EUVC – Details, episodes & analysis

Welcome to a new episode of the EUVC podcast, where our good friends Dan Bowyer and Mads Jensen from SuperSeed cover recent news and movements in the European tech landscape 💬

Go to eu.vc to read the core take-aways.

Chapters:

00:06 Microsoft's Nuclear Energy Plans
00:13 Energy Context in Europe
00:22 UK's Energy Challenges
02:34 Three Mile Island and Energy Needs
06:24 UK's Energy Strategy 
09:18 Amazon's Office Return Policy
11:37 Chip Manufacturing in the UAE
13:56 Future of AI by 2030
14:57 Healthcare and AI
16:27 AGI and AI's Impact on Jobs
18:33 Telegram's Privacy Concessions
20:26 Mark Zuckerberg's Orion Glasses
21:48 Neuralink and Future Interfaces
25:44 Foundations Paper on UK Stagnation

In this episode of the EUVC podcast, Andreas discusses with Fatou Diagne, Founder and Managing Partner at Bootstrap Europe.

Bootstrap Europe is a venture investment firm currently raising the fourth fund, aiming for €350-400M, after closing Fund III with €157M. With €250M in assets under management, Bootstrap Europe is headquartered across London, Luxembourg, and Zurich.

Bootstrap Europe targets companies in the post-Series A+ or Series B stage—those with venture capital already on their cap table, solid KPIs, or valuable patents and assets in place. The firm’s sweet spot? European HQ’d companies, or those with European founders or VCs, with an upcoming allocation to support U.S. expansions. They even have 10% of their fund reserved for other exciting regions, like Africa.

Bootstrap Europe specializes in geeky, transformative sectors: Deeptech, Life Sciences, Cleantech, Fintech, and SaaS, and some of their notable investments are:

• Scandit (Swiss Unicorn) in Machine Vision
• Blueprint Genetics (exited investment, Finnish tech used by Quest Diag during COVID - 1 of 2 largest labs in US)
• Telensa: largest installed base of smart city lighting wordlwide, bought by Signify
• Recent undisclosed exciting investments in robotics, AI healthcare, foodtech, RNA tech

Go to eu.vc for our core learnings and the full video interview 👀

Chapters:

00:03 Meet Fatou Diagne and Bootstrap Europe
00:26 Bootstrap Europe's Investment Focus 
01:25 Diving Deep with Fatou: Trends and Growth
02:51 The Origin of Bootstrap Europe
04:11 Venture Debt vs. Venture Capital
11:11 The Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank
20:27 The Role of Venture Debt in Europe
28:29 Sector Focus: Life Sciences and AI
36:45 Momentum in Business and Financing
37:00 Regional Preferences in Venture Debt
38:16 Germany: Cultural Challenges and Progress 
39:17 Spain: A Unique Venture Debt Market
40:43 Nordics and European Investment Bank
47:33 Macroeconomic Influence on Venture Debt
54:05 Innovative Financing Structures
56:54 Future Predictions for Venture Debt
01:02:09 AI's Impact on Venture Debt and Beyond

Kicking off our efforts to further connect the European VC and Corporate world, we’re talking to our in-house CVC expert and friend Jeppe Høier, uncovering his biggest learnings in CVC, how he thinks about corporates as LPs and the key trends he thinks will impact the industry going forward.

Jeppe Høier is a long-time corporate venturing specialist and former partner at Maersk Growth with more than 80 MUSD invested for a multiple of 3.6x with massive breakout Einride in the portfolio.

Go to eu.vc for our core learnings and the full video interview 👀

Chapters:

00:25 Bridging the Gap Between VC and Corporate Worlds
02:00 The Growing Importance of CVC
02:28 Jeppe's Journey into Venture Capital
03:12 Joining Maersk Growth
05:00 Maersk Growth: Early Days and Challenges
08:03 Strategic Shifts and Direct Investments
11:10 Case Studies and Early Investments
18:18 Strategic vs Financial Motives in CVC
19:18 Challenges and Misconceptions in CVC
25:24 Hiring Talent for CVC Teams
27:47 Diligence in CVC Partnerships
39:15 Corporate Climbing and Collaboration
42:08 Corporate LP Investing 45:08 Trends in CVC in Europe
47:28 Conclusion and Future Episodes

Join us as Tom Wilson from Seedcamp and Anthony Danon from Cocoa talk to Harsh Sinha, Wise-CTO about his angel investing journey, thesis and strategy and core learnings.

Harsh is a seasoned technologist with a passion for creating innovative, scalable, and customer-centric digital experiences. With a strong foundation in team building and a knack for impactful business strategies, he's played a pivotal role in developing server-side technologies and enhancing consumer experiences on web and mobile platforms.

