EUVC

Today we are happy to welcome José, Founding Partner of Samaipata. Before joining the early-stage pan-European VC fund, José was the co-founder of La Nevera Roja, the leading food-delivery platform in Spain. José has also worked at PWC and Accenture in Strategy and M&A Advisory.


In this episode you’ll learn:

- VC Brand building from one of the best brands in the space

- Why you must build your brand for founders and not LPs & how to balance personal and firm brand

- What’s behind Samaipata’s ethos of go beyond, think big and stay real

- How José thinks about building LP relationships from first touch to conversion and beyond

Today we are happy to welcome Anne Solhaug Tutar, Partner at Antler Nordics, former entrepreneur and startup expert. At Antler, Anne has made more than 40 investments in early-stage startups and was named Company Builder of the Year in 2021 as well as top 10 Leadership Talents 2021 in Norway by E24. Anne's entrepreneurial background comes from Turkey where she founded one of the country's first health food FMCG with customers such as Starbucks and Carrefour.


In this episode you’ll learn:

- How relocating to Turkey led Anne into entrepreneurship and then VC

- How hustling as an entrepreneur carries into the hustle of being an emerging VC

- How Antler Nordics has built a model to optimize collaborating with industry

Today we are happy to welcome Jon Coker, Founding Partner of Eka Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that invests in Seed and early Series A consumer technology companies building sustainable economy. Jon founded Eka alongside Camilla Dolan to build a leading venture firm that integrates impact investing with mainstream venture. Prior to Eka, Jon has spent 11 years at MMC Ventures, ultimately as Managing Partner and led venture investments in 17 companies, been the investor representative at the board of 21 companies.


In this episode you’ll learn:


- Everything about assessing founder development capacity and the pillars of self-awareness, impact awareness, systems and process thinking and speed of self-development

- Jon's views on coaching and coaches in venture capital and the difference between looking for A players and Growth Mindset founders

- How Jon and Eka build their founder assessment around honest interviews that uncover the story and person behind the startup

- Why Jon has seen more value taken away by VCs than added by VCs

Today we are happy to welcome Diana Florescu and Piyush Puri. Diana is the CEO and Founder of mediaforgrowth, a media for equity advisory firm, specialised in Series A to pre-IPO media capital fundraising. Piyush leads the Brand Capital International team in Silicon Valley as Vice President of BWI, the strategic investment arm of The Times Group – India’s largest multimedia conglomerate.


In this episode you’ll learn:


- How media for equity came to existence as a category of venture investing and why media companies are increasingly active in the space

- The story of Times Group of India and its journey to investing media capital in more than 900 brands over the last 18 years

- What the typical media for equity deal looks like and how media is priced in such deals

Today we are happy to welcome Edward van Wezel, Founding and Managing Partner of BioGeneration Ventures. Launched in 2006, BGV has managed over 250 million euros across four funds. They invest in medical and healthcare innovations that have high potential to positively impact patients.

In this episode you’ll learn:
- Edward’s route from chemical engineering to VC

- How BGV thinks about sourcing from all of Europe and why certain geos have risen to be their core focus

- On working with universities, research institutes, TTOs and the status of IP ownership in Europe

- On building your ideal LP base and the importance of designing for diversity

Today we are happy to welcome Sara Rywe, Partner at byFounders - a €110m early-stage, community-powered, founders-led VC fund. Sara is an entrepreneur at heart with experience from a range of tech startups and has also worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and led the global strategy implementation at Danske Bank.

In this episode you’ll learn:


- Going from a simple town in Sweden to partner at one of the leading funds in the Nordics

- The story behind the framework and building of a fund pioneering true founder friendly terms

- Why impact awareness has become central to byFounders even though it’s not a full-fledged impact or climate fund

- An exciting look under the hood of building and running the byFounders Collective to leverage their Angel LP base

Today we are happy to welcome Ali Karabey, Founding Partner at 212, a venture capital firm that backs B2B tech startups with 85 million dollars of commited capital and 170 million dollars in Assets Under Management. This year are launching their Fund III aiming for 70 million in size.


In this episode you’ll learn:

- How the Turkish ecosystem has developed since 212 launched as the first fund in the region back in 2012

- How understanding LPs and having a long-term approach to the relationship can make a real difference in your fundraise

- How Ali thinks about investing in emerging markets and scale to invest outside of your region of comfort

- How Ali has dealt with geopolitical risk and how - in that light - VC’s fluctuations can seem relatively small

Today we are happy to welcome Rune Hven-Jensen and Andreas Green Rasmussen, Co-Founders and General Partners of Ugly Duckling Ventures, a VC firm that invests in Nordic companies at the pre-seed, seed and early stages, currently raising their first fund and about to announce their closing.

In this episode you’ll learn:

- How they pivoted their raise from the tech ecosystem to family offices

- Raising through the best and the worst time possible to raise a fund

- The rationale behind allocating 75% of their fund to follow-ons

- Why the team targets the layer just below the consensus layer of normal VC and how this led an LP to refer to Ugly Duckling as “the PE firm of VC”

Today we are happy to welcome you to our favorite type of episode: our memo episode! That means we’ll be diving deep on a fund that the EUVC LP Syndicate is investing into together with the GP team. So, please welcome Borys and Diana, Founding Partners of SMOK Ventures, an operator-led VC fund focusing on top serial founders from the CEE region.
At EUVC, we’re hyped about this investment because SMOK Ventures have risen to become the first-choice fund among many serial entrepreneurs in less than two years of operation by delivering on their promise of connecting the CEE and Global venture ecosystems with more than 80% of the money raised by portfolio startups coming from outside the region.
What is more, Borys and Diana are amazing human beings who our syndicate investors can count on to not only deliver returns, but also insights, learnings and access to the region.
We hope you’ll enjoy meeting Borys and Diana in this episode and invite you to reach out if you wanna learn more about how to join the EUVC LP syndicate.

Today we are happy to welcome Premysl Rubes, Founder and Managing Partner of Presto Ventures, a Prague-based VC firm investing in early-stage (pre Series A) startups built by exceptional founders from Central and Eastern Europe.

In this episode you’ll learn:

- Premysl’s journey from entrepreneurship, to angel investing to VC

- Learnings going from a single GP & LP firm to multiple-partner team with a large LP-base

- The importance of alignment of interests in a single LP set up

- Why Presto Ventures double down on a high velocity investment strategy with multiple deals done per month and investment cycles of 2 years