EUVC

Today we are happy to welcome Chris and Alexis.
Chris Wade is an all-time favorite guest here at the EUVC Podcast, the co-founder of Isomer Capital is undeniably one of Europe's true OG LPs. With an extensive career as a founder, startup mentor and LP with more than 50 Venture fund investments under his belt, Chris co-leads Isomer's fund investments and leads their co-investment program.
And we brought along for this episode Alexis Houssou, the Founder & Managing Partner of HCVC, an community-first early-stage venture capital firm that helps hardtech founders tackle problems with capital, resources and collaboration.

In this episode, you'll learn:

- The origin story of the relationship between Isomer and HCVC

- Reflections from both sides of the table on managing LP relations in co-investments

- Why Alexis thinks it's paramount that you only do co-investments with LPs/GPs when there's a lot of trust on both sides.

- Why Chris thinks the overwhelming most important thing an LP can ask of a GP is to be transparent and trustworthy.

- Reflections on the inconvenient yet fundamental truth: Funds don't make money, companies make money.

Today we are happy to welcome Umerah Akram and Martijn De Wever.
Umerah is Head of Private Markets at the London Stock Exchange, helping grow the Group’s offering for private companies. Martijn is CEO & Founder of Floww, a digital platform connecting start-ups, venture capitalists, investors, and business partners. LSEG works in collaboration with Floww to create a new standard for data in private markets and connecting the innovation ecosystem to traditional private capital on a single transaction platform.

And we must say, we’ve seen quite a few firms come up in Europe lately trying to disrupt exactly this. And some have looked quite similar, if not indistinguishable. So when we first heard about Floww, we were suspicious.
But we do actually think there’s something to pay attention to here.

‘Cos Floww has partnered with LSEG, yes - that LSEG. The London Stock Exchange Group. And they’re not playing the game of building a centralized platform for private markets, but rather the game of empowering the decentralized nature of private markets.

So what’s the stock exchange getting into this for? Well nothing less than the ushering in of a new type of wholesale market in the UK. An ambition which the government is committed to and is referred to as the Intermission Trading Venue by the UK Treasury, which, in short, is about giving private companies opportunity to access periodic liquidity.

Exactly that is what the LSEG is leveraging their public market assets to deliver.

Tune in for a deep dive that will paint a journey from today's private market to the future’s.


This episode is brought to you in partnership with LSEG and Floww.

Today we are happy yo welcome Bruno Raillard, Co-founder & Managing Partner at Frst, a “Day 1” VC focused on founders building global-scale companies out of the French ecosystem. Launched in 2015, Frst now has over 200m€ under management and has invested in the likes of Payfit, Owkin, Pigment, Electra and Shippeo. Before launching Frst, Bruno has built his career in financial consulting and general management working with startups, SMBs and large enterprises across a broad spectrum of industries.

In this episode you’ll learn:

-The journey from financial consulting, to running a family office and finally launching Frst

- Bruno’s reflections on the French tech and VC ecosystem, why it’s considered closed by many and why an old adage would have said that French startups are destined to max out before unicorn status

- Bruno’s reflections on pivoting from running an FO to running an independent fund

- A deep dive on Frst’s recently launched paper “Appel au Génie Français” (loosely translated to “Call to French Genius”) and how it relates to their investment thesis and strategy


The paper discussed in the episode can be read in English on episode page on eu.vc and in original French on https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/appel-au-génie-français-bruno-raillard

Today we are happy to welcome Enrique Alvarado Hablitzel and Christin ter Braak-Forstinger, Co-Founders of Chi Impact Capital, the conscious impact investor that is creating strong financial returns by investing in core-regenerative business models that advance the most burning Sustainable Development Goals in Europe. Through the Burning Issues Impact Fund, Chi is scaling early growth stage companies using breakthrough technologies to transform the sectors they operate in.

In this episode you'll learn:

- An honest discussion of SFDR and the reason why it’s at risk of being more red tape than real change

- Reflections on the future of vertical farming and the business models and technology being applied in the space

- TTying fund carry to positive impact and the design of governance bodies

Today we are happy to welcome Augustin Sayer, General Partner at OVNI Capital, a VC seed fund specialising in France-based tech startups. Based in Paris, Augustin manages the company's investments in France and Israel. He was previously Partner at Newfund, a french-american fund, overseeing 20 investments in companies such as FairMoney, the largest African neo-bank, and Umiami, a plant-based texture technology company.

