In this episode, we welcome Giulia Van Waeyenberge to the pod. Giulia is an experienced investor and judge in the European VC Awards and a Managing Director at Sofina Group, an investment holding company with more than 9 billion in AUM.

Sofina Group is a global investor investing mainly in the Venture and Growth stages. Its sectors include digital, healthcare and life sciences, consumer, education, and sustainable supply chain sectors. Sofina has a direct investment strategy, investing from a series B/C until IPO and beyond. They also invest in venture and growth capital funds on a global basis. They invest from their balance sheet and take a long-term view. Sofina is also a shareholder in Vinted (a second-hand marketplace), Mistral AI, Cleo (an AI chatbot providing financial advice to young adults), and ByteDance.

On the fund side, they have long-standing relationships with US managers where they have invested for several decades in firms like Sequoia, Iconiq, and Lightspeed. In Europe, they invested in several European GPs, some more emerging than others. In the seed stage, they have a partnership with Point Nine, Moonfire, Atlantic Labs, Seedcamp, Visionaries Club, Stride, and Hoxton. On the seed/series A stage they have invested in Blossom Capital, Singular, and Alven. On the platform side, they have in funds like Northzone, Balderton, Atomico, Dawn, and Felix Capital.

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

Chapters

05:49 Direct Investments and Partnerships
06:16 Allocation and Investment Decision-making
07:40 Investing from a Balance Sheet
08:39 Investment Pace and Diversification
09:08 Allocation to Venture and Growth
10:44 Investing in Venture for Multiple Decades
22:56 Views on the European Venture Ecosystem
25:12 Maturity of the European Ecosystem
28:37 US Investors' Perspective on Europe
32:37 Venture in Eastern Europe
33:37 Long-Term Orientation and Dealing with Challenges
37:58 Shoutout to Ophelia Brown of Blossom
39:25 Learnings from the Last 10 Years
41:30 Tips for Emerging VCs in Fundraising
42:44 Counterintuitive Lessons in Venture