EUVC

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Mathias Ockenfels and Julian Blessin, general partner and partner at Speedinvest’s Marketplaces & Consumer team. Speedinvest is one of Europe’s most active early stage investors with more than €600m of assets under management and Mathias’ and Julian’s investment team focuses on backing startups who are shaping the future across B2B and B2C at the intersection of marketplaces, eCommerce 2.0 and consumer subscriptions. Not only are Speedinvest one of Europe's top VC players, they're also experts in building community and network effects which is something we can't get enough of here at The European VC!What you’ll learn in this episode- What Mathias & Julian believe is the secret behind Speedinvest’s success in the consumer & marketplaces vertical.- Where Mathias & Julian believe the next great European marketplace & consumer startups will spawn.- How Speedinvest evaluates early stage deals and how they think about evaluating and committing to startups prior to traction.- A deep dive on the cold start problem and how to overcome it.- How the team thinks about Web 3.0, DAO and the crypto-hype.

Today, we're happy to introduce you to Mads Jensen, managing partner of SuperSeed, a UK-based fund seed fund backing B2B software startups that use software and machine learning to automate the way the world does business 🤖 Mads and his partner Dan Bowyer are doing amazing work and we love them for the fact that they’ve democratized access to their fund by listing it on the stock exchange 😍 So effing awesome! In this episode, you’ll learn:- All about SuperSeeds journey listing on the Aquis Stock Exchange- How SuperSeed thinks about differentiating themselves in one of Europe’s most competitive places and spaces- How Mads thinks about the adjusting to the market - higher ticket sizes? Lower equity stakes? Early stage investments? 🤷‍♂️- How Mads thinks about funding hardware startups and overcoming the problems of securing financing for CAPEX heavy business models.- Why Mads believes in the statement “sales solve all problems for early stage startups” and how it informs their value add strategy.

Today, we're happy to introduce you to Andris Berzins, Managing Partner at Change Ventures, the first and largest truly pan-Baltic pre-seed/seed fund. Change Ventures backs ambitious Baltic founders and are searching for founding teams that have the "grit" to succeed. Andris was also recently awarded the Human Development Award by the President of Latvia for an outstanding contribution to the future of the nation, what a guy 😍.What you’ll learn in this episode: - All about the Baltic ecosystem - what’s happening, what to look out for and how to approach the market- Why Andris sees many commonalities between the Baltics and the Israeli ecosystem and how this informs Change Ventures’ thesis & strategy- How Andris collaborates with Angels in the region and have brought them into his fund for a close and vested relationship- Important reflections on building a remote-first VC firm, living on slack and key learnings for anyone looking to grow their firm internationally.

Today, we're happy to introduce you to David Ventzel, formerly a founder and the GP of not one, but TWO VC funds, Accelerace Invest and Overkill Ventures 👏 In this episode, we dive deep on Accelerace Invest, being the pre-seed fund backing Denmark’s leading startup accelerators’ amazing alumni. Accelerace has helped spawn more than 800 Danish and international startups and David’s learnings from being an integral part of the team cannot be overstated. 🚨 Do tune in for one of the best “breaking into venture”-stories on the pod so far 😍 and an amazing walk-through of David’s framework for diligencing founding teams pre-traction. In this episode you’ll learn: - How David has transitioned from being a founder to a VC and key learnings from going through this - including how to build a GP team that can complement each other.- Key learnings from having accelerated >800 startups and all about the “Accelerace Invest Framework” distinguishing between entry criteria and the excellence criteria of Impact, Smartness, Leadership and Crazy.- The importance of having original insight and the difference between investing in beta and alpha growth.- All about the “momentum-framework” and how to track progress in startups pre-revenue.

