EUVC

Enis Hulli is General Partner of 500 Istanbul. Enis has founded and manages the best performing fund in the 500 Global fund family. In this episode, we're diving deep with Enis on his experience founding a 500-fund and how he has grown it from 10 to 50 M€ and exactly what Enis believes is his secret behind his fund's stellar performance. We're of course also getting into Enis' views on the potential of the Turkish and Central & Eastern European ecosystems and his super intense approach to deal sourcing requiring all on his team - including the CFO - to source deals 50% of the time.In this episode you’ll learn:- How the 500 Global fund origination scheme enabled Enis to rapidly advance up the learning curve when he launched his first fund- How Enis has built out his fund, firm and strategy from 10M€ in Fund I to 50M€ in fund II- All about the Turkish VC & Startup landscape and how Enis thinks about winning deals by always having a prepared mind and executing with incredible speed- Enis thinking around portfolio mix and price sensitivity and how it has changed over the last few years.- Why Enis doesn't want more inbound and everyone at 500 Istanbul must dedicate at least half of their time to deal sourcing

Jeroen van Doornik is the managing partner of Rabo Frontier Ventures, a €200M FoF and co-investment fund with Rabobank as the sole LP. With Rabo, Jeroen leverages his unique access to tier-1 VCs like: Balderton Capital, NorthZone, HV Capital, Speedinvest, and Seed Camp as well as his ability to identify and move quickly on co-investment opportunities in breakaway portfolio companies. Prior to joining Rabobank Frontier Ventures, @Jeroen was an investment director at the VC firm StartGreen Capital, managing its €250m venture fund providing equity, debt and project finance. He has also held investing roles at growth stage tech investment firms in energy, mobility and software and has founded a motorsports startup for eight years after a four-and-a-half-year stint at Accenture.In this episode you'll learn:- How Jeroen has built his investment strategy around co-investing with European tier-1 VC firms- Why Jeroen believes venture is all about access & speed - for VCs as well as LPs.- What Jeroen believes are the defining characteristics of good VC firms and what mistakes he sees GPs do too often- What gets Jeroen excited about a VC

Ulla Brockenhuus-Schack is the managing partner of the Danish seed fund "Seed Capital." To many international VCs, Seed Capital is the local deal flow partner in Denmark, a result of Ulla's untiring work to champion Danish startups on the European Venture scene for more than 15 years. Seed Capital is on their 4th fund, have invested in 47 companies and their portfolio counts greats like TrustPilot, Vivino, Lunar, Cardlay and Templafy. And their exit track counts notable companies like Endomondo, Libratone, and Mofibo.You'll learn in this episode:- Why Seed capital has doubled down on a narrow vertical and geographic focus- What COVID taught Ulla & Seed Capital and how they adjust going forward building in a post-COVID world- How Ulla has managed to attract international Top VCs like General Atlantic to their portfolio companies- What has allowed Ulla to achieve a whopping 70% graduation rate from Seed to Series A - a stark contrast to the average rate of 20% in Europe!

Cristina Fonseca is a Venture Partner at Indico Capital Partners and one of Portugal's most successful tech entrepreneurs and a true pioneer in the ecosystem. Cristina has co-founded Talkdesk, a cloud-based help desk software that became Portugal's third unicorn and is valued at over 3 billion euros. In Cristina's own words she has: "worn various hats, be it engineering and coding, design and user experience, product management, customer relations, processes or knowledge management." And, in fact, the list could go on. In this episode, you’ll learn:- How Cristina has transitioned from founder to VC & why she believes there are no shortcuts- What Cristina's startup experience brings to Indico and how the team at Indico complements each other.- What Cristina has learned from Indico's move into new geographies and what to expect and invest & how to avoid getting the bad apples

We're doing something different for this episode as we dive deep with James Vanreusel, CEO & founder of Vanreusel Ventures CFO-advisor to a whole string of venture-backed startups. James resides in Silicon Valley but heralds from the Netherlands and we focus on teasing out learnings for VCs helping startups prepare for funding rounds and get ready to cross the Atlantic. In this episode, you’ll learn:– How to think about building out the finance department in the early stages where hustling is key - How to help early-stage companies get funding ready from a CFO-perspective- How to think about landing in the US and the importance of partnering with local firms- Why it's so important to be prepared for the worst ahead of funding rounds and how to be so.