In this episode you will learn:


- From Banking to PE, to founder to VC to now emerging manager

- How Gus’ journey as monoentrepreneur made him realize that VC was the way to go

- Everything about the French ecosystem and how to think about it

- Why OVNI’s thesis of backing French founders who are international from day-1 positions them incredibly

Today we are happy to welcome Kim Lundberg, Senior Portfolio Manager at the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark, formerly known as Vækstfonden, a Danish Growth Fund that he joined in 2017. Kin has been supporting numerous Danish startups with venture debt and growth loans in collaboration with both investors and other venture debt lenders, offering a great overview on tech lending.

In this episode you’ll learn:

- Everything about tech lending in Europe, it’s history, role and who it’s for (and not!)

- The core terms you need to know and how to think about them

- The intricacies and nuances of Venture debt and Revenue-based financing and how to employ these services as a VC for your founders

- Kim’s take on the effect of tech lenders not having an equity reward as part of their deal structure

- Where to seek more knowledge and key resources about venture debt

Today we are happy to welcome Nick de la Forge, Co-Founder and General Partner of Planet A, a leading European GreenTech Fund looking to invest into scalable, sustainable innovation. Before following the calling of building Planet A, Nick worked in different roles at leading firms at European deep-tech startups and funds, his own company Scalewonder, and he has a long-ranging track record as an angel investor in the WEB2.0 and WEB3.0.

In this episode you will learn:


- Nick’s surprising journey from his university studies to Web 3 to finally launching Planet A

- Nick's views on ReFi as investment vertical and solution to our climate issues

- How to build from a theory of change when building your fund and why causing systemic change is a success criteria for Planet A

- The importance of ensuring that prospective LPs understand and accept the core assumptions of your fund

- How Planet A employ Life Cycle Assessments to measure impact and use science in your investment decision making

This is the second part of Miguel Pinho's episode. Today we will explore the common misconceptions about the VC techstack and check his top tips for emerging VCs building their techstack. Miguel is the head of technology at Seedcamp, the European seed fund launched in 2007 that helps European entrepreneurs to compete on a global scale. He works on internal and public-facing projects ensuring they leverage the right tool suite to continue to identify, invest and support the most exciting companies out there.

In this episode you will learn:

- Why following the herd and FOMO is the worst, yet one of the most pervasive way to select tools for your VC tech stack

- Why Airtable is an absolute power tool for VCs and Miguel’s perspectives on leveraging it’s power

- Why Miguel believes there’s too little deep thinking about the VC tech stack and too many looking for a magic bullet rather than making the effort to build their own path

- How to think about the organizational development to leverage the power of data and tech as a VC - when to hire a Miguel!? Should you even?

- How Miguel thinks about the trend of data driven VC and if it’s more than just big words

Today we have a special episode, brought to you by Latitude 59, the flagship startup and tech event of the world’s first digital society taking place in Tallinn, Estonia, from the 24th to the 26th of May.
Latitude59, in collaboration with a syndicate by Estonian Business Angels Network and TeraVC, is looking for bold and promising startups that are shifting paradigms and changing the world for the better, to compete for €1 million in 2023. The application deadline is April 9th. Make sure not to miss it!
And on that note, we are happy to welcome Andrus, Founding Partner of Tera VC, and Martin, Head of Business Development at TEHNOPOL, member of EstBAN and co-lead of the 1M€ investment during Latitude59 conference.

In this episode you’ll learn:


– Why you should consider having Latitude59 on your event plan this year


– Why Andrus and Martin have committed to the 1m€ prize pot for the Latitude59 Pitch competition


– A look behind the scenes of the process, deliberations and decision criteria behind the 1m€ prize pot


– A discussion of the Estonian venture scene and how it’s positioned in relation to the New Nordics and Baltics

If you are a EUVC regular listener you know we've had a few of Seedcamp's stars on the show, but this will be a whole new ride. This is the first of a two-part special episode. Today we are happy to welcome Miguel, head of technology at Seedcamp, he works on internal and public-facing projects ensuring they leverage the right tool suite to continue to identify, invest and support the most exciting companies out there.

In this episode you will learn:

- Miguel’s journey to becoming one of Europe’s leading voices on the VC Tech stack & the path to being a truly data-driven VC

- How Seedcamp’s journey with tech took Miguel from a Fireman-phase, through a Gandalf-phase, then MacGiver-phase to finally arrive at the Architect-phase

- Why simple and unsexy things like Password managers are things VC managers need to think about when building their tech stack and why

- Why, how and when VCs should think about hiring a head of tech

- Why FOMO might be a good thing in venture, but a terrible thing in building the VC tech stack - and pervasive in the industry nonetheless