Venture Europe: Entrepreneurship | Technology | Venture Capital | Eu/Acc

Florian Brand co-founder and Co-CEO of ATAI Life Sciences. ATAI was founded in 2018 and is a global, listed, biopharma company with the vision to heal mental health disorders so that everyone, everywhere can live a more fulfilled life. They were one of the pioneers to use psilocybin in treating mental health and they have raised around $400M equity and debt from Petter Thiel and other investors to build a portfolio of compounds like MDMA, DMT and others, to go through clinical trials and bring them to market. During this episode we discuss about Florians' motivation to start Atai, how drug discovery works and why it takes around 10 years to bring to market, and a personal story of trying psychedelics to go through the loss of a loved one. Enjoy!

Michael Lazarenko, founder and CEO of Embedd. With Embedd they provide a unified framework so that all the components coming from tens of different manufacturers can communicate with each other on the circuit board. They raised $1.2M Eur pre-seed round led by Cocoa in May last year and now they are ready and gearing up to raise their seed round. During this episode we discuss how they took 350 meetings to raise the pressed, the importance of storytelling when of explaining something complex to investors and how the war in Ukraine has built more resilience in him and his team but also killed his previous startup. Brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠Wolt4Work⁠⁠⁠, sign up and add Venture Europe and your Company Name in the company field to get a 100 Eur voucher

Alexandre Momeni - Partner at General Catalyst. Alex specialises in healthcare and AI and has been instrumental in bringing some of Europe’s biggest AI deals to General Catlayst’s door. For background General Catalyst, has $28bn assets under management and is one of the world’s best known VC firms. They backed some of greatest businesses that you probably are familiar with including Airbnb, Stripe, Discord and Snap and in Europe they have made more than 20 investments in companies like the AI superstar - Mistral, the defense company - Helsing and the new company co-founded by Daniel Ek - Neko health. During this episode we discuss about the opportunities in healthcare in Europe, what Alex looks for when meeting teams to invest in and the future of brain machine interface. Brought to you by ⁠⁠Wolt4Work⁠⁠, sign up and add Venture Europe and your Company Name in the company field to get a 100 Eur voucher

Robert Jäkle is a Partner at Visionaries Club. Visionaries is a leading European early-stage VC fund with offices in London and Berlin. The fund is backed by over 30 unicorn founders - such as the founders of UiPath, Flixbus, Miro and Skype - as well as leading European family business entrepreneurs. Bobby joined the fund on day one and has helped build it over the past five years. He now co-leads the firm's seed fund and has made several investments in Fintech, Compliance, HR, and Automation in the past years in the likes of Apron Pay, Leapsome, Workflex, Adfin, Pledge and Accountable to name a few. During this episode we discuss about about why European founders and investors should take more risk, the rarity of a unicorn founder and how to find it and the importance to surround yourself with ambitious and driven people. Enjoy! Brought to you by ⁠Wolt4Work⁠, sign up and add Venture Europe and your Company Name in the company field to get a 100 Eur voucher

Aleksander Larsen is the Co-Founder, Chairman, and COO of Sky Mavis, the company behind the popular crypto game Axie Infinity and the Ronin Network. SkyMavis is the breakout company at the intersection of gaming and blockchain, they’ve raised around 300 million dollars according to Dealroom and Crunchbase from top investors like a16z, Accel and Paradigm. During this episode we discuss about Aleksnaders’s move to Vietnam to pursue the opportunity at the intersection of gaming and blockchain, the North Korean hack, that compromised $600m of players and companies tokens and the vision of financial inclusion through gaming and crypto and competing longterm with Visa Enjoy! Brought to you by Wolt4Work, sign up and add Venture Europe and your Company Name in the company field to get a 100 Eur voucher

Annie Duke, a Special Partner at First Round Capital Partners and bestselling author, dives into the art of decision-making. She shares insights from her poker career, emphasizing that decision quality is more important than outcome quality. Annie discusses mental time travel as a tool for enhancing decision processes, and explores her 'monkeys and pedestals' framework, which warns against getting sidetracked by easier tasks. She also introduces 'kill criteria' to help entrepreneurs pivot effectively, ensuring smarter choices in a world of uncertainty.

Oliver Holle - co-founder, CEO and Managing Partner at SpeedInvest, a leading European early-stage VC. Starting in 2011 as an angel fund, today Speedinvest became a 1B Eur European powerhouse investing in startups at the earliest phases. With their sector focused teams across Deeptech, Fintech, Marketplace and Consumer among others and operational teams, they deeply support founders in their journey. During this episode we discuss about the similarities between the AI wave with the iPhone moment, how quitting sometimes is the best decision and the need to have a chip on the shoulder and intrinsically motivation to succeeded as a founder. Enjoy! Brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠uTopic⁠⁠⁠ - peers, not followers

Carmen Alfonso Rico - founder and GP of Cocoa VC. Cocoa is a VC fund investing between $250k-$500k angel checks at pre-seed/seed and how they like to say it “they don’t give a damn about ownership stake”. In less than 3 years she invested in some of the most talented founders from Arcane, Twirl and Plumery just to name a few, co-investing with some of the best investors in Europe and globally. During this episode we talk about why they can win competitive deals and be on the same side of the table with founders, her preferred questions to ask founders and the challenges that women face when focusing on career. Enjoy! Brought to you by ⁠⁠uTopic⁠⁠ - peers, not followers

Bernt Øivind Børnich - co-founder and CEO of 1X, an AI and robotics company producing androids to benefit society and meet the world’s labor demand. One of the most exciting companies in Europe that stands at the forefront of AI robotics. Their mission is to create androids that work among people and have a new approach to embodied learning for data collection. They recently raised over 100 million euros from EQT Ventures, Sam Altmans' Open AI fund and other notable global investors to bring to market its second generation android called, NEO. During this episode we discuss about the importance of building softness in order for androids to work and live among humans, the infinite demand curve for a useful droid and his advice for founders to go and build stuff that matters more specifically filling the gap for a future with energy abundance. Enjoy! Brought to you by ⁠uTopic⁠ - peers, not followers

Our guest today is Kaushik Subramanian, partner at EQT Ventures, investing primarily in product-led technology businesses. From offices in Stockholm, London, Berlin, Paris and New York, EQT invests in and supports entrepreneurs building the next-generation of global winners from a 1.1B Euro fund. Prior to joining EQT, Kaushik was at Stripe and Meta where he built and scaled several products to global reach and generating billions. During this episode we discuss how to choose your design partners when building the early version of the product, why he decided to join EQT ventures and how he asses founders if they have a product first mindset. Brought to you by uTopic - peers, not followers