EUVC #198 Stefan Walter from Cavalry 🤠 on leveraging a 250+ LP base & investing with conviction

Today we’re excited to introduce you to Stefan Walter, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Cavalry Ventures, one of Europe’s leading early stage funds or as they say themselves:

"Rather than focusing on a particular vertical, we focus on a specific stage, which is the “as early as it makes sense for the company” stage. We invest early, often pre-product and pre-revenue."

And the Cavalry stable is full of champions, counting the likes of Afilio, Aleph Alpha, AMPECO, Anyone, BRYTER, Charm, Clarisights, Flip, Forto, Kinnu, Lhotse, Loctax, McMakler, Nory, Oblivious, Origin, Patronus, PlanRadar, Plantura, Planetly (acq. by OneTrust), REKKI, Rouvia, SERA Intelligence, ShowHeroes, Sofía, SPREAD, Upper, Usercentrics, WhenThen (acq. by Mangopay), and many more incredible companies. Check out their Crunchbase profile for a full overview.

Dive in for an episode covering:

• Stefan’s Journey into Venture
• The Birth of Cavalry: A New Kind of Fund
• Taking a stance on "VC is a people's business, and it's not scalable"
• The Deep Dive
  • The Origins of the Cavalry name & how to turn your LP base into a Cavalry
  • The Cavalry System
• Stefan’s shout-out to some special people in the ecosystem 💌
• Stefan’s Three Biggest Learnings
  • Team Beats Idea.
  • Conviction Over Hype.
  • If It Seems Too Good to Be True, It Probably Is
• The Quickfire Round 🔫
  • Think about the difference between urgent and important
  • Embark on your fundraise with eyes open and realistic expectations
  • VC can be a surprisingly tough balancing act
• Vertical consumer software is super exciting.