EUVC

Today we are happy to welcome Bryan Duarte and Keyona Meeks, the CoFounder and Managing Partner and the General Partner of BlackTech Capital, a Toronto based pre-seed fund that invests in Black and other Underrepresented Founders focused on CleanTech, leveraging partnerships with top organizations, universities & accelerators and the managers’ expertise, networks and track record in growing several companies to 9x valuation increases.

In this episode you'll learn:

- The story about how BlackTech Capital’s founders decided to build their firm together without ever having met in person

- Why there’s a true need for funds focused on minorities and how doing so can give an edge to your fund

- How fighting consumerism and fast fashion presents a venture investment opportunity

- A discussion of how we can collaborate across the pond to promote CleanTech founders from diverse backgrounds

Luca is the Managing Partner and co-founder of Una Terra, a €200M Venture Capital fund to accelerate European scale-ups fostering solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss, and targeting the removal of 2 Gtons of CO2 and 1Mtons of plastic waste per year from the environment by 2030.

In this episode you’ll learn:

- The value that the WEF network and Una Terra’s involvement in the Uplink challenge for Innovative Funds For Our Future

- Why Una Terra have tied their carry to impact metrics, how they’ve thought about it and implemented it

- Why Luca has dedicated himself not only to VC but also to advising the world’s leading PE funds

- The importance of governance in the Climate Tech sector and how Luca and Una Terra have built their setup to protect against greenwashing

This is a special episode, recorded on the snowy mountains of Villars-sur-Ollon during the WEF's Uplink & Villars Institute Summit, where we had the pleasure to talk to Rokas Peciulaitis, Founder & Managing Partner of Contrarian Ventures, a Seed stage VC mobilising resources for climate action in Europe & Israel with a founders-first approach, and Christian Jølck, Co-founder and Partner of 2150 VC, a venture capital firm investing in technology companies that seek to sustainably reimagine and reshape the urban environment.

What you will learn in this episode:

- The role of venture capital in shaping and saving the future and why impact will give birth to Venture 2.0
- Reflections on the application of the VC & Startup creation playbook and it's applicability for the challenges of the future
- Why the military is incredibly important for climate investing & why the next trillionaire will be made in climate
- Exactly what Climate50 is and how you can get involved as a VC or LP

Today we are happy to welcome Isabelle O'Keeffe, partner at Sure Valley Ventures, an AI-focused VC firm which helps early-stage software entrepreneurs in the UK and Ireland grow and scale. Isabelle joined SVV in 2018 and was involved in building out the fund as well as relationships with founding teams innovating in immersive tech, e-sports, Metaverse, Enterprise AI and cybersecurity.

In this episode you’ll learn:

- Raising fund 3 in the current market

- LP environment in Europe, where it’s evolving to and the growing collaboration

- How to think about balancing two funds with similar mandates but different geos

- Dry powder turning wet and the timing of a new fund in today’s market

Today we are happy to welcome Eleanor Kaye, Executive Director at Newton Venture Program, a joint venture of LocalGlobe and London Business School. Newton trains aspiring and practising venture capital professionals with an explicit mission to diversify the VC Ecosystem. Previously, Eleanor worked at Palantir Technologies across multiple operational roles during Palantir’s period of hyper-growth before Direct Listing. A passionate hiker, mother and now, gardener, Eleanor also dedicates time to mentor, encourage local impact initiatives, and supporting those in need.


In this episode you’ll learn:

- Why & how LSE & Local Globe are involved in the Newton Venture Program

- How blind recruiting and evaluation leads to more diversity in VC

- The impact of the Newton Venture Program and who it’s for

- Why Eleanor believes VC could do with a little less naïvety amongst emerging managers

- There’s no right way to do venture, so how does the Newton Venture Program teach?

- Reflections on role models and who to learn from

Today's episode is one for the geeks! 🤓 We are happy to welcome Dmitry, General Partner at Runa Capital in Berlin. He invests in cloud infrastructure, deeptech and quantum computing. He has a PhD in physics, was a visiting researcher at the University of Ulm and Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany. Come and join us as he discover what the hell photonics are.

What you will learn in this episode:

• The importance of patience and why your career path in VC must tie closely to your expertise and background
• How deep tech thesis can evolve over time to incorporate new topics and technologies as they emerge
• Why the majority of VC investments in quantum computing go to creating more powerful machines, but applications remain important to keep an eye on

Today we are happy to welcome Thomas Otter, General Partner at Acadian Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm that helps founders around the world build enduring companies. Recent European investments include Techwolf, Fifty, and Figures. Thomas has an operator background in HR Tech and the Future of Work, having been a Research VP at Gartner, and led Product at SuccessFactors.


In this episode you’ll learn:


- A deep dive on The Future of Work vertical and why it’s vertical special to its own

- Why there’s a need for a specialised VC like Acadian for Future of Work

- How Acadian wins as a global, but small investor

Today we are happy to welcome Matthias Engel and Sven Heiligtag, Managing Partner and Partner of Vireo Ventures, an early-stage VC investing in seed and pre-seed highly scalable start-ups that drive electrification, in the energy, mobility and smart city space. Matthias has served 5 years as Managing Director of innogy’s corporate venture capital activities building and managing an investment team and portfolio with a dedicated investment volume of €130m with investment activities in Europe, Israel and North America. And Sven has been 20 years with McKinsey & Company in the Electric Power & Natural Gas practice, leading practices in Germany and Japan.


In this episode you’ll learn:


- How the Vireo team think about the energy vertical and why electrification plays such a big role

- The Vireo team’s take on the energy crisis and it’s affect on the startup and LP landscape

- How big firms don’t always follow through as you would expect

Today we are happy to welcome Siim Teller, Founder and General Partner of Lemonade Stand. After 20 years growing products in a number of startups (most notably at Skype) in Tallinn, London and Berlin, Siim set up Lemonade Stand in 2019 to invest in early stage Baltic and East European startups. Lately he’s being looking for AI and Machine Learning applied to boring business problems.


In this episode you’ll learn:


- A deep dive on the Baltic ecosystem and the VCs to know in the region

- Family Office motivations to do venture and how Siim used LP investments to guard against adverse selection

- Reflections on the limitations of the solo GP model

Today we are happy to welcome Carlos Eduardo Espinal, Managing Partner at Seedcamp, arguably, Europe's leading seed fund, first launched in 2007 to support European entrepreneurs truly compete on a global scale. With investments in over 460 companies including publicly listed Romanian-founded, UiPath, Wise and unicorns Revolut, wefox and Pleo. Carlos is a published author, fellow podcaster and made it onto Forbes Midas List of 2022 as one of the most influential VCs in Europe in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. You are in for a treat.

In this episode, you will get a rare look into the top four funniest objections that Seedcamp and Carlos have had to endure from LPs on their journey to building Seedcamp to the hallmark it is today.

Objection #1: "Your fund model will break when it goes from 5M to 20M€"
Objection #2: "You're just spraying and praying and your portfolio will be far too big for you to manage"
Objection #3: "Why don't you just invest in the winners?"
Objection #4: "Who led deal X, Y and Z and how will you retain that person and keep him/her motivated?"

And some extra reflections by Carlos on opportunity funds, VC decision-making and incentive structures and firm management.