His professional journey includes a significant tenure at PayPal as Director of Product, where he spearheaded the product strategy and development of mobile applications and software for mobile wallet experiences. Join us as we dive into Harsh's insights and experiences in powering global financial infrastructure and pushing the boundaries of technology in finance.

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction to the Super Angel Pod
00:02:32 - Building Experiences & the Primacy of Passionate Builders
00:07:19 - On Non-Technical Founders and Becoming More Objective
00:11:42 - Core Learnings from Angel Investing
00:13:52 - Finding a Middle Ground
00:16:06 - Balancing Diversification and Time to Support Founders
00:18:17 - Assessing Founders and their passion for solving problems
00:20:25 - Three Core Learnings: Team, First Principles, and Avoiding Bias
00:22:35 - Being Naive in Angel Investing and the Importance of Passion
00:24:44 - The Reality of Investments
00:26:55 - Lessons in Angel Investing & Investing Across Europe and Asia
00:31:19 - The Access Issue in European Markets
00:33:32 - Building a Global Lens and Investing Internationally

Today we have Greg Dewerpe with us. Greg is a founder & CIO at A/O, a venture firm in London backing European founders that are building innovative technology companies that directly and indirectly solve mission critical problems in the Built World with a unique access to some of the largest B2B customers in the industry.

A/O has a total of 250€ MN in AUM, an established portfolio of 23 companies and notable investments including SPAN, Passivelogic, SatteliteVu, Plentific and Enter.

At A/O, Greg focuses on building world technology and positive transformation (like decarbonisation, climate resiliency and digitalisation), in Europe & the US, late seed to series B.A/O is also the first VC to ever join as a Global Innovator at the WEF which the attentive listener will know we are big supporters of given our involvement with the UpLink Initiative.

Watch the whole interview and our key take-aways on eu.vc 💖

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction to the European VC Podcast
00:04:12 - Overcoming Challenges in Career Transition
00:07:55 - The Power of Visualization and Positivity
00:11:44 - The Challenges of the Industry
00:15:34 - Building Europe’s biggest Solo GP
00:19:25 - Keyman Risk vs. Team Risk
00:22:54 - The Journey towards Growth and Improvement
00:26:34 - On Bullying, Balancing Work and Parenthood
00:33:59 - Being Present in Relationships
00:38:02 - Confidence, Humility, and Growth in Entrepreneurship
00:41:58 - The Challenges and Opportunities of VC in Real Estate
00:45:44 - The Impact of Technology Transformation on Asset Prices
00:49:32 - Aligning Doing Good and Making Money
00:53:35 - Risk Tolerance and Acceptance of Failure in Venture Capital
00:57:14 - The Benefits of Being a Specialist in Venture Capital

We’re kicking the Super Angel series into a whole new gear for 2024 by introducing Seedcamp-partner Tom Wilson as our new co-host 🥳 alongside the existing host team of the amazing Anthony Danon from Cocoa, David and Andreas 🎙️

But before celebrating Tom, let us just pause and extend a heartfelt shoutout to Anthony Danon, whose contributions as a co-host have been pivotal to the Super Angel Podcast so far 💖. Anthony's vast network, particularly potent within fintech (but, tbh, generally quite mindblowing), has brought forth some of the most brilliant founders and operators to our platform.

But there’s another reason why Anthony is the perfect host for the series: with just shy of twenty angel investments made prior to launching his angel fund Cocoa, his money is where his mouth is - and with two portfolio unicorns, that’s a good place 🦄.

Anthony's deep understanding of the VC space and his dedication to bridging the gap between angels and VCs have been invaluable. His efforts have not only sculpted the podcast's feel, but also its success.

Thank you, Anthony. We can’t wait to continue on our joint journey for decades to come 🚀

Welcoming Tom Wilson to the host team 🎧
Tom comes to us with a wealth of experience from Seedcamp, where he has worked closely with some of the most promising startups in Europe. But Seedcamp is way more than just one of Europe’s top tier seed VCs with a ludicrous track. Ever since their founding in 2007, Seedcamp has been dedicated to connecting VCs and Angels across Europe having built its own fully-fledged network economy where 1,000+ founders, experts, angels and VCs come together to make each other stronger.

Or as Tom said in connection to the launch of Seedcamp VI:

"It does make sense to build a village around the founders for that initial phase and so with our very collaborative approach, and the fact that we had the chance over the past years to work with pretty much everyone that invests early in Europe, we can be a catalyst to really help entrepreneurs find the best partner for that round."

Being a catalyst for finding the right partners. That’s exactly what the eu.vc pod is about - be that as an LP, a co-investor or a founder. Connecting Europe. The super angel series being specifically designed to champion the amazing angels across the continent.

