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

Alex MacCaw is the founder and CEO of Reflect app. The note-taking tool that allows you to take notes the same way you think — by associating notes through backlinks. Prior to Reflect he built and ran Clearbit a venture-backed 50M Eur annual recurring revenue B2B saas company. During this episode we discuss about his journey with Clearbit from hacking the first sales to using the SaaS sales playbook, the differences between building a B2B and a B2C company, and the power of a committed community. He is currently sailing around the world and this interview was made while he was docking in Grenada. Please enjoy this excellent conversation with Alex MacCaw founder and CEO of Reflect app. As mentioned during the episode we are launching a private network and peer support group for tech CEOs. We already signed up some well-known tech CEOs from the ecosystem. The first gathering starts in June. If interested, sign up here. Brought to you by: Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results.  Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG1 covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

David is the founder and CEO of The Production Board, a holding company that builds and invests in businesses that solve the most fundamental problems that affect our planet, by reimagining global systems of production; across food, agriculture, biomanufacturing, human health, and the broader life sciences. Prior to The Production Board, he was the founder and CEO of The Climate Corporation which he sold for $1.1B dollars to Monsanto. Spanning his career, he has contributed to 32 patents. On the fun side he is also the co-host of the All-in pod, the super popular podcast co-hosted together with David Sacks, Chamath Palihapatia, and Jason Calacanis where they talk all things science, markets, venture capital, and politics. Which I highly recommend you listen to. During this episode, we discuss the founding story of The Climate Corporation and the exit to Monsanto, why as an entrepreneur you should always be biased towards action, and his deep optimism and his mission of reimagining earth. Thanks a million to Jan Hammer from Index Ventures and Siraj Khaliq from Atomico for the input to this episode, very very much appreciated! Please enjoy this geeky conversation with the Sultan of Science, David Albert Friedberg. As mentioned during the episode we are launching a private network and peer support group for tech CEOs. We already signed up some well-known tech CEOs from the ecosystem. The first gathering starts in June. If interested, sign up here. Brought to you by: Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results.  Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG1 covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Lina Chong is a Partner at Target Global. Target Global is one of the leading European venture capital investors with more than 3bn EUR in AuM and offices across Berlin, London, Tel Aviv and Barcelona. They have backed more than 15 unicorns including household names such as Delivery Hero, Revolut, Wefox, Flink, TravelPerk and many others. Lina was named Partner at Target earlier this year after working her way up from Associate. An American transplant in Berlin, she leads Target's German operations and co-leads the fund's early stage strategy. She is also a two-time founder herself, having started two companies one in Southeast Asia, and the other based in Germany/US. One was later sold to Living Social. During this episode we discuss her move to Germany from the US, how they asses investment opportunities at Target global and the importance to surrounding yourself with people that you admire. Brought to you by: Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results.  Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG1 covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Koen Thijssen, founder and CEO of Insify. At Insify they modernize the insurance market for Europe’s small and medium companies. Prior to founding Insify, Koen was the founder and CFO of Bloomon, a subscription based flower business disrupting the $60B flower industry, in 2021 Bloomon was acquired by Bloom & Wild. 12 months ago they’ve raised with Insify $17m round led by Accel with participation from Visionaries and Frontline to expand into more markets. During this episode we discuss about the Rocket Internet Mafia and why there are so many great entrepreneurs coming out it, Formula 1 of entrepreneurship is the way he described it, how he stumbled upon a huge market while insuring goods and people at Bloomon and his new set of criteria when starting a new business. A million thanks to Luca Bocchio from Accel and Robert Lacher from Visionaries for the input to this episode! Much appreciated! Brough to you by: Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results.  Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG1 covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Stef van Grieken is the co-founder and CEO of the biotech company Cradle. Based between Delft and Zurich, Cradle’s machine learning platform helps scientists to design and program ‘cell factories’ faster and more successfully, speeding up the development of a more environmentally friendly method of producing almost anything. They have recently raised a 6 million dollar seed round co-led by Index Ventures and Kindred Capital. Prior to Cradle, Stef spent 7 years with Google as a Senior product manager for Google AI known as Google Brain and Google X known for its moonshots projects. During this episode we discuss about the founding story of Cradle, how you can program cells to produce milk, plastic and petrol-free chemicals among other things, and why Europeans should change from being definite pessimists to definite optimists and be more entrepreneurial. Stef is one of those rare breeds of entrepreneurs with a high amount of raw intelligence paired with kindness. Thanks so much for the input on this episode to Leila from Kindred and Sofia from Index! Thanks a million! Enjoy! Brough to you by: Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results.  Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Our guest today is Eric Lagier - founding Partner at byFounders. byFounders is an early-stage venture fund backed by a collective of some of the most accomplished founders from the Nordics. After eight years in Silicon Valley, where he built an extensive network of investors and founders, Eric returned to Copenhagen to found byFounders and support the next generation of globally ambitious founders building a better tomorrow. ‍Eric has more than 20 years of operational experience in Silicon Valley and in Europe, was part of the early team at Skype and Tradeshift and he founded Memolane, which was acquired by HP. During this episode we discuss the journey to Silicon Valley with his startup Memolane, The importance of showing the ugly slide in a pitch deck and we talk about his tattoo, Muditā, meaning the pleasure that comes when seeing other people succeed. Please enjoy this wonderful conversation with Eric Lagier - founding Partner of ByFounders. This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Our guest today is Filip Dames - Founding Partner at Cherry Ventures. Cherry Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm led by a team of entrepreneurs with experience in building fast-scaling companies such as Zalando and Spotify. The firm backs Europe's boldest founders, usually as their first institutional investor. They have a great track record having previously invested in the seed stage of over 90 companies across Europe, including FlixBus, Auto1 Group, Infarm, Forto, SellerX, Juni, and Flink just to name a few. They are based in Berlin with offies in Stockholm and London. Before Cherry, Filip started his first startup company in 2008, a digital marketplace for art and collectibles (long before there were NFTs). He then joined Zalando (ZAL:GR) as member of the founding team and grew the business up to IPO. During this episode we discuss about his journey with Zalando, the founding story of Cherry Ventures and why making the first million is the hardest. Please enjoy this excellent conversation with Filip Dames, Founding Partner at Cherry Ventures. This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Our guest today is Sabina Wizander - Partner at Creandum. Creandum is a venture capital advisory firm with offices in Stockholm, San Francisco, London, and Berlin funding early stage entrepreneurs from a 450m euro fund. They have an exceptional track record having previously invested in Spotify, Klarna, Trade Republic, Kahoot! and Bolt just to name a few. Part of her tenure as an investor at Creandum, Sabina joined the healthcare startup KRY. After they invested in their seed round she joined the team and was part of the journey from 20 to 1000 employees and from 0 to 150m Eur yearly revenue. In 2016 she rejoined the investment firm as a partner. During this episode we discuss about her journey with Kry and how that changed her investor mentality to have more empathy towards the entrepreneurs, we discuss about the struggle of finding a balance when having a family but also a job that you love, and why she is excited about the energy industry. Please enjoy this wonderful, heartfelt, honest conversation with Sabina Wizander - Partner at Creandum. This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Julian Kley Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of AVI Medical. Avi Medical is a Munich-based health tech company that runs patient-centric, tech-enabled medical practices that provide a convenient, personalized, and holistic digital and physical patient experience. They recently raised a 50m Euros Series B, round led by Balderton with participation from Eurazeo, Heal Capital, and the UiPath founder and CEO Daniel Dines among others. During this episode, we discuss about his career path from pursuing medicine to becoming an entrepreneur, how to learn to trust your gut instinct, and the future of healthcare. Please enjoy this honest and wonderful conversation with Julian Kley, co-founder and COO of AVI Medical. This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

In the last 6 months I was trying to wrap my little head around the macro environment and the effects on the economy and to be honest on my pocket. I just didn't know how inflation, interest rate hikes, and debt cycles fit together to be able to create an investment thesis or at least protect my capital.  Our guest today will try to answer some of these questions so please welcome Alfonso Peccatiello Founder & CEO of The Macro Compass. The Macro Compass is an investment strategy firm whose mission is to democratize professional macro analysis, by giving access to tools and portfolio strategies. Before launching The Macro Compass, Alfonso was the Head of Investments for a $20 billion portfolio for ING Germany. During this episode, we discuss the current macro environment and how got here, what should be the strategies for consumers and investors to protect themselves during this period, and some economic predictions for 2023. Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Alfonso Peccatiello, founder and CEO of the Macro Compass This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.