Colin Hanna - Partner at Balderton Capital. Balderton is multi-stage venture firm with over twenty years of expertise in aiding European founders from the initial seed stage through to IPO. According to Dealroom they have invested in over 30 companies valued at over a billion euros - among them Revolut, Sinch and Waye among many others. Recently they’ve raised $1.3 billion, divided into a $615 million early-stage fund and a $685 million growth fund for more mature companies. The capital will be used to support emerging technology companies across Europe. At Balderton, Colin invests in purpose-driven, product-focused founders spanning verticals including Cloud, Consumer, Crypto, and Fintech. He began his career at Goldman Sachs in New York where he focused on raising capital for Asian internet companies, including Tencent, Nexon, and Tarena among others. During this episode we discuss about his competitive swimming period from Princeton, the open-source movement and the crypto market. Enjoy!

George Henry - General Partner at LocalGlobe - the seed fund which is according to Dealroom figures, EMEA’s most successful investor in unicorns at seed stage. LocalGlobe invests across Europe and some of its notable investments include Wise, Improbable, Motorway, Tide and Automata. George himself focuses on finding the next generation of industry-transforming businesses to serve two over-looked sectors: the creative economy and SMEs. His investments range across several sectors and include some of Europe’s fastest growing companies - Qogita, Rekki, Sorare, Taster and Travelperk. During this episode we discuss about learning velocity, the importance of having a compelling vision and taking risk. Enjoy!

Lukas Saari - CEO and Co-founder of Tandem Health. Tandem is building an AI co-pilot for healthcare practitioners. Their first product is an AI agent that listens during the patient-doctor consultation, transcribes the conversation and generates the draft of the medical note. They were founded only 1 year ago, and recently closed a ~$10M seed round, led by Northzone, to accelerate their expansion from Sweden to across Europe. Before Tandem, Lukas has worked at Spotify with machine learning and has been the leader of McKinsey's Healthcare Analytics practice in the Nordics. During this episode we discuss why AI is the internet moment of our generation and why founders should take advantage of it, we touch on the cost and the administrative burden in healthcare and how Tandem solves that and how to go about validating a pain point and raise money from investors. Enjoy!

Florian Brand co-founder and Co-CEO of ATAI Life Sciences. ATAI was founded in 2018 and is a global, listed, biopharma company with the vision to heal mental health disorders so that everyone, everywhere can live a more fulfilled life. They were one of the pioneers to use psilocybin in treating mental health and they have raised around $400M equity and debt from Petter Thiel and other investors to build a portfolio of compounds like MDMA, DMT and others, to go through clinical trials and bring them to market. During this episode we discuss about Florians' motivation to start Atai, how drug discovery works and why it takes around 10 years to bring to market, and a personal story of trying psychedelics to go through the loss of a loved one. Enjoy!

Michael Lazarenko, founder and CEO of Embedd. With Embedd they provide a unified framework so that all the components coming from tens of different manufacturers can communicate with each other on the circuit board. They raised 1.5M Eur pre-seed round led by Cocoa in May last year and now they are ready and gearing up to raise their seed round. During this episode we discuss how they took 350 meetings to raise the pressed, the importance of storytelling when of explaining something complex to investors and how the war in Ukraine has built more resilience in him and his team but also killed his previous startup. Brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠Wolt4Work⁠⁠⁠, sign up and add Venture Europe and your Company Name in the company field to get a 100 Eur voucher

Alexandre Momeni - Partner at General Catalyst. Alex specialises in healthcare and AI and has been instrumental in bringing some of Europe’s biggest AI deals to General Catlayst’s door. For background General Catalyst, has $28bn assets under management and is one of the world’s best known VC firms. They backed some of greatest businesses that you probably are familiar with including Airbnb, Stripe, Discord and Snap and in Europe they have made more than 20 investments in companies like the AI superstar - Mistral, the defense company - Helsing and the new company co-founded by Daniel Ek - Neko health. During this episode we discuss about the opportunities in healthcare in Europe, what Alex looks for when meeting teams to invest in and the future of brain machine interface. Brought to you by ⁠⁠Wolt4Work⁠⁠, sign up and add Venture Europe and your Company Name in the company field to get a 100 Eur voucher

Robert Jäkle is a Partner at Visionaries Club. Visionaries is a leading European early-stage VC fund with offices in London and Berlin. The fund is backed by over 30 unicorn founders - such as the founders of UiPath, Flixbus, Miro and Skype - as well as leading European family business entrepreneurs. Bobby joined the fund on day one and has helped build it over the past five years. He now co-leads the firm's seed fund and has made several investments in Fintech, Compliance, HR, and Automation in the past years in the likes of Apron Pay, Leapsome, Workflex, Adfin, Pledge and Accountable to name a few. During this episode we discuss about about why European founders and investors should take more risk, the rarity of a unicorn founder and how to find it and the importance to surround yourself with ambitious and driven people. Enjoy! Brought to you by ⁠Wolt4Work⁠, sign up and add Venture Europe and your Company Name in the company field to get a 100 Eur voucher

Aleksander Larsen is the Co-Founder, Chairman, and COO of Sky Mavis, the company behind the popular crypto game Axie Infinity and the Ronin Network. SkyMavis is the breakout company at the intersection of gaming and blockchain, they’ve raised around 300 million dollars according to Dealroom and Crunchbase from top investors like a16z, Accel and Paradigm. During this episode we discuss about Aleksnaders’s move to Vietnam to pursue the opportunity at the intersection of gaming and blockchain, the North Korean hack, that compromised $600m of players and companies tokens and the vision of financial inclusion through gaming and crypto and competing longterm with Visa Enjoy! Brought to you by Wolt4Work, sign up and add Venture Europe and your Company Name in the company field to get a 100 Eur voucher

