E332 | EUVC | Carlos Espinal, Seedcamp on "Fundraising field guide" his latest startup founder's guide to all things fundraising

n this episode of the EUVC podcast, Andreas discusses with Carlos Eduardo Espinal , Managing Partner at Seedcamp.

Carlos Eduardo Espinal is a Managing Partner at Seedcamp, arguably, Europe's leading seed fund, first launched in 2007 to support European entrepreneurs truly compete on a global scale. With investments in over 460 companies including publicly listed Romanian-founded, UiPath, Wise and unicorns Revolut, wefox and Pleo. Carlos is a published author, fellow podcaster and has been on the Forbes Midas List as one of the most influential VCs in Europe for more or less as long as yours truly has been alive.

In today’s discussion, we're talking about the third edition of the "Fundraising field guide" the latest startup founder's guide to all things fundraising launched by Carlos. This third edition captured a very interesting period in VC, marking the completion of VC market’s full fundraising cycle.

The first edition of the book was written during the linear growth curve of the post-2008 era. The second during the “bubble” in valuations formed post-COVID where we saw large injections of capital into private markets leading to an exponential growth period for startups. This third edition covers the collapse of that “bubble”, and highlights common pitfalls you should avoid as an early-stage founder (such as taking too much money).

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

Chapters:

06:23 The Challenges of Access to Knowledge and Best Practices
09:12 The Three Cycles of Carlos' Book
13:09 The Success of VC as an Asset Class
16:24 The Emergence of Many Unicorns
26:18 Added Pressure on Founders to Tell Compelling Stories
28:41 The Focus on Sustainable Business Models
33:45 The Balancing Act: High-Growth Potential vs. Stable Business Models
38:32 The Cyclical Nature of Venture Capital
43:09 Creating Liquidity and Attractiveness for Companies
46:20 Supporting Struggling Companies and Making Difficult Decisions
49:47 The Challenges and Benefits of the Large Portfolio Model
56:20 The Impact of Financing Terms and Structures
01:13:39 Changing Attitudes to Tech Entrepreneurship and the Role of VCs