of targeting the whole stack of financial products and services. No easy pickings for Vinoth.In this episode you’ll learn:- The anatomy of Draper Esprit, why they IPO’d their fund and the benefits it brings- Why Draper Esprit’s investment strategy includes a FoF & secondaries focus- Vinoth’s take on the recent changes in the European VC market- Why ESG is more than a box ticking exercise to Vinoth and how to work with portfolio companies on it.

Lara Koole is the co-founder of Carbon Equity, the first global alternative climate investment platform and one of the most ambitious attempts to democratize access to VC investing. In this second part of our talk, Lara Deep dives with us on the plans to make Carbon Equity a force to be reckoned with, aimed at helping to re-define the Climate VC space. Lara shares with us how she draws on her experience at Phillips to make her vision and dream job come true, what she looks for when evaluating funds to invest in, or how the European Union is helping to pave the way to more transparent climate investing.In this episode you’ll learn:-How evaluating funds in the climate VC space is influenced by the sense of purpose of the team-How Lara views carry distribution models and other alignment tools-Carbon Equity’s plans to become a beacon in the LP community-The GP commit controversy and Lara’s take on it-Greenwashing in the VC scene and the European Union’s contribution to end it.

Lara Koole is the co-founder of Carbon Equity, the first global alternative climate investment platform and one of the most ambitious attempts to democratize access to VC investing. Lara is also a former partner of Phillips Ventures where she set up their Corporate Venture fund, doing both direct investments and Fund investments. Lara and her team have just closed their first financing round and are in the midst of building their first Fund of Funds-feeder fund. In this first part of our talk, Lara takes us behind the scenes of Carbon Equity and to how they’re changing the way VC works.In this episode you’ll learn:-How Lara and her team are unleashing the power of VC to tackle climate change-How retail investors are going to be able to invest in VC through Carbon Equity-Why and how the VC model is adapted by Carbon Equity, including a “no carry” policy (!)-Perspectives on Feeder Funds and why Carbon Equity are using them

Joe Schorge is the founding and managing partner of Isomer Capital, one of the most formative Fund of Funds in the European ecosystem. This is the second part of a two-part episode and this episode focuses on Joe’s views on disruption in the VC space, the current state of The European ecosystem and how he assesses emerging managers. To top it off, Joe also left us with some clues of what’s coming next for him and for Isomer Capital.In this episode you’ll learn:- What it takes to start a VC firm and get interest and money from the best LPs. - Why GPs attempting to disrupt VC rarely catches Joe’s interest.- Why being the first and the only is a bad strategy to be fundraising on in VC - How and why Joe and the Isomer team worked close with the founders of First Entrepreneur. - Why LPs should consider investing in a Fund of Funds instead of directly into VC funds.

Joe Schorge is the founding and managing partner of Isomer Capital, one of Europe's absolute strongest Fund of Funds. Joe started his career in technology management positions that got him up close with M&A which led Joe to a whole string of accomplishments in PE and VC doing direct as well as fund investments. To top it off, Joe has also made Angel investments. In this first part of a two-part episode we're truly talking to one of the greats as we dive deep on the origin story of Isomer Capital, Joe's investment thesis and what it takes to be a great VC. In this episode you’ll learn:- What made Europe so unique that Joe, as an American, had to start his fund here.- What profiles make up the VC dream team – the VC hackers, hipsters and hustlers.- Why innovation requires an open minded attitude while searching for past patterns.- How Isomer Capital creates value for their portfolio of VC funds.

Chris Smith is the managing partner at Playfair Capital investing in seed & pre-seed in the UK, Europe and Israel. This is the second part of a two-part episode with Chris. If you haven’t done it yet, we strongly recommend you go back and listen to episode 14 with Chris on being a single-LP firm, post-Covid market dynamics . In this episode we dive deep on deal flow, founder profiles, and Playfair’s value add strategies.In this episode you’ll learn:– Ways to get privileged access to stellar first-time founders.– How Playfair’s value add strategy goes way beyond the ordinary and draws on every partner at their team.– Why and how Playfair goes beyond the headline grabbing capital injections and actually cares for their founders’ well-being.– What led to the creation of the female founder office hours and its impact in Playfair’s deal flow so far.