Annie Duke is a Special Partner focused on Decision Science at First Round Capital Partners, a seed stage venture fund. Annie is a prolific author in the decision making space having written "Thinking in Bets" - a national bestseller, "How to decide: Simple tools for making better choices” and the latest book “Quit - the power of knowing when to walk away”. As a former professional poker player, she has won more than 4 million dollars, won a World Series of Poker bracelet and is the only woman to have won the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and the NBC National Poker Heads-Up Championship. During this episode we discuss about the difference between decision quality and outcome quality, some frameworks she advises entrepreneurs to use when making decisions and the power of mental time travel. Enjoy! Brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠uTopic⁠⁠⁠⁠ - the topic based communication platform for entrepreneurs --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Oliver Holle - co-founder, CEO and Managing Partner at SpeedInvest, a leading European early-stage VC. Starting in 2011 as an angel fund, today Speedinvest became a 1B Eur European powerhouse investing in startups at the earliest phases. With their sector focused teams across Deeptech, Fintech, Marketplace and Consumer among others and operational teams, they deeply support founders in their journey. During this episode we discuss about the similarities between the AI wave with the iPhone moment, how quitting sometimes is the best decision and the need to have a chip on the shoulder and intrinsically motivation to succeeded as a founder. Enjoy! Brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠uTopic⁠⁠⁠ - peers, not followers --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Carmen Alfonso Rico - founder and GP of Cocoa VC. Cocoa is a VC fund investing between $250k-$500k angel checks at pre-seed/seed and how they like to say it “they don’t give a damn about ownership stake”. In less than 3 years she invested in some of the most talented founders from Arcane, Twirl and Plumery just to name a few, co-investing with some of the best investors in Europe and globally. During this episode we talk about why they can win competitive deals and be on the same side of the table with founders, her preferred questions to ask founders and the challenges that women face when focusing on career. Enjoy! Brought to you by ⁠⁠uTopic⁠⁠ - peers, not followers --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Bernt Øivind Børnich - co-founder and CEO of 1X, an AI and robotics company producing androids to benefit society and meet the world’s labor demand. One of the most exciting companies in Europe that stands at the forefront of AI robotics. Their mission is to create androids that work among people and a have new approach to embodied learning for data collection. They recently raised over 100 million euros from EQT Ventures, Sam Altmans' Open AI fund and other notable global investors to bring to market its second generation android called, NEO. During this episode we discuss about the importance of building softness in order for androids to work and live among humans, the infinite demand curve for a useful droid and his advice for founders to go and build stuff that matters more specifically filling the gap for a future with energy abundance. Enjoy! Brought to you by ⁠uTopic⁠ - peers, not followers --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Our guest today is Kaushik Subramanian, partner at EQT Ventures, investing primarily in product-led technology businesses. From offices in Stockholm, London, Berlin, Paris and New York, EQT invests in and supports entrepreneurs building the next-generation of global winners from a 1.1B Euro fund. Prior to joining EQT, Kaushik was at Stripe and Meta where he built and scaled several products to global reach and generating billions. During this episode we discuss how to choose your design partners when building the early version of the product, why he decided to join EQT ventures and how he asses founders if they have a product first mindset. Brought to you by uTopic - peers, not followers --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Julius is a certified coach and has coached over 150 entrepreneurs backed by Atomico, a16z and Creandum among others, has trained over 100 venture investors and just recently released his first single on Spotify. During this episode we discuss about the moment he decided to become a coach, the learnings along the coaching journey and what are the most common challenges founders and investors have, when they reach out to him. Wanna join a peer-support community for founders? Join us at uTopic. :) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Dr. Nicole Paulk is the CEO and founder of the viral gene therapy startup Siren Biotechnology. Prior to being a founder she was a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF in San Francisco, California where her lab worked at the forefront of developing and engineering enabling technologies to make viruses better medicines. During this episode we discuss the evolution of modern medicine from ingesting medicinal leaves to gene therapy, we also discuss how she plans to use viruses to treat cancer and therapies for sleeping only 4h are closer than you think. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Bharat Vasan, Partner and COO at The Production Board. Bharat is overseeing the consumer technology portfolio and actively invests in, advises and serves on the boards of early-stage businesses. He is one of Silicon Valley’s most battle-tested and proven CEOs and operators, with multiple successful exits and over $500M dollars raised. During this episode we discuss about some trends in consumer tech around AI and food, how they asses founders when investing and how he struggled with weight loss and how Ozempic, the miracle drug made by Novo Nordisk changed his mind, body – and investment strategy. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Bjarne Kveim Lie - Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Verdane. Verdane invests in technology companies with equity tickets between 8 and 150m Euro, they have Eur 5B of committed capital and over 140 investments since 2003. They have a flexible mandate and can make both minority and majority investments. In addition to making individual investments they also act as a solution provider for GPs that seek liquidity and have completed over 50 so called ‘secondary directs’ over the years. They have been named Best European PE Growth Fund all the years between 2019 and 2023 and Best European mid-market PE fund in 2022. During this episode we discuss about the status of the growth stage as an asset class, the learnings from investing for over 20 years and the fun parallel between investing with an asymmetric risk reward ratio and Dr Alban. It’s my life! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

