This Much I Know - The Seedcamp Podcast

Your team is the single biggest determining factor for your startup’s success. Building a great product, unlocking market potential, and attracting loyal customers require expertise and hustle from within. And, no, we do not just mean from within the founding team. Individuals across departments and seniority levels determine whether your company rises to stardom or flops miserably. To attract and retain the right talent, startups use employee ownership as an incentive scheme. Stock options have become tech’s currency. There is a common fear among founders that dilution resulting from a sizable stock option pool is too costly. Though, in reality, it is too costly not to incentivize your team properly. Competition for top talent is just too high to afford doing so. At Seedcamp, we firmly believe that employee ownership is an essential ingredient in advancing the European startup ecosystem. This is why, in the following two episodes of Legal Hour, we dive into the nitty-gritty of employee incentive schemes. Joined by Ian Shaw, a partner at Orrick who heads the London employee share schemes and incentives practice, Tom and Carlos discuss everything founders need to know about designing an effective option plan. In this first episode, the trio clarifies definitions and types of agreements needed to understand the space. Put the kettle on and listen in! Links: Ian Shaw - linkedin.com/in/ian-shaw-6ba480a9/ Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Tom Wilson - twitter.com/tom_wils Index Ventures Rewarding Talent Handbook - indexventures.com/rewardingtalent/handbook Index Ventures OptionPlan - indexventures.com/rewardingtalent/handbook Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

Seedcamp Fund V is here. It’s our strongest fund to-date and we're thrilled that so many friends and founders have put their faith in us to continue backing Europe’s finest entrepreneurs. We don’t believe in draping fund announcements in a vague veil of splendour, so we want to give you the inside scoop of Fund V: the who, what, when, why, and how. In addition to publishing our fundraising pitch deck here, our Managing Partners Reshma and Carlos, Partners Tom and Sia, and Head of Brand & Marketing Natasha jumped on to this week’s ‘This Much I Know’ to explain what you can expect from Fund V. The Seedcamp Nation includes the brains behind some of Europe’s most exciting companies including the likes of Hopin, Revolut, Primer, and Sorare. If you’re looking for pre-seed funding, we want to hear from you. Tell us what you’re building at https://seedcamp.com/looking-for-funding/. Links: Fundraising pitch deck: slideshare.net/seedcamp/seedcamp-fund-v-fundraising-deck/ Seedcamp Announcement: seedcamp.com/introducing-seedcamp-v/ Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com Looking for Funding?: seedcamp.com/looking-for-funding/

The gap between academic research and business is shrinking. Notable scientific technologies are shifting from receiving grants to venture capital funding. From massive frauds (*cough* Theranos) to incredible successes like Moderna, deep science is gaining traction amongst the world’s top investors. According to Statista research published in early 2020, the value of venture capital invested in the life sciences industry reached 22.4 billion dollars in 2019, almost doubling from the figure in 2014. As scientific advances become more commercializable, this figure will only increase. With an eye on the future within the space, Carlos and one of our newest interns, David, are joined by Luke O’Neill, a Fellow at the Royal Society, a Professor of Immunology at Trinity College Dublin, and the co-founder of recently acquired Inflazome. They talk about which areas of science may be overhyped, share their mutual love for Star Trek, and dig into topics from Professor O’Neill’s newly published book which tackles life’s biggest questions like, “Do we have control over our lives?” Listen in to find out whether or not we do. Links: 1) Never mind the B#ll*cks, Here’s the Science - https://www.bookstation.ie/product/never-mind-the-bllcks-heres-the-science/ 2) Inflazome - https://inflazome.com/press-release-21-sep-2020.html 3) Prof. Luke O’Neill - https://twitter.com/laoneill111 4) Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee 4) Seedcamp - https://seedcamp.com/

Accel partner Harry Nelis knows what it’s like to be in the founder seat. After graduating with a PhD in Electrical Engineering, Harry moved to Silicon Valley to work as an Engineer at Hewlett Packard before founding his own venture-backed software company. His experience as a founder showed him just how difficult it is to build a long-lasting company and develop a sticky customer base. It has also informed his founder-first approach to venture capital investing at Accel, one of the world’s most successful funds, having invested in Slack, Etsy, and Qualtrics to name a few. A strong believer in founders leading their own companies, Harry thinks of himself as a coach and advisor to world-class companies. In this episode of This Much I Know, Carlos sits down with Harry to dive into some of the biggest topics in VC. They discuss some of Harry’s most memorable investments, the evolution of the European VC landscape, and the changing attitudes towards IPOs among founders and investors. Links: Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com Harry nelis - https://twitter.com/hnelis Accel - https://twitter.com/Accel

On the 17th & 24th of September, we brought early-stage marketers from the Seedcamp Nation together for our first ever online edition of the Marketing Summit. We delved into the hottest topics cropping up across our portfolio companies' marketing teams: from building a demand generation machine to PR for startups and whether or not PR agencies provide any benefits at an early stage - it was a jam-packed program! Our Head of Marketing and MC, Natasha Lytton, guided us through it all.

On the 17th & 24th of September, we brought early-stage marketers from the Seedcamp Nation together for our first ever online edition of the Marketing Summit. We delved into the hottest topics cropping up across our portfolio companies' marketing teams: from building a demand generation machine to PR for startups and whether or not PR agencies provide any benefits at an early stage - it was a jam-packed program! Our Head of Marketing and MC, Natasha Lytton, guided us through it all.

On the 17th & 24th of September, we brought early-stage marketers from the Seedcamp Nation together for our first ever online edition of the Marketing Summit. We delved into the hottest topics cropping up across our portfolio companies' marketing teams: from building a demand generation machine to PR for startups and whether or not PR agencies provide any benefits at an early stage - it was a jam-packed program! Our Head of Marketing and MC, Natasha Lytton, guided us through it all.

On the 17th & 24th of September, we brought early-stage marketers from the Seedcamp Nation together for our first ever online edition of the Marketing Summit. We delved into the hottest topics cropping up across our portfolio companies' marketing teams: from building a demand generation machine to PR for startups and whether or not PR agencies provide any benefits at an early stage - it was a jam-packed program! Our Head of Marketing and MC, Natasha Lytton, guided us through it all.

On the 17th & 24th of September, we brought early-stage marketers from the Seedcamp Nation together for our first ever online edition of the Marketing Summit. We delved into the hottest topics cropping up across our portfolio companies' marketing teams: from building a demand generation machine to PR for startups and whether or not PR agencies provide any benefits at an early stage - it was a jam-packed program! Our Head of Marketing and MC, Natasha Lytton, guided us through it all.

On the 17th & 24th of September, we brought early-stage marketers from the Seedcamp Nation together for our first ever online edition of the Marketing Summit. We delved into the hottest topics cropping up across our portfolio companies' marketing teams: from building a demand generation machine to PR for startups and whether or not PR agencies provide any benefits at an early stage - it was a jam-packed program! Our Head of Marketing and MC, Natasha Lytton, guided us through it all.