EUVC

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

Few periods are as busy as the end of the year. And that is definitely true for us at eu.vc this year as we announce yet another investment that we’ve been working hard on behind the scenes throughout the summer and fall. Consequently, it’s with great pride and pleasure that we announce our angel LP syndicate investment into First Momentum Ventures 🥳.

We’ve known the team for a little more than a year now and have truly enjoyed following them and working with them throughout their raise. Excellent execution, great reputation from all who have come across them and a team that’s set on a path that definitely looks like one that will lead to greatness.

We’re honored to have been invited along for the ride and will make sure that you will all get to hear much more from this team in the future. But now, we invite you to start by getting to know them via this pod episode and our spotlight article on eu.vc 👀🎧


Overview:
First Momentum Ventures (FMV), established in 2017, is a pioneering venture capital firm based in Karlsruhe, Germany, concentrating on pre-seed investments in European technology-driven B2B startups. They have been trailblazers in pre-seed venture capital in Germany since 2018, emphasizing a unique pre-seed strategy with a strong technical DNA. The team behind had its start supporting startups from a pre-seed campus incubator they started in 2015, which have collectively attracted over 500m € in capital​​​​.

Fund II Overview:
The launch of FMV's €35M Fund II targets technical pre-seed founders in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and across Europe, focusing on sectors like Deep Tech, Industrial & Climate Tech, Dev Tools & Data, and Enterprise SaaS. They aim to build a portfolio of around 35 companies, targeting approximately 5% ownership with an average initial ticket size of €0.5m and keeping around 30% in follow-on reserves​​.Investment

Performance and Strategy:
FMV Fund I (2018 vintage) demonstrates top quartile performance with a portfolio size of 27 startups, a portfolio multiple of 1.97, and a total IRR of 28%. There are already several clear outliers visible that have a large potential to grow into fund returners (i.e. returning the entire fund by themselves). The follow-on capital raised by these startups amounted to 150m€, highlighting the fund's success in backing scalable and investment-worthy ventures​​.

Unique Approach and Value Addition: FMV stands out for its deep technical understanding and laser-focused pre-seed DNA. Their team of engineers & scientists, connected to leading European universities and industry decision-makers, brings a unique perspective to investing. They are known for rapid processes, candor, and risk-affine technical founder partnerships - true to their credo of “engineers at heart, investors by choice”. FMV's support extends beyond funding to include a dedicated support platform for a holistic support tailored specifically to super early technical companies.

Investment Thesis:
FMV's investment thesis is focused on supporting European deep-tech champions at the onset of their journey. They identified a gap in the market where tech founders face challenges due to a lack of true deep-tech VCs, risk aversion, and a limiting focus on SaaS by European investors. FMV aims to address these gaps by leveraging its technical expertise and network to support founders in overcoming these challenges​​.

Conclusion:
First Momentum Ventures represents a strategic investment opportunity, especially for those interested in early-stage, technology-driven B2B startups in the DACH region. Their technical expertise, strong network, and proven track record in supporting startups from pre-seed to scale make them a compelling choice for investors looking to engage with innovative European startups.Given their performance, unique approach, deep technical expertise, and perfect community fit with our approach to LP investing at eu.vc, we believe investing in First Momentum Ventures' Fund II presents one of the best opportunities currently available in the market to participate in the growth of Frontier Deep Tech Startups in the DACH region at the earliest stages.

Today we have Ondrej Bartos with us. Ondrej is a Founding GP at Credo Ventures, a 75m€ Seed stage venture fund in Prague (and a bit elsewhere!) to back Central Eastern European Tech Startups.Credo are investing out of Fund 4 with a total 250M€ AUM and an established portfolio of 60 companies and notable investments including UI Path, ProductBoard, PriceFX, Resistant AI, and Eleven Labs.


Chapters:
00:00:00 - Ondrej & Credo Bio
00:00:41 - Announcing Roundtable on The Evolution of European Venture
00:04:06 - How Ondrej Got Into Venture
00:06:34 - Pivotal Moments in Venture Investing
00:09:18 - The Challenges of Being an Entrepreneur and VC
00:12:07 - Struggling with Success and Collaboration vs Competition Among VCs
00:14:31 - Maintaining a Calm & Collaborative Approach in Competitive Deals
00:16:58 - The Transformative Power of Success
00:19:34 - Managing Expectations and Transparency
00:22:17 - Collaborative Competitive Rivalry
00:24:44 - The Meaning of Credo
00:27:15 - Supporting Entrepreneurs
00:29:32 - The Importance of Passion and Hard Work
00:32:15 - Respecting Reshma and Co-Investing
00:34:44 - Staying as a Seed and Pre-Seed Fund
00:37:13 - Building Towards a Franchise
00:39:53 - The Logic Behind the Crossover Fund Experiment
00:42:26 - Creating Relationships with Late Stage Investors
00:45:08 - Failure in Internships and Startups