James Currier - Founding Partner at NfX. James is a five-time Founder, an angel investor in DoorDash, Lyft, and Patreon, and a Founding Partner at the venture capital firm, NfX. Before becoming an investor, James was the co-founder and CEO of Tickle, one of the internet’s first successful user-generated-content companies. Tickle grew to the 18th largest website in the world with over 150 million registered users — before they were acquired in 2004 by Monster for $110 million. It was during this time that James realized the power of network effects as the core growth driver of both B2B and B2C successes across every vertical. James then co-founded three other successful companies – Wonderhill (online video games, merged with Kabam in 2010 which then sold for $800M), IronPearl (growth analytics SaaS, acquired by PayPal in 2013), and Jiff (enterprise healthcare software, raised $68M from Venrock, GE, J&J, merged with Castlight in 2017 — NASDAQ: CSLT). As a lifelong learner and developer of talent, James loves sharing wisdom among Founders. He speaks regularly at numerous industry conferences and has been featured in Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, TechCrunch, and Silicon Valley Business Journal. During this episode we discuss about the importance of the founding team and learning velocity, we discuss about network effects and the white-hot center and touch upon some books recommendations across entrepreneurships, finding one self and marriage and relationships. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Zeynep Yavuz - Partner at General Catalyst. General Catalyst, has $28bn assets under management and is one of the world’s best known VC firms. They backed some of greatest businesses that you probably are very familiar with including Airbnb, Stripe, Discord and Snap among many many others others. Prior to joining GC, Zeynep worked as an operator focused on strategy and product at World Remit and invested at growth stages at TA Associates. At GC she focuses on fintech and crypto. During this episode we discuss about her career trajectory from working in investment banking to private equity to operator and now GC. We also discuss how she asses founders at early stage and we touch on the opportunities that lie at the intersection of fintech and crypto. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Chris Smith - Managing Partner of Playfair. (brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Seedrs⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) Playfair is a generalist 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 resources to help companies post-investment. Playfair has backed more than 70 companies across two funds including Thought Machine, Andela, Mapillary, Recycleye and Orca AI among others. During this episode we discuss how they asses investment opportunities at such an early stage, the number one mistake founders do when fundraising and how they support their founders to raise a Series A. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Rex Woodbury - founder and Managing Partner of Daybreak, an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City. (brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Seedrs⁠⁠⁠⁠) Before founding Daybreak, Rex was a Partner at Index Ventures the premier venture capital firm that invested in Adyen, Revolut, Roblox, Discord, and Figma among others. Rex focuses on the application layer of technology, often investing in internet, software, and marketplace businesses with the potential for viral adoption. He also writes Digital Native, a publication about people and technology that reaches 50,000 weekly readers which i highly recommend. During this episode we discuss about the art of early stage investing, the pros and cons of social media and the power of technology to bring people together. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Kirsty Grant - Managing Director at Seedrs - Europe’s leading private investing platform. Under her leadership, Seedrs has become the most active investor in early stage private companies in the UK, funding over 2,000 deals and participating in rounds totalling over £2.6 billion to date. This year, she played an instrumental role in launching Seedrs' EU regulated entity. During this episode we discuss the past and future of crowdfunding, how companies like Revolut and investors like Seedcamp used Seedrs to raise funds and why we need more founders in Europe. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Mark Kugel - co-founder and co-CEO of Yuri. (brought to you by ⁠⁠Seedrs⁠⁠) At Yuri they are sending payloads to space to take advantage of micro-gravity so they can build higher quality molecules and other useful biotech assets. Did you know that it is easier to print a heart in space as it has no gravity? During this episode we discuss how the CDTM (Center for Digital Technology and Management) cohort from 2014 produced more than Eur 15B from 24 students, including Hanno of Personio and Thomas of Trade Republic among other, we discuss Germany’s PR problem and why it might be a better idea to invest in startups solving difficult problems than the next Saas for Saas for Saas! Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Ciao ragazzi e ragazze, I am here with Franscesco Sciortino - co-founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion (brought to you by ⁠Seedrs⁠) Originally from Italy, his passion for physics and plasma, took him across the world from Imperial College London for undergrad, to EPFL in Switzerland for his masters, before moving to MIT in Boston for his PhD. Beginning of 2023, Francesco raised a 7.5M Euro pre-seed round from Plural, UVC Partners and High-Tech Grunderfonds, and co-founded Proxima Fusion a Munich-based startup that aims to develop robust, high-performance, and steady-state fusion power plants. Proxima is the first-ever spin-out company from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. During this episode we discuss his journey into plasma and different machines used to perform research, the difference between a Tokamak and Stellarator and Europes potential to compete in the global fusion race. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Mikkel Skarnager - co-founder and CEO of the stealth startup Spektr. (brought to you by Brevo and Seedrs) Mikkel is a second-time founder, prior to Spektr he was the founder and CEO of HelloFlow, an innovative no-code, drag-and-drop builder for client onboarding, monitoring, and digital workflow solutions --> orchestration layer for business identity. In February 2022 only 2 years after founding the company they got an acquisition offer and sold to Trulioo for around ~50m Eur, a number I found online, that Mikkel cannot confirm nor deny, returning 5X to 50X times money back to his seed and angel investors in a very short time. During this episode we discuss Mikkel's learnings with HelloFlow and his advice for first-time entrepreneurs, the first purchase he made after the exit, and his new company. Thanks so much to his co-founder Ciprian and previous investor Tom from Seedcamp for the input to this episode. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Fredrik Cassel - General Partner at Creandum. Creandum is a venture capital advisory firm with offices in Stockholm, San Francisco, London, and Berlin funding early stage entrepreneurs from a 450m euro fund. Fredrik has an exceptional track record having previously invested in several multibillion euro companies like Spotify, Kahoot!, Depop and Kry just to name a few. He doesn’t like to take the credit and attributes his success to the Creandum team. One Creandum as he likes to call it. During this episode we discuss Creandum's culture, what he learned from Daniel Ek when investing in Spotify, and how to find user love. Brought to you by ⁠Zoom⁠ and ⁠Brevo⁠. If you like the show please check out the sponsors as they are the ones making it possible. Thank you! 🙏 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Brought to you by Zoom and Brevo. If you like the show please check out the sponsors as they are the ones making it possible. Thank you! 🙏 Jevan Nagarajah - is the founder and CEO of Better Dairy. At Better Dairy they are using precision fermentation to produce the cheeses, yoghurts, ice creams, the type of products consumed and loved across the world but without having to use animals products. During this episode we discuss about the founding story and how they managed to raise more than 20m Euros, splitting with his co-founder, his experience being part of the Rocket internet mafia and the future of tasty cheeses. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Brought to you by Zoom and Brevo. If you like the show please check out the sponsors as they are the ones making it possible. Thank you! 🙏 Mars Geuze is one of the co-founders of Hardt Hyperloop. Hardt Hyperloop is one of the leading teams in the world working to bring the concept of Hyperloop to life. The Hardt Hyperloop team is a talented and ambitious team coming from Delft University. They were building race cars before taking on the challenge of building a hyperloop. During this episode, we discuss how they transitioned from building race cars to winning the SpaceX Hyperloop competition, the complexity of building infrastructure, and their strategy of building a system that can be adopted globally and become standardized. Enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Antoine Moyroud - Partner at Lightspeed. Lightspeed is a venture capital firm focusing on multi-stage investments in the enterprise, consumer, and health sectors. Lightspeed invests in seed, early and growth-stage companies. For over twenty years Lightspeed has been the first investor and an early backer of some of the most innovative companies in the world like Snapchat, Carta and BetterUp among many others. During this episode we discuss about Antoine’s journey from failing Class Preparatoire to becoming a partner at Lightspeed at 28 years old, we discuss the firms commitment to Europe and the Eur 105M seed investment into the talented team of Mistral AI. This is episode is brought to you by Zoom One, designed for however and wherever your team gets work done. Whether you need some focus time or want to collaborate with your hybrid team, Zoom One is the all-in-one platform designed to power your work day. Collaborate with your team and clients across phone, video, messaging, whiteboards, and even connect your favorite work apps – so you can focus on getting things done. Simplifying your work day and keeping your global team connected. One platform to connect. Zoom One. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Andre Retterath - Partner at Earlybird Capital, Lead of the EagleEye platform used for data driven sourcing and writing the popular newsletter Data-driven VC. With over 2 billion Euro under management, nine IPOs and 31 trade sales, Earlybird is one of the most established and active venture capital firms in Europe, having made investments in formidable companies like UiPath and N26 among others. Founded in 1997, Earlybird invests in all development and growth phases of technology companies and has grown to several autonomous, dedicated and specialized teams, focusing on different geographies and sectors. During this episode we discuss about his journey from analyst to partner, the change in the competitive landscape for VCs and the drive to become more data driven, how they use primary and secondary sources for data driven sourcing and the extreme focus that founders should have on sustainable defensibility. This is episode is brought to you by Zoom One, designed for however and wherever your team gets work done. Whether you need some focus time or want to collaborate with your hybrid team, Zoom One is the all-in-one platform designed to power your work day. Collaborate with your team and clients across phone, video, messaging, whiteboards, and even connect your favorite work apps – so you can focus on getting things done. Simplifying your work day and keeping your global team connected. One platform to connect. Zoom One. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Michel Elings is the founder of Vev. Michel, has a history of delivering successful products with over 100 million users and with Vev they plan to empower millions of freelancers and SMBs buy providing the basic tech tools they need so they can smoothly run their business. Prior to Vev he founded and sold his first startup, Prss, to Apple and moved to Cupertino to help build Apple News. After returning to the Netherlands a couple of years later, he joined Booking to launch CityBook before founding his current company, Vev. Recently they raised a Eur 5m seed round from Point Nine and Notion Capital. During this episode we discuss about the founding story of Prss, his experience in Cupertino and the process of building a product used by millions of people, and the mission with Vev. Enjoy! Brought by - ⁠Edda⁠, the most collaborative tool for VCs and Private Equity investors that allows you to see in real-time the true dimension of your investments and the value and impact they create. From investment decision processes, to managing due diligence, supporting portfolio companies, data sharing and transparency – Edda streamlines the investment journey and fund operation management in an easy-to-use platform. Head to ⁠edda.co⁠ and use the code VPEDDA for a demo. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Jakob Sons is the co-founder of Cansativa. Cansativa is building the largest cannabis platform in Europe and are offering the most desirable products and brands. Yummi! In 2022 they’ve raised a 15m dollar round from Snoopp Dogg's, Casa Verde VC firm and currently they have a 20m euro run rate. Well done guys! During this episode we discuss Jakobs transition from being a lawyer to founding a medical marijuana startup, his mindset of permanent improvement and the importance of deepwork and focus. Enjoy! Brought by - Edda, the most collaborative tool for VCs and Private Equity investors that allows you to see in real-time the true dimension of your investments and the value and impact they create. From investment decision processes, to managing due diligence, supporting portfolio companies, data sharing and transparency – Edda streamlines the investment journey and fund operation management in an easy-to-use platform. Head to edda.co and use the code VPEDDA for a demo. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ventureeurope/message