By joining the Super Angel Podcast, Tom brings the collective wisdom of Seedcamp to the forefront, offering listeners a unique insight into the journey of tech investing from the ground up​​.In case you should’ve missed some of our Super Angel episodes (which you’d be excused for, we’re keeping a pretty good pace on the pod), we’ve collected them all for you on the playlist below 🎧

Today we have Klementina Österberg from GU Ventures & Ted Persson from EQT Ventureshttps://eqtventures.com/with us🎙️.

Ted is a Partner at EQT Ventures, a 1.1bn multi Stage venture fund with offices spread across Europe and the US. EQT Ventures are investing out of Fund 3 with a total €2.3bn AUM and an established portfolio of 120+ companies and notable investments including Wolt, Einride, Nothing, Anyfin and Candela.

Klementinahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/klementina-%C3%B6sterberg-fd-jozsa-b5b614/is CEO at GU Ventures, an early seed investor and incubator in Gothenburg, Sweden, that is fully owned by the Swedish State and is an evergreen investment vehicle. GU Ventures invests in deep tech companies formed out of the research at universities. They are investing up to 200k€, have established over 165 companies, of which 82 are in their portfolio today and notable investments including Bico, I-Tech, Surgical Science, all of which are listed on Stockholm Stock Exchange and Nasdaq today.

We’ve reeled in Klementina and Ted for this episode as a warm-up for our participation at the GoWest Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden 🥳 which is proving to a be a real force in DeepTech punching above its wait just as Gothenburg and Sweden is. We’ll be there as there’s lined up for an incredibly cool investor day counting headlines like:

• Fireside chat with Staffan Helgesson, the founder of Creandum
• Climate panel with partners from Norrsken, Pact VC and Planet A,
• DeepTech panel with partners from Speedinvest, Ventech, EQT and NATO Innovation Fund and thought provoking presentations by Sebastian von Ribbentrop at Join Capital and Nicholas Nelson on The rise of Defense Tech
• LP panels with leading pension funds and corporates from the region as well as of course the EIF, Isomer Capital and BFP.

As said, just like the region, GoWest is truly attracting the best of the best. So don’t miss it if you’re into DeepTech 🤖

Chapters
00:00:00 - Introduction to EQT Ventures and GU Ventures
00:02:24 - Klementina & Ted’s Journey in the Venture Industry
00:07:14 - Investing in Deep Tech Startups
00:09:32 - Investing in Startups from Universities
00:11:40 - Investing in Companies Coming out of Academia
00:13:53 - Building Diverse Founding Teams
00:16:14 - The Skills of a Founder and Investor Relations
00:18:24 - Investment Strategies and Cap Tables
00:20:47 - Investing in Post-Internet Companies
00:23:03 - The Need for A Deep Tech Playbook
00:25:14 - Investing in Hardware
00:27:42 - Capital requirements for deep tech companies
00:30:14 - Investing in Deep Tech Startups
00:32:37 - Managing Opportunities in the Sustainable Industrial Sector
00:34:58 - Investment Strategies and Success Stories
00:37:34 - Balancing Expertise and Fresh Perspectives
00:39:52 - Building a Strong Portfolio with Balanced Capital Needs
00:42:04 - The Potential of Biotech
00:44:20 - Managing Technology Risk
00:46:31 - Collaborating with Other Investors as a VC
00:48:50 - Calling for Co-investors at Deep Tech Event
00:51:10 - European Tech Sovereignty
00:53:18 - Drop Us a Review

Considering joining us at GoWest? Here’s what you need to know 🧠


Why GoWest?Two universities. Eight incubators. Many global brands. Industrial heritage. Gothenburg is at the forefront of research& development and home to emerging industries striving to solve tomorrow’s challenges. GoWest is unique. It is fantastic meeting place for investors, startups, scaleups, talent and other stakeholders who want to engage and don’t want to miss out on the opportunities our industries and deep tech spin outs have to offer.What can you expect?There is something for everyone. We facilitate matchmaking and have a dedicated stage for fundraising startups. The hottest topics in deep tech, defense, climate, and health tech will be showcased on the main stage and next year the event will feature a brand-new Deep Tech Investor Day. The Investor Day will add extra value by bringing West Sweden’s investor community together with international peers to discuss current topics and build lasting relationships.Anything else?Yes, Gothenburg is one of the fastest-growing regions in Europe and that adds to our competitiveness on the international stage. GoWest enables easy access to our ecosystem and the region's key stakeholders. The conference has a great line up of speakers and topics on the main stage, side events, networking opportunities and more exciting announcements to come.

Today we have Staffan Helgesson with us. Staffan is the founder of Creandum, a European early stage venture firm with no appointed headquarter but offices (or hubs as they call them) in Sweden, London, Berlin and San Francisco. Creandum just turned 20 years and are investing out of their 6th fund which is a $500m fund to back founders and companies across Europe. In addition to Europe they invest in European diaspora founders in the US.

