Davor Hebel, Managing Partner at Eight Roads on the European entrepreneurial renaissance | E294

Today, we have Davor Hebel with us. Davor is the Managing Partner at Eight Roads, a $11bn global venture platform. The firm has over 450 portfolio companies, including 60 IPOs and many unicorns, such as Alibaba, Toast, Flywire, Chewy, Hibob, Neo4j, and Fever. Eight Roads invests in companies at scale-up stages (usually rounds A-C) and helps them win globally.

Davor runs the Europe and Israel franchise with around 45 companies and $1.5bn AUM. Davor’s investments count leaders across SaaS, consumer, digital health, and fintech sectors, including Hibob, Appsflyer, Fever, Fireblocks, Owkin, Wallapop, ScyllaDB, Red Points, Packlink (sold to Auctane), Rimilia (Blackline), Innogames (MTG), and Treatwell (Recruit).

Davor was born in Croatia and studied in the US. Davor is also passionate about sports, and he still tries to find time for some rowing, tennis, and Barry’s Bootcamp 🙂 whilst raising his 3 kids (11, 9, and 6).

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

Chapters:

01:03 Davor's Journey: From in Venture Capital
03:50 The Role of a VC: Beyond Investment
04:12 Empathy and Support: The VC Approach to Entrepreneurship
06:05 Balancing Business and Personal Life in Entrepreneurship
06:53 The Evolution of a Founder's Role
11:22 The Future of Technology: AI's Impact
14:42 AI in Venture Capital: A Tool for Success
17:00 The European Entrepreneurial Landscape: From Ice Age to Innovation
19:45 The Growth and Potential of European Startups
22:27 US Investor Participation in Europe
24:06 Navigating the VC Landscape in a Changing Europe
30:20 Davor's Top Learnings from a Decade in Venture Capital