Our guest today is Andreas Helbig - Partner at Atomico. Atomico is the venture capital firm founded by the Niklas Zennstrom, one of the founders of Skype, and investing in disruptive technology companies from Series A onwards. They have an exceptional track record having previously invested in Supercell, Wolt, Sorare and Lilium just to name a few. During this episode we discuss about his journey as an investor from junior analyst at Project A to Partner at Atomico, what criteria they look for when investing and the exciting future of tech in Europe. Please enjoy this this wonderful conversation with Andreas Helbig, partner at Atomico. Brought by - Edda, the most collaborative tool for VCs and Private Equity investors that allows you to see in real-time the true dimension of your investments and the value and impact they create. From investment decision processes, to managing due diligence, supporting portfolio companies, data sharing and transparency – Edda streamlines the investment journey and fund operation management in an easy-to-use platform. Head to edda.co and use the code VPEDDA for a demo.

Our guest today is Kajetan von Armansperg, Co-CEO of Leapsome. Leapsome is an all-in-one platform for people enablement. They combine the tools for goals and OKRs management, performance reviews and 360s, and compensation and surveys among other features. More than 1500 companies including Spotify, Northvolt and Unity use Leapsome platform to build high-performing teams. After bootstrapping for 5 years, in 2022 they’ve raised a 60M dollar round from Insight Partners, Creandum and Visionaries Club. During this episode we discuss about the importance of staying frugal, their bootstrapping journey from 0 to 10M ARR and the decision process of skipping seed and later opening an office in NY. Many thanks to Sebastian Pollok for the intro. Sponsored by - Edda, the most collaborative tool for VCs and Private Equity investors that allows you to see in real-time the true dimension of your investments and the value and impact they create. From investment decision processes, to managing due diligence, supporting portfolio companies, data sharing and transparency – Edda streamlines the investment journey and fund operation management in an easy-to-use platform. Head to edda.co and use the code VPEDDA for a demo.

Nathan Benaich is a General Partner at Air Street capital a investment firm investing in AI startups. When asking around in the European ecosystem his name came across several times as a thought leader in the AI space. I highly recommend you read the State of AI report which he co-authors. It’s an in depth report of about 100 pages long across Research, Industry, Politics and Safety. Prior to founding Air Street Capital he was a scientist in residence at the investment firm PointNine for about 6 years. During this episode we discuss his motivation and insight to start Air Street Capital in 2019 and how there were few to none VCs focusing exclusively on AI first startups, we talk about the power of AI models to make predictions across data sets and the increasing gap between academia and industry labs. We also discuss why AI should be on top of the political agenda and what does an AI first startup look like. Enjoy! FYI: We are launching a private network and peer-support group for CEOs working in the AI space in Europe. We already signed up some well-known tech CEOs from the ecosystem. The first gathering starts in September. If interested, sign up ⁠here⁠. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro to Nathan (02:30) The key developments in AI in the last 12 months and the speed of development (05:45) The maturation cycle of advanced technology and crossing the chasm from labs to consumers (08:20) The only constraint to build software will be your creativity and not your capability to engineer (09:00) The background and founding story of Air Street Capital (13:45) How Transformer models work and their capability to learn and make predictions across domains (17:30) Can we replicate a human mind? (20:00) The gap between academia and industry labs and the interest by nation states to own the technology (25:00) What does an AI first startup look like and tying your predictions to ROI (28:00) What does a successful AI startup-team look like (31:15) The moment of pleasure as an investor (33:00) What was the driver for his success (34:00) Advice to his younger self Brought to you by: Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results. 

Alex MacCaw is the founder and CEO of Reflect app. The note-taking tool that allows you to take notes the same way you think — by associating notes through backlinks. Prior to Reflect he built and ran Clearbit a venture-backed 50M Eur annual recurring revenue B2B saas company. During this episode we discuss about his journey with Clearbit from hacking the first sales to using the SaaS sales playbook, the differences between building a B2B and a B2C company, and the power of a committed community. He is currently sailing around the world and this interview was made while he was docking in Grenada. Please enjoy this excellent conversation with Alex MacCaw founder and CEO of Reflect app. As mentioned during the episode we are launching a private network and peer support group for tech CEOs. We already signed up some well-known tech CEOs from the ecosystem. The first gathering starts in June. If interested, sign up here. Brought to you by: Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results.  Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG1 covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

