Venture Europe
Calin Fabri
Subscribe
personal conversations with the entrepreneurs and investors reshaping Europe
Available episodes
Newest first
Oldest first
May 23, 2023
Nathan Benaich - The State of AI, Transformer models across data sets, What does an AI startup look like, Obama's cloned voice, AI as the magic editing wand, The AI brain drain
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.
playlist_add
May 11, 2023
Alex MacCaw - From 50M ARR B2B SaaS to 20k MRR B2C, Hacking the first sales, The beauty of mom-and-pop tech shops, Stepping down as a CEO, Relationship with money
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.
playlist_add
May 1, 2023
David Friedberg - The founding story of The Climate Corporation and the exit to Monsanto for $1.1B, High bias to action, The Production Board and reimagining earth, The coming era of abundance
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.
playlist_add
Apr 20, 2023
Lina Chong - Leaving U.S. for Europe, Berlin calling, Studying philosophy, Surrounding yourself with excellent people, Assessing startups, Overcoming challenging periods
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.
playlist_add
Apr 14, 2023
Koen Thijssen - Raising $16M Series A, Rocket Internet Mafia, Going from 0 to 1 in the insurance industry, Stick to the plan regardless of market volatility, Why you hardly overpay for the best people
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 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.
playlist_add
Mar 27, 2023
Stef van Grieken - Moonshots projects at Google, Assessing the risk of starting a start-up, Falling in love with biology, Why we need more definite optimists Europeans
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.
playlist_add
Mar 10, 2023
Eric Lagier - Founding byFounders and the Nordic pledge to pay it forward, The journey to San Francisco and the exit with Memolane, and Erics' tattoo - Muditā - the pleasure in seeing others succeed
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.
playlist_add
Feb 24, 2023
Filip Dames - Founding Cherry Ventures, Learnings from startup to IPO with Zalando, Making the first million and the importance of doing More of what you love
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.
playlist_add
Feb 17, 2023
Sabina Wizander - The journey from 20-1000 employees and from 0-150M EUR with the healthcare startup KRY, The pursuit of work life balance, and The excitement for the Energy market
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.
playlist_add
Feb 7, 2023
Julian Kley - From preparing to become a heart surgeon to COO, Learning to trust your intuition, The importance of continuous and instant feedback, Founding AVI Medical, The future of Healthcare
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.
playlist_add
Jan 31, 2023
Alfonso Peccatiello - The effect of high interest rates on the economy, The probability of a recession, Europe position in the changing world order, Strategies to protect capital
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…
playlist_add
Jan 24, 2023
Francesco Simoneschi - Raising $130m at the top of the market, The banking API revolution, The opportunity in payments, Founding TrueLayer, Learning to unplug
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, an…
playlist_add
Jan 10, 2023
Joel Nordström - Raising €5M Seed in a frozen market for Atlar, The journey with Tink from employee #12 to the sell to Visa for $2.2B, and hustling your way and get your dream job while at uni
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 the…
playlist_add
Nov 21, 2022
David Heinemeier Hansson - Learnings from working remote for the last 20 years, Creating Ruby on Rails, Bootstrapping, Define success, Startups
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.
playlist_add
Nov 10, 2022
Kerry Murphy - The marketsize for digital fashion, how fashion is part of our identity and the future of the Metaverse despite market turmoil
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.
playlist_add
Nov 3, 2022
Sebastian Pollok - Why Europe needs to wake up, why it's all about the people and their fresh Eur 400m across 3 funds to support B2B SaaS early and growth and science-driven moonshots
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.
playlist_add
Oct 27, 2022
Julien Codorniou - The journey with FB (Meta) from 500m users to IPO, assessing teams and angel investing and the consumerization of IT
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…
playlist_add
Oct 13, 2022
Michel D. Traore - The clear case for NFTs in the $30B music streaming market
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 t…
playlist_add
Sep 30, 2022
Timmu Tõke - Raising from a16z, finding product market fit and building for the metaverse
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.
playlist_add
Sep 6, 2022
Daniel & Dorin - How to raise Eur 10M in 10 months
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!
playlist_add
Aug 31, 2022
Xavier Collins - You get what you measure
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!
playlist_add
Aug 14, 2022
Tony Jamous - How to hire a high performing team
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 chanc…
playlist_add
Jul 28, 2022
Judith Dada - Defining your mission. For Whom and For What?
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.
playlist_add
Jul 14, 2022
Anthony Danon - FinTech is eating the world
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.
playlist_add
Jun 30, 2022
Nina Achadjian - Vertical SaaS
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.
playlist_add
Jun 13, 2022
Ulric Musset - Liberation Capital
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.
playlist_add
May 31, 2022
Andrei Brasoveanu - Prepared mind
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!
playlist_add
May 8, 2022
Hannah Seal - Future of Work
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.
playlist_add
Apr 24, 2022
Henrik Landgren - How to implement a data-driven culture
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-g…
playlist_add
Apr 7, 2022
Eléonore Crespo - Doer till the IPO
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!
playlist_add
Mar 20, 2022
Sebastian Mallaby - The Power Law
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 ju…
playlist_add
Feb 10, 2022
Ophelia Brown - High-conviction investing
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…
playlist_add
Jan 12, 2022
Roland Manger - Cohesion and autonomy
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.
playlist_add
Dec 7, 2021
Kyle Samani - Decentralised
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.
playlist_add
Nov 14, 2021
Mathias Ockenfels - Network effects
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…
playlist_add
Oct 24, 2021
Paul Murphy - Fuck it, ship it!
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.
playlist_add
Sep 28, 2021
Matt Miller - In pursuit of 'world-class'
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 fro…
playlist_add
Aug 22, 2021
Karl Munthe-Kaas - Happy, but never satisfied
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 organisat…
playlist_add
Jun 16, 2021
Johan Brand - Building Kahoot!
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.
playlist_add
May 24, 2021
Jacqueline van den Ende - It is not the critic who counts; but the "entrepreneur" who is actually in the arena
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 buildin…
playlist_add
Apr 1, 2021
Patrick Meutzner - High-growth and mental health
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.
playlist_add
Apr 1, 2021
Saul Klein - The changes in the landscape since 1995 in the VC ecosystem in Europe and the requirement of practical science fiction when they invest in teams at seed stage
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).
playlist_add