Satgana is a next-generation Climate Tech Venture Capital firm investing in the Future of Earth. With an established portfolio of 13 companies of which ~40% are from underrepresented backgrounds. But maybe most interestingly to many, Satgana boasts an outstanding Multiple on Invested Capital (MOIC) of 4.2x on the fund that is currently closing - in other words; here’s the opportunity to buy in at 1x to a portfolio that’s already achieved quite a mark-up… Seems like impact can go hand-in-hand returns 💞.

What is more, with a community-focused approach and 60+ Limited Partners, Satgana is a great match for us and clearly well-positioned to become one of our strong partners in the climate space giving us exactly what we look for in emerging managers: potential outlier performance, insights and strong co-investment opportunities.

In one sentence, Satgana is looking to support purpose-driven entrepreneurs in Europe and Africa who are developing pain-killers (must-haves), not vitamins (nice-to-haves), to the increasingly severe environmental problems we face today. Needless to say, we’re more than eager to share this in-depth episode and article on Satgana, their journey, and the mission and vision that unites the team behind it.

Chapters:
00:00:00 - LP Syndicate into Satgana Fund One
00:02:16 - eu.vc - a union of values
00:04:27 - The Challenge and Opportunity of Climate Change
00:06:23 - The Journey to First Close
00:08:17 - The Decision to Pursue Funding
00:10:21 - Building an Investment Firm with LPs as the Focus
00:12:19 - Fee Structure and Carry Model
00:14:22 - Investing in Climate Technology
00:16:22 - Investing with Strategic Angels
00:18:14 - Investment Strategy and Fund Size
00:20:09 - Co-investment and Diversification with Angels
00:22:00 - The complexities of GP angel collaboration
00:23:49 - Following On Potential and Portfolio Performance
00:25:50 - Promising Trajectory and Revenue Growth
00:27:54 - The Power of Small Funds
00:30:01 - Investing in Climate Tech
00:32:06 - Addressing Methane Leaks in the Energy Sector
00:34:13 - Y Combinator and the European Ecosystem
00:36:14 - The Success of Y Combinator and Portfolio Companies
00:38:12 - Investing in Africa's Impact Potential
00:40:16 - Portfolio Overview and Investment Focus
00:42:20 - The Importance of Structure and Tracking Investments
00:44:02 - Commitment to Diversity and Social Impact
00:46:02 - Reaching Out on LinkedIn

Today we have Ben Topor with us. Ben is a Founder & Managing Partner at Titan Capital, an investment firm in Israel backing Israeli, European and American companies by providing growth equity & secondary capital to world-class internet, software, consumer, and financial technology companies, with a bottom-up approach to secondary and growth.

Titan is raising a 50m USD Fund, investing in companies and venture capital partnerships directly and via secondary transactions and is backed by top-tier global investment firms, leading corporations and family offices. And, of note, Tiger Management, which is a well-known investment firm that built an impressive track record in seeding some of the world's best fund managers, backed Titan.

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction and Event Announcement
00:02:47 - The Future of European Venture Capital
00:05:50 - The Pivotal Book: Crossing the Chasm
00:08:51 - The Importance of Solving a Pressing Need
00:11:57 - Factors affecting investment strategies
00:14:50 - Timing the Market and Spreading Your Bets
00:17:58 - Different Considerations for Selling Shares
00:20:48 - Strategies for Secondary Investments
00:23:50 - Finding Bargains in the Secondary Market
00:26:56 - Investing in European Startups
00:29:57 - LP secondary deals
00:36:21 - Winning with a Data driven approach
00:39:21 - The Flexibility of Investing in Growth Companies
00:42:37 - Fundraising Challenges for VCs
00:45:48 - VC Strategies: Long-lasting businesses vs. Threatening categories

Today we have Colin Daymond Hanna with us. Colin is a Partner at Balderton. And I think it goes without saying that I need not introduce this firm; but just in case anyone listening in has just started in venture, I’ll say that in the two decades since Balderton’s founding, they have worked with hundreds of extraordinary European founders, and have raised eight funds totalling more than 3bn Euros.