David is the founder and CEO of The Production Board, a holding company that builds and invests in businesses that solve the most fundamental problems that affect our planet, by reimagining global systems of production; across food, agriculture, biomanufacturing, human health, and the broader life sciences. Prior to The Production Board, he was the founder and CEO of The Climate Corporation which he sold for $1.1B dollars to Monsanto. Spanning his career, he has contributed to 32 patents. On the fun side he is also the co-host of the All-in pod, the super popular podcast co-hosted together with David Sacks, Chamath Palihapatia, and Jason Calacanis where they talk all things science, markets, venture capital, and politics. Which I highly recommend you listen to. During this episode, we discuss the founding story of The Climate Corporation and the exit to Monsanto, why as an entrepreneur you should always be biased towards action, and his deep optimism and his mission of reimagining earth. Thanks a million to Jan Hammer from Index Ventures and Siraj Khaliq from Atomico for the input to this episode, very very much appreciated! Please enjoy this geeky conversation with the Sultan of Science, David Albert Friedberg. As mentioned during the episode we are launching a private network and peer support group for tech CEOs. We already signed up some well-known tech CEOs from the ecosystem. The first gathering starts in June. If interested, sign up here. Brought to you by: Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results.  Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG1 covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Lina Chong is a Partner at Target Global. Target Global is one of the leading European venture capital investors with more than 3bn EUR in AuM and offices across Berlin, London, Tel Aviv and Barcelona. They have backed more than 15 unicorns including household names such as Delivery Hero, Revolut, Wefox, Flink, TravelPerk and many others. Lina was named Partner at Target earlier this year after working her way up from Associate. An American transplant in Berlin, she leads Target's German operations and co-leads the fund's early stage strategy. She is also a two-time founder herself, having started two companies one in Southeast Asia, and the other based in Germany/US. One was later sold to Living Social. During this episode we discuss her move to Germany from the US, how they asses investment opportunities at Target global and the importance to surrounding yourself with people that you admire. Brought to you by: Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results.  Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG1 covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Koen Thijssen, founder and CEO of Insify. At Insify they modernize the insurance market for Europe’s small and medium companies. Prior to founding Insify, Koen was the founder and CFO of Bloomon, a subscription based flower business disrupting the 60B dollars flower industry, in 2021 Bloomon was acquired by Bloom & Wild. 12 months ago they’ve raised with Insify $17m round led by Accel with participation from Visionaries and Frontline to expand into more markets. During this episode we discuss about the Rocket Internet Mafia and why there are so many great entrepreneurs coming out it, Formula 1 of entrepreneurship is the way he described it, how he stumbled upon a huge market while insuring goods and people at Bloomon and his new set of criteria when starting a new business. A million thanks to Luca Bocchio from Accel and Robert Lacher from Visionaries for the input to this episode! Much appreciated! Brough to you by: Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results.  Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG1 covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Stef van Grieken is the co-founder and CEO of the biotech company Cradle. Based between Delft and Zurich, Cradle’s machine learning platform helps scientists to design and program ‘cell factories’ faster and more successfully, speeding up the development of a more environmentally friendly method of producing almost anything. They have recently raised a 6 million dollar seed round co-led by Index Ventures and Kindred Capital. Prior to Cradle, Stef spent 7 years with Google as a Senior product manager for Google AI known as Google Brain and Google X known for its moonshots projects. During this episode we discuss about the founding story of Cradle, how you can program cells to produce milk, plastic and petrol-free chemicals among other things, and why Europeans should change from being definite pessimists to definite optimists and be more entrepreneurial. Stef is one of those rare breeds of entrepreneurs with a high amount of raw intelligence paired with kindness. Thanks so much for the input on this episode to Leila from Kindred and Sofia from Index! Thanks a million! Enjoy! Brough to you by: Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results.  Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Our guest today is Eric Lagier - founding Partner at byFounders. byFounders is an early-stage venture fund backed by a collective of some of the most accomplished founders from the Nordics. After eight years in Silicon Valley, where he built an extensive network of investors and founders, Eric returned to Copenhagen to found byFounders and support the next generation of globally ambitious founders building a better tomorrow. ‍Eric has more than 20 years of operational experience in Silicon Valley and in Europe, was part of the early team at Skype and Tradeshift and he founded Memolane, which was acquired by HP. During this episode we discuss the journey to Silicon Valley with his startup Memolane, The importance of showing the ugly slide in a pitch deck and we talk about his tattoo, Muditā, meaning the pleasure that comes when seeing other people succeed. Please enjoy this wonderful conversation with Eric Lagier - founding Partner of ByFounders. This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Our guest today is Filip Dames - Founding Partner at Cherry Ventures. Cherry Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm led by a team of entrepreneurs with experience in building fast-scaling companies such as Zalando and Spotify. The firm backs Europe's boldest founders, usually as their first institutional investor. They have a great track record having previously invested in the seed stage of over 90 companies across Europe, including FlixBus, Auto1 Group, Infarm, Forto, SellerX, Juni, and Flink just to name a few. They are based in Berlin with offies in Stockholm and London. Before Cherry, Filip started his first startup company in 2008, a digital marketplace for art and collectibles (long before there were NFTs). He then joined Zalando (ZAL:GR) as member of the founding team and grew the business up to IPO. During this episode we discuss about his journey with Zalando, the founding story of Cherry Ventures and why making the first million is the hardest. Please enjoy this excellent conversation with Filip Dames, Founding Partner at Cherry Ventures. This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Our guest today is Sabina Wizander - Partner at Creandum. Creandum is a venture capital advisory firm with offices in Stockholm, San Francisco, London, and Berlin funding early stage entrepreneurs from a 450m euro fund. They have an exceptional track record having previously invested in Spotify, Klarna, Trade Republic, Kahoot! and Bolt just to name a few. Part of her tenure as an investor at Creandum, Sabina joined the healthcare startup KRY. After they invested in their seed round she joined the team and was part of the journey from 20 to 1000 employees and from 0 to 150m Eur yearly revenue. In 2016 she rejoined the investment firm as a partner. During this episode we discuss about her journey with Kry and how that changed her investor mentality to have more empathy towards the entrepreneurs, we discuss about the struggle of finding a balance when having a family but also a job that you love, and why she is excited about the energy industry. Please enjoy this wonderful, heartfelt, honest conversation with Sabina Wizander - Partner at Creandum. This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Julian Kley Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of AVI Medical. Avi Medical is a Munich-based health tech company that runs patient-centric, tech-enabled medical practices that provide a convenient, personalized, and holistic digital and physical patient experience. They recently raised a 50m Euros Series B, round led by Balderton with participation from Eurazeo, Heal Capital, and the UiPath founder and CEO Daniel Dines among others. During this episode, we discuss about his career path from pursuing medicine to becoming an entrepreneur, how to learn to trust your gut instinct, and the future of healthcare. Please enjoy this honest and wonderful conversation with Julian Kley, co-founder and COO of AVI Medical. This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

In the last 6 months I was trying to wrap my little head around the macro environment and the effects on the economy and to be honest on my pocket. I just didn't know how inflation, interest rate hikes, and debt cycles fit together to be able to create an investment thesis or at least protect my capital.  Our guest today will try to answer some of these questions so please welcome Alfonso Peccatiello Founder & CEO of The Macro Compass. The Macro Compass is an investment strategy firm whose mission is to democratize professional macro analysis, by giving access to tools and portfolio strategies. Before launching The Macro Compass, Alfonso was the Head of Investments for a $20 billion portfolio for ING Germany. During this episode, we discuss the current macro environment and how got here, what should be the strategies for consumers and investors to protect themselves during this period, and some economic predictions for 2023. Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Alfonso Peccatiello, founder and CEO of the Macro Compass This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Please meet Francesco Simoneschi - Co-Founder and CEO of TrueLayer. In a couple of short years Francesco and his co-Founder Luca, have built TrueLayer into one of the world's leading providers of financial APIs. Their mission is to grow the Open Banking economy by creating a truly global platform for companies to develop new financial services and products. In September 2021 they’ve raised a 130m dollar round led by Tiger Global and Stripe pushing the company to unicorn status. Previous investors count the likes of Northzone, Temasek, and Anthemis. During this episode, we discuss the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, open banking, and the challenge of managing a high-growth company that raised over $100m at the top of the market. A million thanks to Tony Jamous the founder and CEO of Oyster invested one of the first tickets in the company in 2017.  Enjoy! This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Happy New Year you lovely humans, I hope you had a relaxing holiday season together with your loved ones and you are ready to rock'n'roll 2023. Our guest today is Joel Nordström, co-founder and CEO of Atlar. At Atlar, they automate and streamline bank payments for companies. Prior to founding Atlar, Joel was employee #12 at Tink – the open banking pioneer acquired by Visa for $2.2 billion – where he also met his cofounders. They recently raised €5M Euros round led by Index Ventures and joined by La Famiglia, Cocoa, and some prominent angels like Revolut CFO Mikko Salovaara, former Executive Vice President of global sales at Adyen, Thijn Lamers, and N26 CFO Jan Kemper. During this episode we discuss how Joel hustled to get the job at Tink, how they ideated and tested ideas until reaching and settling for Atlar, and their product strategy for global domination. Enjoy! Sponsored by Affinity - the most powerful relationship intelligence platform enabling teams to leverage their network and close the next big deal. Used by Lightspeed, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital among others. Say you are a friend of the pod and get a discount ;)

DHH is the Creator of Ruby on Rails the popular web development framework used by companies like Twitter, Github, Shopify, AirBnb, Square, Twitch and Zendesk to name a few. He is also a co-owner and the CTO of 37signals the company responsible for developing Basecamp and Hey email service. David has many talents, besides being a top programmer, he is a bestselling author and a Le Mans class-winning racing driver. During this episode, we discuss his anti-VC philosophy, why Ruby on Rails became so popular, and his learnings from building a bootstrapped company and working remotely for the last 20 years.

