This Much I Know - The Seedcamp Podcast

In this week’s episode of This Much I Know, Carlos is joined by David Helgason, co-founder and former CEO of Unity Technologies, a Danish-American video game software development company best known for the development of Unity, the world’s leading real-time 3D development platform and last valued at $6bn. Originally from Iceland, at the age of ten David moved with his accomplished journalist mother and his two brothers to Denmark. He shares how we would use his mother’s computer at every chance he had and that this infatuation with computers became the drive for his passion to work as a developer, alongside his studies in physics and psychology. By the time David finished university, he had already founded two tech companies, Panmedia - a business processes tech shop - and iCover, which developed creative CD-cover like experiences for digital albums. After graduation, David embarked on a new project with his two friends Nicholas Francis, and Joachim Ante, and that summer they founded Over The Edge Entertainment (OTEE) which was later renamed Unity Technologies. A classic Silicon Valley tale, except with a European spin, Carlos and David go through the learning curves of building startups from a young age, what really set Unity apart from its competitors, and how much heart and sweat they put behind each and every customer. Now a prolific angel investor, backing more than forty nordic startups through his syndicate Nordic Makers, there is one thing in particular that he wants to share: never underestimate the importance of following your own intuition. Links David Helgason - twitter.com/davidhelgason Unity - twitter.com/unity3d Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

Open source software is having a moment – the number of projects are growing, as are the developers working on them. Importantly too, there has also been an evolution of business models in the space. Gone are the days when only Red Hat stood as an example of successful commercialisation; now, 40+ companies relying on open source technology at their core have reached $100M+ revenue, with high-profile IPOs in recent years like Elastic ($252M IPO), MongoDB ($192M IPO). In this podcast we have a Seedcamp team takeover as our very own Sia and Kyran join Carlos to help us look back at how much momentum open source has been building in recent years along with the exciting ground still to cover in this space. They discuss reasons for renewed investor interest in open source, Seedcamp’s own criteria when assessing businesses in the space (such as founder-community fit), and the evolution of business models. The three also provide context on some of Seedcamp’s new investments in open source companies – including a full-text search engine, developer tools for data science, security solutions and hyperfast databases. Tune in if you are an open source founder interested in hearing what VCs will be looking for in your space, a VC looking to determine the assets that make an open source company really stand out, or if you are simply interested in hearing more about some of our recent investments in this area. Links: Sia Houchangnia - twitter.com/SiaHouchangnia Kyran Schmidt - twitter.com/KyranSchmidt Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

In this special Deep Dive, Carlos delves into a topic we’re particularly passionate about at Seedcamp, ‘The future of health’, alongside the founders of Sano Genetics and Humanity, both proud portfolio companies. Covering everything from the future of genomics to how to slow the ageing process and reduce the possibility of disease, Sano Genetics and Humanity are at the forefront of some of the most pressing issues facing how we think about improving our personal health. Join Dr. Charlotte Guzzo and Dr. Patrick Short from Sano Genetics and serial entrepreneur Michael Geer of Humanity as they discuss the challenge we face to move people from reactive to proactive health. This covers everything from the future of doctor/patient relationship dynamics, progressing research in precision medicine, the role of pharmaceuticals, regulatory bodies and insurance companies along with how to overcome the challenges caused by the current cash crunch in the national healthcare system. Links Humanity - www.humanity.health Michael Geer - twitter.com/Geeria Sano - twitter.com/sanogenetics Charlotte Guzzo - twitter.com/Charlotte_Guzzo Patrick Short - twitter.com/patrick_j_short Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

After the success of our first Legal Hour podcast in which Tom and Carlos discussed commercial legal terms and what founders should look out for, they’re back again; this time with a detailed look at how to structure your round and legal terms to be aware of. The purpose of this episode is to arm all founders with valuable information to help you make the most knowledgeable decisions, as no founder or investor should be afraid of any legal structures - “they are all trodden paths that other founders have gone through, and they are all tools from which to use”. The session will cover various legal structures both founders and investors should be generally already familiar with, but going more in depth as to what the considerations should be when going for equity share purchases over commercial contracts, or the importance of understanding the different national jurisdiction a company might choose to comply with, and why, discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each along the way. Tune in to deepen your knowledge about legal structures for your next round, and to allow for better speed, simplicity and clarity, in your decision-making process. Links Tom Wilson - twitter.com/tom_wils Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

Can you translate the entrepreneurial concept of ownership in the VC landscape? How can you really spot passion in a founder? These are just a few of the questions that Carlos and Carmen Alfonso Rico cover in this week’s podcast, as they discuss the learnings from shifting from being a VC to a founder, and then back again to a VC. After graduating with the best grades in the country and being scouted by the former Spanish president of congress to help reform the healthcare and education system, Carmen started her career in the private sector at Morgan Stanley until her fortuitous encounter with Antoine Nussenbaum, partner at Felix Capital, changed the course of her career. Now the proud partner of Samaipata, a Franco-Spanish-Anglo pre-Series A VC focused on digital platforms, Carmen reminisces about her learning and passion for what she calls #CustomerLove, and unveils what she finds to be the most exciting sectors and companies right now in light of the current climate, such as the digitalisation of professional services and, yes, Hopin! Tune in to learn more about how to think beyond your comfort zone and be driven by founders’ passions as a VC, how data-driven founders are much more likely to have the upper hand and why you should never underestimate the immense value of brand and community. Links Carmen Alfonso Rico - linkedin.com/in/calfonsorico Samaipata - twitter.com/samaipatavc Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