Ryan Floyd is a Founding Managing Director of Storm Ventures based in Silicon Valley but investing globally. He focuses on early stage enterprise SaaS and has a true love for applications and cloud/infrastructure related companies. Ryan is dedicated to making VC more accessible and is doing important work on this via his YouTube channel Ask A VC. In this episode we put the spotlight on how to think about startup advisors and strategies for breaking into VC.In this episode you’ll learn:• The role of advisors and how to use them best in building success• How to think about compensation for advisors• What skills are most important in a venture investor and how to build and prove it • Strategies for breaking into venture, including shadow portfolios and angel investing • How Storm Ventures think about go-to-market strategies for early stage companies

Chris Smith is the managing partner at Playfair Capital where he focuses on seed (and pre-seed) deals in the UK, Europe and Israel. Chris is particularly interested in autonomous transportation, business and industrial automation (especially through AI, ML and computer vision), HealthTech (except diagnostics and therapeutics) and B2B SaaS. But what gets Chris truly excited is when he can find companies operating in unloved/overlooked sectors that are ripe for disruption.In this episode you’ll learn:•The impact of being a 1-LP fund & how Playfair brings their heart with them into VC.•Strategies for VCs and founders to win in the current bull market•Why globally distributed teams are more resilient than traditional businesses•The post-COVID effects on deal sourcing strategy and VC operations•How PlayFair thinks about value add as a hands-on pre-seed & seed investor

Nico Goulet is founding and managing partner of Adara Ventures where they focus exclusively on B2B startups solving complex problems with breakthrough solutions. Adara are behind 36 investments and are responsible for the exit of AlienVault - the largest Spanish deep tech exit ever. Nico is a world-class thinker whose teaching at INSEAD and IE Business School has inspired VCs across all of Europe. In this episode you’ll learn:• Why dragons are often a better bet than unicorns. • The difference between pickers and allocators and what each strategy’s strengths and weaknesses are• How to craft a strategy and story that will convince investors to invest and stick with you through three busts and booms.• How Nico thinks about portfolio strategy, modelling and the importance of staying coherent

Yuri Navarro is the founder and managing partner at Kanata Ventures. At Kanata they invest in promising B2B Enterprise technology startups and help them enter the North American market through Canada. Kanata Ventures operates out of Toronto and is attracting the best global founder teams to help them settle and grow out of Canada. In this episode you’ll learn:•How to hustle your way to raising a fund•How to hack public programs for increased deal flow •Why European startups should attack North America through Canada•Why Yuri believes in the power of community and cooperation in the VC Industry.

Pedro Vieira is a founding and managing partner at newly launched Shilling Founders fund. We dive deep with Pedro on everything from raising the fund, how they’ve strategically designed their LP-base for a superior value add to their investment & portfolio management strategy. We also featured Pedro in our 8th episode where we dived deep with him on his time as Europe & Africa Lead at 500 Startups and creator of West to West. In this episode you’ll learn:•Why Pedro and Shilling share their profit with founders•Shilling’s SLA to founders: in thirty days you’ll have money in the bank or a no-go. •How to handle the pre-seed space as an institutional investor•How to think about partnering with founders and other VCs for a competitive edge

Itxaso Del Palacio is a Partner at Notion Capital, one of Europe’s strongest early-stage SaaS and enterprise tech investors. Notion Capital was founded in 2009 and has invested in more than 60 startups and has more than €500 M assets under management. Itxaso joined the team of entrepreneurs and operators turned investors with a laser focus on product led growth and a truly founder-centric perspective that has quickly made her a central figure in the SaaS space. ** In this episode you will learn **•What is product-led growth and why it’s one of the best growth routes for B2B SaaS in Europe.•Why product-led growth companies are extra resilient during hard times. •How Itxaso views startups advisors and best practice for working with them.•Key lessons from Itxaso’s work with some of Europe’s best SaaS success stories.

Kate Talbot is Senior Forbes contributor and Marketing strategist for great VC firms such as Plexo Capital, Community Fund and Flybridge. Kate has a background from working directly with none other than the famed Richard Branson, in startups backed by revered firms such as Andreesen-Horowitz and has now started her own consultancy where she works with VCs on developing and executing their marketing strategy.** In this episode you will learn **• The importance of saying "Yes!".• The strength of a well-crafted content marketing strategy & how to build it.• Why marketing needs to be top of mind of any VC firm.• How to humanize VC & make it leverage the power of community.

Pedro Vieira is Europe & Africa Lead at 500 Startups where he is working with governments in building up their ecosystems and training & aligning all relevant stakeholders. Pedro is a scientist, turned founder, turned investor, with deep experience in the tech world. He is also the creator of West to West, a not-for-profit that helps create and support a thriving environment for Portuguese entrepreneurship in the San Francisco Bay Area.** In this episode you will learn **• The contrasting characteristics of the European and US ecosystems from the perspective of someone connecting the West Coasts of these two geographies.• The differing profiles of European and American founders.• How 500 startups creates synergies to help countries across Europe build stronger and more robust innovation ecosystems.• The value perceived by LPs in aligning and training all stakeholders of the ecosystem.one thing

Andrés Dancausa is EMEA Partner at The Venture City. The Venture City helps diverse founders achieve global impact through a unique model bringing together a product-led acceleration program and an early stage venture capital fund Head Quartered in Madrid, Spain but operating all around the globe. Andrés is a true operator turned investor, a friend of founders for his constant readiness and good advice. Something you’ll surely experience throughout the episode.** In this episode you will learn **• Why Andrés thinks diversity is imperative for generating VC & LP returns.• How Andrés and TVC build with a true operator mindset.• What TVC, as a truly globally diverse VC firm, brings to its founders.• What product-led growth is and why it’s part of their secret sauce.

