VC | E355 | Christian Dorffer, Defiance Capital on The Unicorn Founders DNA Report

In this episode of the EUVC podcast, Andreas talks with Christian Dorffer, Founder and General Partner of Defiance Capital, about The Unicorn Founders DNA report that Christian and his team recently published.

Defiance Capital is a €25M fund based in London focused on investments at the pre-seed stage. They invest in sectors like enterprise AI for companies based in Europe and the US. 

The report reveals that a significant number of unicorn founders are immigrants and women, challenging the traditional criteria used by venture capitalists to evaluate founders. The conversation also discusses the challenges faced by underrepresented founders in raising capital and the need for a more sophisticated approach to identifying and backing non-obvious founders.

Go to eu.vc for our core learnings and the full video interview 👀

Chapters:

• 02:41 Deep Dive into the Unicorn Founders DNA Report
• 03:08 Christian's Background and Investment Philosophy
• 06:07 Core Findings of the DNA Report
• 06:50 European vs. US Unicorn Founders
• 09:09 Challenges Faced by Female Founders
• 13:38 VCs' Approach to Diverse Teams
• 15:45 Christian's Investment Strategy
• 17:02 Opportunities for Non-Obvious Founders
• 23:11 Defiant Capital's Operational Model
• 26:38 Christian Dorfer's Personal Journey
• 39:53 Advice for Young Entrepreneurs and VCs
• 48:17 Closing Remarks and Final Thoughts