Kerry Murphy is the founder and CEO of The Fabricant. The Fabricant is a digital fashion house that operates at the intersection of technology and fashion. They use technology to create seductive fashion narratives unconstrained by the boundaries of the physical realm. They recently raised a 14 million dollar Series A round led by Greenfield One with participation from Ashton Kutcher and other strategic angels. During this episode, we discuss the importance of fashion in our identity, the components of a story, and the vision of The Fabricant in the future of the Metaverse.

Sebastian Pollok is a founding Partner of Visionaries Club. Visionaries Club is a Berlin-based early stage VC fund, backed by leading European digital founders and family business entrepreneurs. They recently raised 400 million Euros of fresh capital across 3 funds. A seed fund, a growth fund, and a science-driven focused fund. They have an excellent track record, having previously invested in Personio, Miro, Choco, Xentral, TrueLayer, Pigment, just to name a few, and they invested alongside top-tier VCs such as Sequoia, Accel, Index, Lightspeed and Bessemer. Previously, Sebastian was the co-founder and co-CEO of AMORELIE, which he exited to ProSiebenSat.1 Media in 2018. During this episode, we discuss why Europe has to wake up to compete in the global arena, how he asses founders, and why it’s all about the people. Please enjoy this excellent conversation with Sebastian Pollok founding Partner at Visionaries Club.

Julien Codorniu is a partner and investor at Felix Capital, the 600m Euro fund investing in brands and related enabling technologies.  At Felix he focuses on SaaS (Worktech in particular) and gaming investments. Before joining Felix, Julien spent 11 years at Facebook, where he led the global platform partnerships team, helping Facebook partners build, grow and monetize their mobile apps and games. Also he has been serving as Vice President of Facebook Workplace. Under his leadership, Workplace went from 0 to 10 million paid subscribers at companies like Walmart, Nestlé, McDonald's, Chevron, Astrazeneca, Spotify and many others. His angel portfolio include fantastic companies like TripleDot Studios, BeReal, Linktree, Bloom & Wild, Pigment, Xentral, and Bits, among others. He grew up in France, and he loves croissants. Now he lives in London with his wife and their two boys. During this episode, we discuss the crazy growth journey that he experienced with Facebook from 500m users to the IPO, how the best investments he made took 2 seconds to decide and why sometimes you should go slow and don’t break things.

Michel Traore - the co-founder and CEO of anotherblock, a Web3 platform democratizing music ownership through NFTs. Anotherblock connects music rights to NFTs, and creates a smooth and easy way to both buy and sell music rights. With his cofounders, Michel plans to introduce music to a free and open market, increasing its value and solving the imbalance of power within the industry. Before Anotherblock he spent several years at Schibsted, and in the European startup scene, building fintech products from scratch. Growing up between the pop-wonder of Sweden and Burkina Faso, where his father created its first modern label - Music has been a big part of his life. In 2021, Michel combined his fintech expertise and love of music to found Anotherblock. During this episode, we discuss web3, NFTs, how they are fractionalizing music, and how the holders will earn royalties. Also, we discuss their latest drop coming October 20 for the song - Alone part II by Alan Walker and Eva Max - a song that has 400m streams only on Spotify today. Without further ado, please enjoy this wonderful conversation with Michel Traore, co-founder and CEO of Anotherblock.

My guest today is Timmu Tõke - the founder and CEO of Ready Player Me. Ready Player Me is a cross-game avatar platform for the metaverse and more than 4,000 companies use their avatars in their products. They recently announced their series B of 56 million dollars led by a16z with participation from some iconic names like Roblox co-founder David Baszucki, King Games co-founders Sebastian Knutsson and Riccardo Zacconi, and Twitch cofounder - Justin Kan among many others. Before building Ready Player Me the young team spent many years building avatar tech for enterprise customers like Tencent, HTC, Vodafone, Wargaming, H&M, and Huawei. During this episode, we discuss about grit and persistence, why you should Play to win, and the importance of knowing your strengths. Please enjoy this excellent conversation with Timmu Tõke - co-founder and CEO of Ready Player Me.

Daniel Bakh and Dorin Tarau are the founders of Fullview, a customer support suite that lets you instantly monitor, control, and analyze user sessions for faster real-time customer support. The guys founded Fullview in 2021 and in record time they’ve raised 10 million Euros in just 10 months from top investors like Cherry, Seedcamp, and later on from Lightspeed. During this episode we discuss about how to build momentum and create urgency when fundraising, how to hire player-coaches and how Anoushka from Lightspeed convinced the team to choose Lightspeed instead of another VC on a higher valuation. Big thank you to Max from Cherry and Anoushka from Lightspeed for the input in the preparation for this episode. Enjoy!

Xavier Collins is currently a Vice President of Turo, the American unicorn, facilitating car sharing. At Turo, he’s responsible for launching and building the UK business as well as leading their international expansion. Prior to Turo, he held roles at Deliveroo and Uber and most recently founded one of the UK’s largest angel investment syndicates. During this episode, we discuss why he left a secure career in law to join Uber, why you usually get what you measure and how he finally became a singer and a songwriter with an album published on Spotify. Enjoy!

Tony Jamous is the founder and CEO of Oyster - a distributed HR platform that empowers companies to hire, pay, and care for talented teammates regardless of location. Tony founded Oyster In January 2020 and since then they’ve raised around 220 million dollars, grew the team to approximately 600 FTE, and have reached unicorn status. Prior to Oyster Tony founded Nexmo, a pioneer in the Communications Platform as a Service (“CPaaS”) category - the company went public via a merger with Vonage in 2016. After a successful Nexmo exit, Tony took some time off to consider what to do next. He began to invest in “platform models that can change the world”, Tony’s investments include Hopin, Hyperloop, Graphcore, and DialPad. During this episode we discuss about the challenges and learnings of starting, scaling, and exiting Nexmo, why removing the barriers of global recruiting is important and the mission of Oyster, and how he hired the executive team at Oyster to increase the chances of success. Enjoy!

Judith Dada is a General Partner at La Famiglia. La Famiglia is a European seed stage venture capital fund investing in B2B technology companies that enable or disrupt large industries. At La Famiglia, Judith focuses on the future of work, as well as data and ML-driven business models and she has invested in companies like Personio, Graphy, y42, tagr, and uncut among others. La Famiglia is backed by a selection of world-leading entrepreneurs from various industries that provide precious early market access, impactful partnerships, and deep expertise for La Famiglias’ portfolio companies. During this episode we discuss the questions La Famiglia asks themselves to crystallize their mission, we discuss gut instinct, and talent vs hard work. I had soo much fun talking with Judith and I am sure you will too.

Anthony Danon is a co-founder and general partner at Cocoa, the angel fund 100% backed by founders. Anthony has spent the last 7+ years as an early-stage VC focused on investing in what he calls "fintech is everything". He started his career as an operator in fintech, building credit risk models for an invoice financing company. As an investor, Anthony has been lucky to partner with companies such as TrueLayer, Primer, Wayflyer, and Ramp Network, to name a few. Prior to Cocoa he was a Partner at Speedinvest leading their Seed fintech strategy across Europe and an investor at Anthemis Group before that. All that, after a failed career as a graffiti artist and an attempt at becoming a professional soccer player. During this episode, we discuss how Anthony become a partner in a relatively short time, the key elements that make a good investor, and the positioning and mission of Cocoa.