William McQuillan is a founding partner of Frontline Ventures. This is the second part of a two-part episode with William. If you haven't done it yet, we strongly recommend you go back and listen to our previous episode with William on Frontline's investment theses and how they support founders. In this episode we focus on firm building. Specifically how William built Frontline and took it from an Irish focused firm to a firm for globally ambitious B2B companies on both sides of the Atlantic.** In this episode you will learn **• How William perceives the funding environment in Europe, compared to the US.• How Frontline collaborates with its LPs in adding value to their portfolio companies.• The importance of VC firm building from William's perspective and how he believes it contributed to Frontline's success.• Why William believes VCs should be more rigorous in their use of data to find deals

William McQuillan is a founding partner of Frontline Ventures. Prior to starting Frontline, William was a founding employee at Ondra, an award-winning startup investment boutique that went from a 4 person team to 70+ employees across London, New York and Paris in only 18 months. When Frontline was founded, William was 27 years old, making him the youngest VC ever to have raised a fund at that time (2012). Shortly after recording this episode William announced Frontline Fund III. ** In this episode you will learn **•How William has built a truly differentiated investment thesis for Frontline’s two funds.•What William looks for in seed stage startups and why he believes integrity is all important and money cannot be the founder’s main driver.•How William perceives the effects of Brexit and its implications for their investment strategy and work with startups.•Why William and Frontline are strong supporters of founders taking a small bit of secondaries in each round.LINK https://www.frontline.vc/library/the-usa-playbook/ LINK https://www.frontline.vc/expanding-to-europe/

Episode 4 runs contrary to what the European VC stands for and features an American VC from the Valley. However, the focus is on looking from the outside in, as well as carving out lessons learned from decades of collaboration across the Atlantic. Shomit Ghose is a seasoned VC with multiple IPOs under his belt - both as an investor and an entrepreneur.**In this episode you will learn**- How the European and American VC landscapes differ and what we can learn from both.- How to increase your presence and establish collaborations with VCs in the US.- How to approach building a country-agnostic fund and the roles of VCs, LPs and Institutions.

Episode 3 features Michael Hansen, the CEO of DanBAN, Denmark's leading Business Angel Association. DanBAN consist of more than 200 active Angels who collectively invest in more than 30 M€ on an annual basis. Prior to joining DanBAN, Michael was the chief architect behind the sprawling investment environment around the Danish Robotics Cluster which is broadly recognized as one of the very strongest clusters for Robotics companies in Europe, if not the world.**In this episode, you will learn from a true investment cluster builder**- The importance of politicians making brave strategic decisions in promoting cluster development.- The story of the Danish Robotics Cluster, the cluster in which the first collaborative robots were hatched by Universal Robots, with two acquisitions at a joint valuation of nearly 1 billion EUR.- How to work with national clusters to generate deal flow and fast track deals.- Collaboration models between Business Angels and VCs.

Episode 2 features Stephan Morais, founder and Managing Partner of Indico Capital Partners, a leading early-stage deep tech VC firm based in Portugal. With a diversified background as an investment banker, consultant, entrepreneur and CEO, he has lived in 8 countries and 4 continents over the last 24 years, and acted as and advisor to politicians and pan-European institutions. Prior to founding Indico, Stephan was an Executive Board Member at Caixa Capital, where he led investment rounds of many Portuguese global tech success stories. **In this episode, you’ll learn**– How Stephan tackled raising a VC fund and what to should look for in LPs– How European VCs can push for policy developments that allow for more capital to be deployed into VC– What Europe can learn from other countries and regions– What learnings Stephan has drawn from running an iberian fund vs a single-country fund

Episode 1 features Marc Lohrmann, Managing Partner of Vesalius Biocapital III, a 120 €M venture capital fund investing in late-stage companies in drug development, medical devices & diagnostics and eHealth / mHealth, across all of Europe. Prior to joining the fund, Marc started eight life sciences companies, worked as an investment manager at one of Europe’s leading corporate VCs and worked with several corporate finance boutiques focused on life sciences M&A transactions.**In this episode, you’ll learn**– How VBC III works as a country-agnostic VC fund and what Marc believes are the main barriers to more funds investing across Europe.– How investors without a natural sciences background can create value in Life Sciences companies and why technical founders often find this type of investor a refreshing element in the board room.– What Marc would love to change about the European VC scene, what’s important to remember when investing across European borders and what’s next for Marc and Vesalius.

In this teaser episode, Andreas and David briefly explain what The European VC is all about. It's short and straight to the point. You'll also get a chance to listen to snippets of some of our guests from Season 1. You might even know who they are.Follow us and join the discussion at Linkedin, using # EUVC.