Should You Raise Right Now? Should Govts Buy Stocks? Should NVIDIA Have Bought Nokia?

The pod that unpacks the real news behind the clickbait affecting European venture.

Hosts: Dan, Mads, Lomax, Andrew

02:41 — Bending Spoons deep dive
Debt-fuelled roll-up, “Berkshire of consumer apps” analogy; Ukrainian peer Gentek noted; why more post-COVID roll-ups didn’t materialise.

04:34 — US debt vs Europe risk
Market’s view on capital allocation/dynamism; Decacorns vs unicorns; power-law returns reinforce Botha’s point.

06:01 — “VC isn’t an asset class” debate
Power-law concentration, PR angle, and incentives; media takeaways.

07:31 — Euro VC vibes
Lakestar & optics; ecosystem still 5× over decade despite headlines.

08:30 — Feature: Should governments buy stocks?
Khosla’s 10% stake in all public companies to offset AI/AGI shocks:

• Pros: Alignment with growth; potential UBI funding; sovereign-wealth-style upside.
• Cons: Partial nationalisation optics, execution complexity, tying state finances tighter to market swings.
• Middle paths: SWF/index recycling of taxes; robot/compute taxation; focus on efficient government vs expropriation.

17:45 — Back-of-envelope math
US equities ~$60T → 10% ≈ $6T; even 10% yield wouldn’t cover current US interest bill; cautions on bull-market assumptions.

19:03 — UK Budget preview (26 Nov)
Backdrop: softer productivity, fiscal squeeze.

• Likely: CGT/inheritance tweaks, mansion tax; maybe EMI/startup relief refinements.
• Founder advice: avoid doom loop—head down and build; some may move to US, less so Dubai.

22:25 — Should founders raise now (pre-correction)?

• Consensus: If you can raise on decent terms, extend runway; always-be-raising (selectively).
• Don’t panic or over-dilute; keep shipping.
• If no PMF, fix product/positioning before chasing capital.

29:02 — AI Corner

• NVIDIA at $5T: Hyperscalers’ capex still ramping; huge backlog; dominance but margins likely compress with competition/custom silicon.
• Nokia stake: Smart edge/5G–6G positioning; GPUs closer to towers for network optimisation & edge AI.
• OpenAI recap: For-profit structure finalised; Microsoft looks like the clearest public proxy (exclusivities, licenses).
• Meta’s mixed moment & layoffs framed more as performance-management cycles than AI doom.

42:58 — Deals of the Week

• Sales Patriot (Warsaw): €4.2m to modernise defence procurement; aim to be system of record.
• Legora (legal AI, Stockholm): $150m at $1.8B, ~5 months after Series B.
• Robin AI: Sale process after $70m raised—cautionary tale on GTM/scale.
• Bending Spoons ↔ AOL/Vimeo: More roll-up momentum.
• Synthesia: $200m at $4B; reportedly turned down a $3B Adobe offer—go-for-growth stance.

45:50 — UK quantum spotlight
QFX round (Paul Graham involved); UK’s deep quantum bench (PsiQuantum/Quantinuum roots; Oxford Ionics ~$1B sale to IonQ). Challenge: scaling while keeping firms in the UK.