Why are people put off by the term impact and yet, at the same time, they want to promote the very things that the term encapsulates? How can we fix this dichotomy between the negative bias towards social impact against the very need that social impact drives for? These are some of the questions underlying this week’s podcast as Carlos discusses with Check Warner, co-founder of Ada Ventures, her journey toward creating a more diverse VC landscape and providing better access to opportunities to all. Before launching Ada Ventures officially and announcing the first close in late 2019, Check started her VC career at Downing Ventures carrying along, as a competitive advantage, her work and knowledge from the advertainment industry where she cut her teeth and would support founders working on segmenting audiences, acquisition strategies, brand communication and product offering, perspectives not often offered by traditional VCs back in 2015. Her awareness of the lack of diversity in the VC landscape soon brought her to spearhead Diversity VC and saw her campaigning, for four years, for the disruption of traditional networking circles to allow for new and different people to access funds. She eventually founded Ada Ventures with Matt Penneycard, which focuses specifically on investing in overlooked founders and markets. Tune in to our latest podcast to learn about the long term changes we need to put into motion to truly harvest diversity; what language to use when talking to impact investors, and the trends and audiences currently tackled by founders across the impact landscape. Links Check Warner - twitter.com/checkwarner Ada Ventures - www.adaventures.com Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

14% of the global GDP goes from government to businesses every year. But how does the public procurement office run this global economy and how can companies trying to sell to government navigate its inner-workings? The rather opaque admin of the process is exactly what drove three university students to decide to build Stotles, specifically addressing the murky waters of government contracting and a proud Seedcamp-backed company Stotles’s founding team, CEO John Witt, COO Taj Kamranpour and CPO Carsten Schaltz, join Carlos in this week’s podcast to discuss how their work aims at bringing more large, medium and small business into the fold and increase competition to benefit everybody in the market: suppliers, government buyers and taxpayers. A rather appealing mission when a 1% increase in efficiency can turn into a £20bn saving for taxpayers. Tune in as the Stotles team reveal how they are democratising government procurement by providing data that empowers companies to be active on biddings, rather than reactive and how they can help companies to close contracts and build credibility in the private sector, as they ultimately strive to get companies and government to work better together. Links Stotles - www.stotles.com John Witt - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jwitt10/ Taj Kamranpour - linkedin.com/in/tkamranpour Carsten Schaltz - linkedin.com/in/carstenschaltz Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

In this week’s recorded video podcast Seedcamp partners, Carlos and Tom, join forces to discuss some of the key terms startup founders should keep in mind when considering a term sheet from investors. Carlos and Tom first met when Tom, in his previous life, was one of the lawyers working on helping to set Seedcamp up as a fund. Fast forward six years later and Tom - now one of our investment partners - shares how he wears both his investor and private equity lawyer hat to support portfolio companies and to help startups more broadly gain a comprehensive overview of how to navigate different legal complexities that can arise when it comes to setting up and fundraising for your startup; especially important in today’s challenging times. In this Legal Hour Session, Carlos and Tom cover different golden rules on how to document and structure an investment round along with key information on how to factor in option pools. It’s well worth also reading Tom’s latest article - “The most important clause to look out for in a dreaded “down-round”, uncovering potential concerns for startups fundraising in these current circumstances. Tune in for advice on how to “focus on the terms, not the structure”, “not letting market standard verbiage prevent you from doing your research”, and how “to always think comprehensively about your terms”. Tom Wilson - twitter.com/tom_wils Tom's article: https://medium.com/@taw/the-most-important-clause-to-look-out-for-in-a-dreaded-down-round-cac2b70e8fc8 Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com

This week Carlos is joined, remotely, by Dominic Hallas, Executive Director at The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec), to discuss his work liaising between policymakers and the tech community, and the role Codec is playing in helping startups navigate these uncertain times. After entering local politics at a young age in Leeds, and running a project in Delhi for the Bloomberg Foundation, Dom took the helm at Coadec in 2018, an initiative founded exactly ten years ago by pillars of the tech ecosystem Jeff Lynn, founder of Seedrs and Mike Butcher, editor of TechCrunch. Right now the government has issued a series of different grant schemes to help businesses overcome Covid-19 related challenges, none of which apply to startups. In this session, Carlos and Dominic discuss the barriers preventing public administration from understanding the needs of the tech ecosystem, both in these specific challenging times and more broadly, and how Coadec’s new project ‘Save Our Startups’, is advocating for new grant schemes tailored to the needs of venture-backed businesses that do not fit the criteria for COVID-19 relief schemes currently provided by the government. Tune in to hear how you can support Coadec right now in advocating for coherent liquidity packages for tech startups and how founders voices can contribute to help Coadec bring specific issues facing the startup ecosystem to the government’s attention. Dominic Hallas - twitter.com/Dom_Hallas Coadec - www.coadec.com; https://twitter.com/Coadec Save Our Startups - www.saveourstartups.co.uk; https://twitter.com/saveourstartups Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - https://seedcamp.com

In this week’s podcast, Carlos is joined by Russ Shaw, Founder of Tech London Advocates, and Asher Ismail, Co-founder of Seedcamp-backed company, Uncapped, Europe’s first revenue-based finance provider, as they discuss the need - now more than ever - alternative financing mechanisms to support founders. If you are currently raising or trying to determine how to navigate this current climate, listen in as Russ and Asher discuss the need to provide capital to founders more efficiently, from both an institutional and a venture capital standpoint, and why alternative forms of investment are democratising and diversifying the investment landscape and becoming increasingly popular among the founders of tomorrow Links: Russ Shaw - twitter.com/RussShaw1 Tech London Advocates - www.techlondonadvocates.org.uk Asher Ismail - twitter.com/asher_ismail Uncapped - www.weareuncapped.com Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee Seedcamp - www.seedcamp.com/