Venture Europe: Entrepreneurship | Technology | Venture Capital

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 have a 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 Francesco 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 by 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