In this episode we dive deep on the wonderful Romanian ecosystem as we try to understand if Romania really is going to repeat the UI Path-success or if they were a one-trick unicorn-pony. We're talking to two of the country's favourite sons; Vlad Sarca from Sparking Capital and Cristian Munteanu from Early Game Ventures.In this episode, you’ll learn:- Romania is poised to deliver many more unicorns than just the famed UI Path- Where to look next in Romania, who to partner with and what you should keep in mind when thinking about Romania- Why Cristian & Vlad are bullish on Romania and all of CEE as the driving force of the next wave of VC tech success stories- Why Cristian doesn't want to hear about founders' passions or high-browed thoughts about work/life-balance

This is the second part of our interview with J Skyler, the founder and general partner of Venture University, the world's leading investor accelerator & VU Venture Partners, a multi-stage venture capital fund focused on Consumer, Enterprise, Fintech, Frontier, Healthcare, and PropTech. With $1.8 Billion invested in more than 250 companies, including greats like Beyond Meat, Facebook, Uber, Twitter, Wish and the list goes on, we're excited to bring you the second part of our interview with Skyler. In this episode, you’ll learn:– Why Skyler is hoping to see European founders focus more on what's unique to Europe, impact being a pillar example- Why Skyler thinks European startups actually have a better global outlook than what he typically sees in the US - How Skyler thinks about partnering with the best VC funds from a co-investment as well as LP perspective - Why Skyler would rather have an A-market with a B-team, than an A-team with a B-market & why he doesn't think operator experience is core to being a good VC

J Skyler is the founder and general partner of Venture University & VU Venture Partners, a multi-stage venture capital fund focused on Consumer, Enterprise, Fintech, Frontier, Healthcare, and PropTech. VU Venture Partners has offices in San Francisco, New York City, and Hong Kong. Skyler is also the Founder & CEO of Venture University, the world's leading investor accelerator for individuals breaking into venture capital, private equity, and angel investing. The team have invested over $1.8 Billion in more than 250 companies, including Beyond Meat, Facebook, Uber, Twitter, Venmo, FabFitFun, Oculus, Oscar, Wish, and other great tech success stories. In this episode, you’ll learn:– How J Skyler has built one of the world's leading investor accelerator programs as well as a top performing fund yielding 4x net cash returns to LPs.- Why VC must be learnt on the job and university education is a lame duck to entrepreneurial innovators - How VU thinks about the European opportunity & how they're approaching their expansion to our continent- Why J Skyler is 100% satisfied with the current female & minority representation in their cohorts

Christian Hernandez is a founding partner of the newly launched VC firm 2150, a climate VC fund focused on technology companies that seek to sustainably reimagine and reshape the urban environment by solving major problems across the Urban Stack. With a whopping 270 M€ raised in just one year, 2150 is the biggest VC fundraise for a European first-time fund ever and we're diving deep on exactly what allowed them to do that.In this episode, you’ll learn:- How a mid-life crisis led to the formation of Europe's biggest first-time fund ever- What made the difference for 2150's founding team when fundraising- How 2150's LP-base is much more than financial investors looking for returns- What's a Gigacorn, why Christian made up the term and how he hunts for them

Kjartan Rist is the founder and managing partner of Concentric, a UK/Denmark based Seed+ and Beyond fund focusing on B2B and B2B2C startups building software companies solving nontrivial problems in traditional sectors. Kjartan has been in VC for 20 years so naturally, we dive deep with him on how the European startup & VC scene has changed over the last two decades as well as his firm, his thesis and his vehement belief in being a hands-on investor.In this episode, you’ll learn:- How the European VC scene has changed over the last 20 years & why the perception of Spaniards being on siesta and the French on strike no longer applies to Europe. - Why the best founders are like cockroaches and what's underlying the current growth in European entrepreneurship- Why Kjartan hunts for startups that solve non-trivial problems in traditional sectors - What's causing the funding gap in seed+ to series B and how Kjartan & Concentric delivers value to founders in this space