The firm is a generalist investor but have organised themselves in six main verticals; Health, Climate, Technical SaaS, Application SaaS, Fintech and Consumer, where they spend most of their time.

Creandum has approximately $2 Bn under management and have done close to 150 investments over the years with notable investments including Spotify, Klarna, Trade Republic, Pleo, Bolt, iZettle, Cornershop, depop, Kahoot!, Taxfix, Kry and Factorial. At Creandum, Staffan leads the climate vertical and is also very active investing in Saas companies.

Chapters
00:00:00 - Introduction to Staffan and Creandum
00:01:52 - From Small-Town Origins to Silicon Valley Inspiration
00:03:49 - Loving Niche Sports and Venture Capital in Europe
00:05:47 - The European Investing Advantage & Time as a Solution
00:09:35 - Staffan’s Pivotal Moment
00:11:37 - The Importance of Bold Ideas and Drive
00:13:45 - The Importance of User-Centric Design and Delighting the End User
00:15:35 - Focusing on the Top Companies
00:17:34 - Combining Transformational Change and Hearing the Train
00:19:29 - Investing in the Future of Electric Vehicle Charging
00:21:14 - The Benefits of Electrification and the Future of EVs
00:23:26 - Shout Out to Co-Investor Angel or LP
00:25:18 - Shout out to Creandum during a difficult time
00:27:14 - Building a Franchise
00:29:12 - Building a Firm for Institutions
00:30:59 - Sustainable Competitive Advantage in Venture
00:32:52 - Gut Feeling and Logical Analysis
00:34:46 - The Importance of Gut Feeling in Decision Making
00:36:58 - Approaching Tier One Institutions
00:39:10 - Europe's New Beginnings

Join us for the second episode of the NEUVC podcast which is dedicated to those embarking on their journey in the VC. In this episode, Freddie Macpherson, analyst at Isomer Capital, and Linda Võeras, associate at Karma Ventures, are joined by Mari Luukkainen, Principal at Finland based Icebreaker VC. With a background of building and scaling companies and a great eye and dedication to content, Mari has amassed a massive following of 20,000 people on LinkedIn. In this we dive into her journey as an operator as well as share tips and tricks for VCs looking to develop their personal brand ✨

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Developing Your Personal Brand in VC with Mar Lanan
00:02:59 - Finding Value in Your Journey
00:05:53 - Transitioning to Startup Growth
00:08:43 - From Cleaner Recruiting to VC Investment
00:11:40 - From Hands-on Help to Coaching
00:14:48 - The Paradox of Finding a Job
00:17:56 - Consistency in Content Creation
00:21:12 - Consistency and Networking for Building an Audience
00:24:18 - Attracting Founders at the Pre-Founder Stage
00:27:10 - Building a Personal Brand for Investors
00:30:16 - Overcoming the Challenges of Branding
00:33:12 - The Importance of Emotion in Branding
00:36:20 - The Importance of Emotional Support in Startups
00:39:17 - Transferring Writing Skills to Investment
00:42:14 - Shifting from Operator to Coach in VC
00:45:05 - Building Something Yourself First
00:47:54 - The Role of Venture Capital

We always hear from new VCs entering the market, but rarely do we ever hear from giants leaving the market. Today, we bring you such a conversation.


Honoring the gravity of the situation and the commitment by Fred Destin to share so openly, we invited Joe Schorge, founding partner of Isomer Capital and one of Europe’s most important LP voices, to lead the conversation.

We hope you enjoy listening in as much as we did 💞 watch it in full on eu.vc 👀

Chapters:
00:00:00 - The EUVC podcast with Joe Schorge and Fred Destin
00:02:54 - The Decision to Pause
00:04:59 - Journey of Personal Interrogation
00:07:08 - Motivation and the Next Iteration
00:09:20 - Stepping out of the Noise
00:11:19 - The Challenges of Running a Firm and Raising Funds
00:13:16 - Investor Reactions to Fundraising Efforts
00:15:14 - The State of Fundraising and LP Responsibility
00:17:24 - Positive Response to the Blog Post
00:19:08 - Triggered Responses and Leaving the Prevailing Narrative
00:20:19 - Mistakes and Challenges in Going Public with Cazoo
00:23:08 - The Rise of New VC Funds
00:25:08 - Knowing Your Value and Purpose
00:28:58 - Holding Ambiguity as a VC
00:31:00 - Self Awareness and Humility
00:32:57 - Investor Alignment and Board Tensions
00:35:11 - Shielding Founders and Managing Conflict in Investments
00:37:25 - Framing Discussions in the Right Way
0:38:40 - The State of the Industry Update for 2024
00:43:23 - The Importance of Shadow Work and Enhancing the Present Moment
00:45:20 - The Importance of Personal Work and Connection
00:47:02 - Future Coaching Program for Young VCs