For our final episode of VBSR this season, Sara phones a friend. Accel’s Zhenya Loginov joins from London to talk about what defines the 2025 IPO, common PLG-to-enterprise pitfalls, and why today’s European founders look different. Plus: Zhenya’s startup green flags.
This Week’s Takeaways
IPOs are back. But they’ve changed. Not long ago, companies were going public before becoming profitable. After years of belt-tightening, 2025’s IPOs are disciplined companies with solid fundamentals, higher revenue, and durable growth trajectories.
Don’t underestimate the PLG-to-enterprise transition. Zhenya calls it “Enterprise University,” since it often takes four years to execute well. His advice: start early, be ready for a steep learning curve, and don’t forget that user love will power new customer acquisition—so keep investing in product, too.
The Euro founder flywheel is spinning. Healthy investment, a generation of unicorns, and a pandemic and AI boom that shifted the talent center of gravity have come together to reshape Europe’s startup ecosystem. Today’s founders began their careers at early-stage startups that went on to become industry-defining companies. They know how to build and understand what “good” looks like.
Conversation Highlights
2:25 - The 2025 IPO
7:02 - Zhenya’s founder green flags
8:22 - The PLG-to-enterprise tightrope
12:40 - “A leader in the global market”: today’s European startups
16:46 - What makes the European buyer different?
19:08 - The new European founder
For more on the European founder flywheel, read our Founder Factory report.
Zhenya Loginov
Zhenya joined Accel in 2023 and has a particular interest in cloud/SaaS, enterprise, and developer tooling businesses. Prior to Accel, he held roles in multiple Accel-backed companies. He ran the go-to-market teams at Miro and Segment (acquired by Twilio) as CRO and COO, respectively. Earlier in his career, Zhenya led teams at Dropbox across a number of different functional areas. He graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University and Harvard.