Today we’re joined by Mike Suprovici, Head of Acceleration at VC Lab, the 16 week VC Accelerator spun out of Founders Institute with a vision to help launch no less than 1.000 enduring VC firms by 2025. We’re excited to bring you this interview as Mike and his partner in crime Adeo Ressi have made quite a splash worldwide with their program helping more than 100 firms be launched across 5 cohorts and make important VC conceptual innovations like the Proof of Concept-fund, Fund-in-a-box and LP Love be disseminated in the ecosystem. Go register your application for the 7th VC Lab cohort on vcl.to/VC

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Andrea Traversone, Managing Partner at Amadeus Capital Partners. Since 1997, the firm has raised over $1bn for investment and used it to back more than 180 companies. Andrea’s experience as a VC is something to envy, having lived and invested through the boom and bust of three bubbles! What you’ll learn in this episode:- The views and reflections on the current market - by a man who has lived and invested through the boom and bust of three bubbles!- Why Andrea loves their operational model of having a strong in-house backoffice, involving them early and creating cross-fund deal teams for each investment.- Andrea’s thoughts on carry distribution in VC funds, why junior personnel should be included in the scheme and how they’re setting aside significant carry reserves for employees growing in the firm- Why they define DeepTech on the company level and what’s behind the three core pillars of 1) tech must be a key differentiator, 2) the startup must own the IP, and 3) tech must be the key to the company’s operational leverage.- How the 3 P’s of Power dynamics, Post-rationalization and Persistence creates a virtuous cycle for VCs building their fund narrative

Today we’re welcoming Johan van Mil, co-founder and managing partner of Peak to The European VC 😍 Johan is a life-long entrepreneur, who has built, bought, and sold over 11 companies, from data marketplaces and social marketing software, to email marketing platforms, and more. Making the move from founder to investor, Johan founded Peak with 5 fellow entrepreneurs in 2008, which now invests in fast growing marketplace, platforms and SaaS companies. And what we REALLY love, their LP base is all operators putting their money to work to change the world - absolutely amazing 💕😍In this episode you’ll learn: - All about Johan and Peak’s journey from their first fund to today.- How Johan thinks about brand building in VC (and they’re great at this! So pay attention! 👀)- What’s behind the quote “Don’t try to please everybody, look for alternative ways to get things done, give 100% on one big goal – and do not move on before it is done.”- Why Johan and Peak have chosen to build an LP base of operators and founders, what value that brings and how they use them to deliver value to founders

Today we're happy to introduce you to Mike Reid, Founder and senior partner at Frog Capital, a growth stage fund focusing on the opportunity emerging between venture capital and private equity. Mike brings perspectives on a part of VC that we rarely speak about, but many founders need; the intersection point between VC and Private Equity. In this episode, you’ll learn:- All about Mike and Frog’s focus on risk capital without the pressure to grow at all cost- Why Mike bets on M&A deals of 150-250 M€ rather than unicorns and how this relates to building a portfolio of Ferraris, Landrovers and BMWs- Deep dive on Mike’s and Frog’s scale-up methodology

We’re excited to bring to you the EUVC LP roundtable! We’ve gathered three of Europe’s master minds in VC fund investing for a candid, upfront discussion about topics core to European VCs. In this episode, we’re joined by Chris Wade, exited entrepreneur and founding partner of Isomer Capital, David Dana, head of ICT Investments at the EIF, and Ertan Can, founding partner of Multiple Capital. In this episode you’ll learn:- What the GP of the future will look like- What trends are driving the EUVC landscape today- Why secondaries are on the rise and likely to grow stronger- What bad LP behavior our panelists see in the market and which GPs should pay attention to and be wary of

Today we’re happy to welcome you to Radu and Andrei, founders of SeedBlink - one of Europe’s upcoming platforms enabling investors to easily syndicate and participate in deals. Radu has a 30 year long experience founding and developing companies and have exited to companies like Microsoft, Naspers and Fitbit. Andrei comes from 20 years in banking but with the insights and ambition to build new experiences and solutions for the financial world - and what better place to do that than by democratising access to VC? In this episode you’ll learn:- The mission of Seedblink and what made Radu and Andrei bet on building a platform for deal syndication in Europe- What learnings Radu brings with him from his time as a founder and VC to building Seedblink- Where Seedblink are in journey to democratize access to VC, where they see the platform in 10 years and what benefits building out of Romania gives them.