Before joining Index, Nina was a Financial planning and analysis Lead for Google’s AdSense team where she managed a multi-billion dollar book of business covering Amazon, Ebay, and IAC. Nina started her career as a high yield bond trader at Citigroup and She also started HIVE Ventures, the first seed venture fund focusing on Armenian entrepreneurs, where she invested in over 30 companies. At Index, Nina focuses on venture and growth investments in enterprise SaaS, vertical SaaS, and AI. She is excited by the combination of software and payments to help legacy industries transition from using pen and paper workflows to adopting more modern, vertical-specific solutions. Nina works with transformational companies like ServiceTitan, Shopmonkey, Gong, and DeepScribe. During this episode we discuss about vertical Saas, VC career advice and how to separate a great a pitch from a great founder. Please enjoy this excellent conversion with Nina Achadjian Partner at Index.

My guest today is Ulric Musset the founder of Vauban. Vauban is a venture capital platform that makes it easy for investors & VCs to launch their funds, SPVs and syndicates. Over $1bn has been invested via Vauban's platform since its launch. Ulric is an angel investor as well as an entrepreneur with a keen passion for supporting the venture capital ecosystem. During this episode, we discuss what led Ulric to become an entrepreneur, the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, and Vauban's mission. Let's go and talk with Ulric.

My guest today is Andrei Brasoveanu Partner at Accel. He joined the fund in 2014 and works with the team on Web3/crypto, enterprise software,  developer-oriented software, open-source, security, and financial services. Andrei has led Accel’s investment in Sky Mavis, Sorare and Nansen among others and he has also worked closely with Celonis, Instana, Monzo, Personio and UiPath. Prior to Accel, Andrei spent a decade in the US working for some of the largest equity high-frequency trading firms in the country. Andrei is originally Romania. He graduated summa cum laude in Mathematics from Princeton and an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School. Let's go and talk to him! 

My guest today is Hannah Seal - Partner at Index Ventures. Before joining Index, Hannah managed the consumer marketplace business for Ebay in the UK, and set up the General Merchandise business for Ocado. At Index, Hannah is passionate about helping visionary entrepreneurs from day one, and supporting them as their companies scale and grow. She is particularly energised by founders who have an unfair advantage in tackling daunting problems in technical or challenging markets. Her investments for Index include Remote, a platform to enable distributed working; Multiverse, the company bringing apprenticeships into the digital age; Fonoa, the automated tax platform; and Beauty Pie, the online cosmetics and beauty subscription service. During this episode, we discuss her first day at Index, how she assesses founders for grit and perseverance, and the future of work. Please enjoy this excellent conversion with Hannah Seal Partner at Index.

My guest today is Henrik Landgren co-founder and CPTO of ArK Kapital a precision financing company that empowers technology businesses to grow faster with non-dilutive capital. They recently closed a 165M Euro seed round of Equity and Debt capital - round led by LocalGlobe with participation from Creandum and some prominent angels including Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen, Zettle by PayPal founder Jacob de Geer, Embark Studios founder Patrick Söderlund, King founder Sebastian Knutsson, and EQT Ventures founding partner Hjalmar Winbladh Prior to ArK, Henrik was a partner at EQT Ventures - the Swedish venture capital fund that announced its first 566m Euro fund in 2016. At EQT Ventures Henrik was also leading EQT’s Motherbrain division. Motherbrain is the data platform that supports EQT to be truly data-driven in finding and assessing the best tech start-ups to invest in. Before EQT, Henrik worked as the VP of analytics at Spotify during 2010-2016 when Spotify was one of the highest-growing scale-up in Europe. He is the mastermind behind Spotify’s award-winning Analytics team building it from the ground up and contributing to many major strategic initiatives to build the world’s largest music subscription business. In the words of Ted Persson from EQT - Henrik has made “analytics” his trademarks, from Spotify to EQT Ventures and now ArK. During this episode we discussed about data-driven decision making and the DIBBs framework, how to build a data-driven culture and why Henrik is called the 9-minutes man. Without further ado, please enjoy this excellent conversion with Henrik Landgren co-founder and CPTO of Ark Kapital!

My guest today is Eléonore Crespo co-founder and co-CEO of Pigment, the business planning platform (gopigment.com). Prior to Pigment, Eléonore was an investor at Index Ventures, working side-by-side with entrepreneurs and spearheading investments in Alan, Spendesk, Swile and Slite. Before Index she worked as a senior analyst at Google, reporting directly to the EMEA president and CFO on matters of strategy and planning. During this episode we discussed about how she managed to raise 73M dollars 1 month after giving birth to twins, why as a founder you should always be hiring and the importance of calibrating of what great talent looks like for certain positions. Please enjoy this excellent conversion with Eleonore Crespo co-founder and co-CEO of Pigment!

Sebastian Mallaby is an English journalist, author and a Paul A. Volcker senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations and contributing columnist at The Washington Post. Formerly, he was a contributing editor for the Financial Times He has written many well known books as  The Man Who Knew, More Money Than God, The World's Banker and the one that we will focus on in this episode: The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future. In writing The power law Sebastian had unprecedented access to the most celebrated venture capitalists of all time like Sequoia, Accel, Benchmark, Andreessen Horowitz, as well as Chinese partnerships such as Qiming and Capital Today. Main takeaways: 💃 The best VC funds in the world engineer frameworks to consider the effects of the power law in their assessment process. 🤺 Europe is the new exciting frontier for Venture Capital. 👁️ The long lasting VCs implement support (emotional as well) for the junior VCs to become successful. ❤️ This was an excellent conversion on the birth, timeline and present of Venture Capital and the law powering it! Please enjoy this excellent conversion with Sebastian!

High-conviction investing - with Ophelia Brown, co-founder and partner at Blossom Capital. Blossom Capital was founded only 4 years ago, and recently raised their third fund of around 380M Euros and became one of the largest Series A investors in Europe having invested in the likes of Checkout (est. val. $40B), Moonpay (est. val. $3.4B) and Pigment (est. val. $500M). Blossom's mission is to supercharge the most visionary founders in Europe, enabling them to build companies which compete on a global scale. Previously she was a General Partner at LocalGlobe, where she invested in a number of exciting companies including Echo, Tessian and Zego and before that with Index Ventures where she led investments in Big Health, Call9, MarvelApp, Osper and Typeform and worked closely with Credit Benchmark, Peoplevox and Robinhood. During this episode we discuss about her first job in VC, the best and worst advice she has received and the characteristics of world class founders. Please enjoy this excellent conversion with Ophelia!

My guest today is Roland Manger - co-founder and Partner at Earlybird. With over 1.5 billion EUR under management, eight IPOs and 30 trade sales, Earlybird is one of the most established and active venture capital firms in Europe, having made investments in formidable companies like UiPath, N26 and Forto among others. Founded in 1997, Earlybird invests in all development and growth phases of technology companies and has grown to several autonomous, dedicated and specialized teams, focusing on different geographies and sectors. During this episode we discuss about the inception of Earlybird, the importance of balance between cohesion and autonomy in an investment team, and how the assessment of startups has changed over the last 20 years. Please enjoy this excellent discussion with Roland. 