At Balderton, Colin invests in purpose-driven, product-focused founders spanning verticals including Cloud, Consumer, Crypto, and Fintech. Colin has led the investments into Fuse Energy (formerly Tesseract), Ory, Supernormal, AnyType, Clue (note: the links go to Balderton’s annoucements, interesting reading!). Colin is also part of the team at Balderton responsible for driving the firm's Sustainable Future Goals initiatives.


Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction to Colin Daymon Hannah
00:02:54 - Growing up in Asia & the US and transitioning to venture
00:07:28 - Taking a Leap of Faith to Berlin
00:09:51 - The Role of Luck in Decision Making
00:12:05 - Prioritization and Communication
00:14:27 - Balderton's Purpose as a Partner for European Entrepreneurs
00:16:38 - Clue: Empowering Women's Health
00:18:56 - The Local First Mentality and Censorship Resistance
00:21:31 - Lack of Empathy in VC and Overstretching
00:23:40 - Importance of Investor Alignment
00:26:03 - On Purpose and Prioritization
00:28:35 - Prioritization & Portfolio Management
00:30:49 - Transparency in Investing
00:32:54 - Building Networks with Investors
00:35:10 - The Importance of Strong Communication and Vulnerability
00:37:17 - Communication and Gratitude
00:39:12 - How Sports Shape Your Path
00:41:31 - The Importance of Trusting the Process
00:44:01 - Transparency in Achieving Global Goals
00:46:07 - Investing in companies aligned with SDGs
00:48:32 - Express Championing of Positive Externalities
00:50:26 - Tips for Emerging VCs in Europe
00:52:46 - Focusing on the Purpose, Not the Valuation

If there's any market that's not slowing down, it's the secondaries market. And it’s a buyer’s market. But how do you win? We convened some of Europe's best secondaries investors to discuss the current market and how to build your investment strategy, evaluate opportunities and negotiate deals.

Expert Secondaries Panelists:
- Joe Schorge, Founding Partner of Isomer Capital
- Kemper Ahl, Vice President of Industry Ventures
- Martijn de Wever, CEO & Founder of Floww

Go to eu.vc for the write up of our key learnings and as well as the video recording 👀


Chapters:
00:00:00 - Welcome to the roundtable and introductions
00:03:02 - Solving Pain Points in the Private Markets
00:11:29 - The Rise of Venture Secondaries
00:14:20 - Creating a Systemic Approach
00:20:07 - The Need for Innovation in the Market
00:23:00 - Liquidity Solutions and the Secondaries Market
00:25:43 - The Evolution of Intermediaries in the Market
00:28:26 - Creative structuring for late-stage investments
00:33:59 - Bridging the Gap in Due Diligence for New Investors
00:39:14 - Tactics for Dealing in Secondary Market
00:41:51 - The Platform Approach to Venture Secondaries
00:44:35 - Timing the Market vs. Timing the Asset
00:47:19 - Negotiating a Secondary Transaction
00:53:00 - Strategies for Buying into Pre-IPO Companies
01:01:13 - Experts needed for private Capital markets

Today we have Max Bautin with us. Max is a Founding GP at IQ Capital, a 700m€ Seed & Early Stage venture firm in London to back European Deep Tech Startups.IQ Capital is investing out of a 185 m€ Fund 4 and also has a 150 m€ Growth Opportunities fund and has an established portfolio of over 60 companies and notable investments including Thought Machine, Paragraf and Nyobolt.

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:01:51 - From Startups to Asset Management to IQ Capital
00:03:25 - The Cambridge Mafia in Venture Investing
00:05:05 - The Success of the Cambridge Ecosystem
00:06:49 - Why Avoiding Negative Value Added by VCs Is The Holy Grail
00:08:30 - Deep Tech vs Traditional Venture
00:10:06 - Defensibility and Scalability in Deep Tech Companies
00:11:44 - Deep Tech Investments and Hardware Integration
00:13:27 - The Growing Importance of Deep Tech
00:19:51 - IQ’s definition of Deep Tech
00:21:20 - The Productization Journey
00:22:51 - On The Duration of VC Funds
00:24:32 - Focusing on Future Opportunities
00:26:07 - Shoutout to Max's Bestie
00:27:49 - The Success of the Cambridge Ecosystem
00:29:25 - The Importance of IP and Academic Support in Innovation
00:31:05 - The Rise of Cambridge's Tech Ecosystem and Beyond
00:32:47 - Expanding into European Ecosystems
00:34:20 - Building Trust and Reputation in the European Tech Industry
00:35:54 - Quick Fire with Max