Kyle Samani - Managing Partner at Multicoin Capital. Multicoin Capital is a thesis-driven investment firm that invests in cryptocurrencies, tokens, and blockchain companies reshaping trillion-dollar markets. They manage several billion in assets across hedge funds and venture funds. Since founding the firm in May 2017, they've developed a reputation for being forward-leaning, independent thinkers. They are known for pioneering token economic models, valuation methodologies, and challenging long-standing assumptions that the crypto ecosystem takes for granted. During this episode we discuss how and when Kyle got involved in the crypto space, the mental models they are using when assessing an investment and the first meeting and investment in Solana and Helium.

Mathias is a Berlin-based General Partner at Speedinvest, managing the fund's Marketplaces & Consumer team that focuses on all things network effects and consumer tech. Mathias has been building and investing in marketplace and platform businesses for over 13 years being previously part of Mountain Partners and Point Nine Capital. Over the years, he invested into over 80 startups in the space. At Speedinvest, Mathias led investments in companies such as TIER Mobility, Schüttfix, Planetly, Byrd and CoachHub among other. Since 2017, the Marketplaces & Consumer team is investing over €100M into early stage marketplaces and platforms and has made over 35 investments since. Mathias shares some great lessons throughout the episode that any entrepreneur that wants to build a marketplace can learn from, please enjoy this great conversation with Mathias Okenfels - General Partner at SpeedInvest. Mathias is organising the Marketplace Conference (Nov 16-17 2021) with speakers like: Andrew Chen, General Partner of A16z, Talia Goldberg, Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners, Elmar Broscheit of Gorrilas and he was kind enough to give us a 20% discount (see link). The attendees will get a free copy of Andrew Chen's book - The Coldstart Problem.

Paul Murphy is a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners focused on early stage investments in technology companies in Europe. Previous to Lightspeed he was a general partner at Northzone where he led the investments in Hopin, Tier Mobility and Flink among others. He was also part of Betaworks. The creative group responsible, among others, for creating Giphy - the platform for animated Giphs, acquired by Facebook, Bitly - the link shortener and Dots - the beloved mobile game inspired Yayoi Kusama. During this episode we discuss his experience of building Dots at Betaworks and how they got their first 1000 users, the first meeting, following with an investment in Johnny from Hopin, and the key traits of the entrepreneurs that he likes to work with. Paul shares some great lessons throughout the episode that any entrepreneur that wants to build products that users love can learn from, please enjoy this great conversation with Paul Murphy - Partner at Lightspeed.

Matt is a partner at Sequoia focused on early and growth stage investments in technology companies. A self-proclaimed nerd from an early age, Matt started building computers and writing code at 12 years old in his mother’s kitchen. He has worked as an entrepreneur, an advisor and now an investor. At Sequoia, Matt has worked closely with companies like Carbon Black, Confluent, Graphcore, Tecton and Tessian among others. Prior to Sequoia, Matt worked at Goldman Sachs working with top technology companies like Microsoft and Salesforce where he also put together a report for Steve Jobs. In his spare time, Matt is wrangling three young kids with his wife and looking for people with whom he can practice his Swedish. During this episode we dive into Sequoia's move to Europe, Matt's journey to the investor that he is today and how they challenge their portfolio companies to be world-class. Matt shares some great lessons throughout the episode that any entrepreneur and investor can learn from, please enjoy this great conversation with Matt Miller - Partner at Sequoia.

Karl Munthe-Kaas is the Co-founder and CEO of Oda, Norway´s largest online grocery store. Oda was founded in 2013 by a group of ten friends, combining skills in software development with traditional Lean operations. They have used the Lean Startup philosophy extensively, both in the overall startup strategy, as well as in their daily experiments. Oda was valued at 1B Euro in 2021 after raising 265M Euro from Kinnevik, Prosus, and SoftBank to expand to Finland and Germany. Oda has a fully integrated warehouse and distribution system, resting on proprietary technology and operational processes. This has enabled them to compete profitably with discount supermarkets, while offering the convenience and time-saving of online retail and maintaining a distinctly Nordic approach to ensuring sustainability. During this episode we dive into the market opportunity in Europe and the online grocery value chain, the key learnings and tactics for implementing operational excellence in the organisation and Odas' secret sauce for winning against competition. Karl shares some great lessons throughout the episode that any entrepreneur can learn from.

If you are building user centric products you are going to LOVE this episode. In this episode we discuss about Johans' most successful venture to date, Kahoot! A bit about Johan. He is a creative technology entrepreneur based in Oslo, Norway. As a Founding Partner at We Are Human in London he creates purpose driven organisations striving for sustainable social and commercial impact. We Are Human’s most successful venture to date is Kahoot!, one of the world’s fastest growing learning brands with over 70 million unique monthly active users in 200+ countries. Under his leadership, Kahoot! grew from a research project to a company that captured more than half of US K-12 classrooms, as well as millions of business and social users. Kahoot! is currently valued at €6B Euros (according to Dealroom), and it is one of the biggest learning companies in the world. Johan remains a strategic advisor to the company.

Jacqueline van den Ende is the founder and CEO of Carbon Equity. Jacqueline went full circle in her hero journey starting by co-founding the first non-profit student run strategy consultancy in 2008 - De Kleine Consultant, still going strong today, then moving into private equity working as an associate for HAL investments (~€ 12.7bn net asset value) to then change gears and move to Manila, Philipines and be the CEO of Lamudi - a rocket internet company - growing a team from 2 interns to 100 FTE - just to realise that she wanted to be part of a more mission driven organisation and come back to the Netherlands. After being a partner at the VC firm Peak Capital she decided that she still has some entrepreneurial energy and decided to found Carbon equity - the first alternative climate investment platform - with the mission of bringing billions into climate funds based on their emission reduction potential. During this episode we discuss about a variety of topics ranging from building a high performing team to dealing with the impostor syndrome and where to hide your computer password.  This was an incredibly honest conversation on team building that any entrepreneur can learn from. Please enjoy my conversation with Jacqueline van den Ende.

Patrick Meutzner - one of the co-founders of Trengo. Trengo is a platform that offers one inbox for all customer contact channels from Social messaging, Chat, Email, Voice to SMS and they've been growing like crazy during the last year, growing from 12 people to 50 during a global pandemic and tripled the MRR in the last 12 months having clients across 60 countries. By all accounts this a very successful startup that is being chased by top European and International VCs but the story today is not about their success. The story in this episode is about what you usually don't see in the media. It Is about the struggles that entrepreneurs have and the challenges that come with high-growth. In this episode Patrick opens up and shares with us the struggles that come with being a founder, mental health issues and implementing a company wide policy for people in the team that struggle with the current environment.

Saul Klein is currently a General Partner at LocalGlobe - a seed VC based in the UK and GP at Lattitude - a series B focused VC fund meant to fill in the gap in the European VC ecosystem which you will learn more about during our conversation. Previously, Saul was a General Partner at Index Ventures a role that he held for 8 years In 2012 David Cameron appointed Saul to be the UK's first tech envoy to Israel and a Technology Business Ambassador. Saul is a serial entrepreneur with two decades of experience building and exiting companies in the US, Israel and Europe. He has a passion for working with seed and early stage businesses. Most recently Saul co-founded Platoon, Zinc, Kano and Seedcamp, as well as being co-founder and original CEO of Lovefilm International (acquired by Amazon) and He was also part of the original executive team at Skype (acquired by eBay).