EUVC

Today we are happy to welcome Maria, founding managing partner of Beacon, a London-based fund that invests with a laser-sharp focus in enterprise tech venture across Europe. Maria is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD Business School and serves on the Committee of the Chairs in Emerging Technologies as well as the Enterprise Hub of The Royal Academy of Engineering. She is also angel investing and on the board of a number of fast growing companies. This greek engineer used to fence the foil so watch out for her ripostes!

In this episode you’ll learn:

– How Beacon accelerates the J-curve by focusing on capital gap of founder secondary investments at pre-series B to complement their pre-series A primary investments in enterprise tech

– Why off-cycle founder secondaries are an integral part to build a strong ecosystem that can generate 1 bn€ exits - and why the big sovereign LPs need to wake up to this

– How Maria thinks the preference stack, discounts and terms for secondary transactions

– The three core stakeholders of putting together a secondary transaction and how to make them reach an agreement that all see as a win-win

– Why the founder CEO is central to putting together a secondary transaction

Welcome to another hot-off-the-press episode in our special series on navigating the current market with Europe's absolute VC elites.

Today, we welcome back Lindsay and Kemper from Industry Ventures. They certainly had a lot more to share.

Lindsay is the Managing Director at Industry, and focuses on originating, valuing and managing primary fund commitments and direct co-investment opportunities for the Tech Buyout team.

Kemper is the Vice President at Industry and focuses on the firm’s Secondary and Tech Buyout investments, as well as driving business development efforts across their platform.

Brace yourselves for some new and exciting advices.

Today, we are happy to welcome Francisco, Partner and Executive Director of Bynd Venture Capital, an Iberian VC investor with more than 30 active investments in the portfolio in different funds. Bynd is dedicated to seed / early stage technology companies in different verticals strongly connected to Iberia.

In this episode you’ll learn:

– All about Francisco and Bynd’s journey from being an angel club to a VC firm

– Why Bynd focuses on all of Iberia & the Iberian diaspora

– How Francisco thinks about divesting and sourcing buyers for partial exits

– Why Francisco thinks consistency is central to being a successful VC

This is the second of a four episode long special on the MENA region here at The European VC. This special series focuses on everything MENA VC, bridging the gap with its European counterparts. We intend to shed light on the ins and outs and promote collaboration between these two beautiful regions.

For this special series of episodes we welcome our dear friend and special co-host Mostafa Gado.

And as our guest, we're happy to welcome Omar Almajdouie. He is the founding partner and CEO of Raed Ventures, a Saudi venture capital firm that invests in seed and early stage startups. Raed has invested in more than 40 companies. Omar believed early on that corporations must adapt in order to survive in the digital age, and that tech startups will have a transformative and disruptive impact on the traditional business landscape.

In this episode you’ll learn:

– The founding story of Raed charting the path from family office to CVC to finally become a strictly financial and independent VC

– An insider’s view on VC in MENA and specifically Saudi Arabia - and what’s going on with market there these days?

– How Omar has devised their strategy to double down on the strongest tech hubs in MENA

– Omar’s advice to European managers learning how to navigate geopolitical risk

Today we are happy to introduce you to Gesa, General Partner of Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund and Board Member of the German Startups Association. Auxxo is a venture capital firm co-investing into startups with at least one female founder in Europe. Besides that, Gesa founded the Evangelistas, a network of female business angels with more than 170 members in Germany.

In this episode you’ll learn:

– Gesa’s perspective on the biases for and against female focused funds

– Why Auxxo invests in female founders and how that focus gives Auxxo a competitive advantage in winning competitive deals

– How Auxxo is thinking about their co-invest strategy in the light of the new market

– How Auxxo managed to raise their fund with more than 50% of their LPs being women (in terms of €€ as well headcount)

– How Gesa thinks about firm development, fund II, and what’s in store for Auxxo

In today's episode you will meet Daniel Tomov, Founding Partner of Eleven Ventures. Daniel is a pioneer in seed investments in Bulgaria and an entrepreneur in technology, cleantech, and consumer retail. Following his passion for building successful companies, he co-founded Eleven together with Ivaylo Simov in 2012.

We first met Daniel at HowToWeb last year and can’t wait to reconnect for this year’s event on the 21st and 22nd of September in Bucharest, Romania. Will we be seeing you there?

In this episode you’ll learn:

– Reaching escape velocity and the story behind the name “Eleven Ventures”

– The story of how Eleven Ventures have grown from being an accelerator to fund III of 60M€

– Daniel’s eye on the the LP scene in Eastern Europe and how it’s developing

– Why Eleven Ventures are investing out of their own pocket to double down on building their value add platform

– Why emerging managers must be wary with overpromising to founders

In this episode, we're happy to welcome you to Rando Rannus, General Partner of Siena Secondary Fund. Rando is a founding member of Estonian Startup Leaders Club, a leading figure in EstBan, and is an excited entrepreneur with a portfolio of 30+ startups. With everyone talking about secondaries these days, we thought it was natural to sit down Rando to talk about talk about the opportunity he's capturing, the market he's navigating and the fund he's building.

In this episode you’ll learn:

– The founding story and opportunity that led to the raise of Siena Secondary Fund - and the surprising story behind the name

– Juxtaposition of the early stage market and secondaries market - and why defaults in the portfolio are a complete no-go

–  Why Rando prefers to buy secondaries off of founders, early employees or local champions

This is the first of a four episode long special on the MENA region here at The European VC. This special series focuses on everything MENA VC, bridging the gap with its European counterparts. We intend to shed light and promote collaboration between these two beautiful regions.

For this special series we welcome our dear friend and special co-host Mostafa Gado - Venture Builder, Innovation Strategist and Tech Enthusiast. Mostafa has led the Project Management and Business Development for Fetchr, the #1 MENA startup in 2017 according to Forbes, in Saudi Arabia. He is a former Innovation Strategist at Accenture Middle East and Advisory Manager at PWC Middle East.

Our first guest is Kenza Lahlou, co-founder and General Partner at Outlierz Ventures, an early-stage Africa-focused VC fund dedicated to Seed and Pre-Series A companies.

In this episode you’ll learn:
– How Kenza broke into VC in the first place and how the journey into VC in MENA differs from that in Europe

– Why the rise of certain startup ecosystems is promising in the Morocco region

– How Kenza thinks about helping take MENA startups go global

– Why Africa's near-boundless VC opportunities if approached in the right way

Today's episode marks the 100th episode of The European VC so we’ve shifted things up and turned the tables on your usual hosts. This time, David and Andreas are the interviewees, lifting the covers on the vision behind The European VC and how an incurably optimistic former Danish bodybuilder and over-thinking Portuguese VC protégé ended up betting everything and tying themselves and their families’ fortunes together by the hip. To interview them, nobody better than Tom, Affinity's European Regional Director and one of EUVCs long-standing supporters and friends. Besides that, Tom is a Data and Technology leader with 18 years experience in the European Venture Capital and Private Equity industry. We cannot wait to bring you this story and hope you’ll enjoy hearing a bit more about your usual hosts.

In this episode you’ll learn:

– The vision and origin story of The European VC

– Why angels, VCs and ecosystem champions should connect around LP syndicates

– What’s been learnt from 100 interviews with European VCs and which episodes are the hottest!?

– How the team behind The European VC is working to connect and democratize European VC - and what the pitfalls are.

Today we are happy to welcome Jamie, CEO and Founder of Creator Fund - Europe’s leading university student focused fund. Jamie launched the fund in 2019 and has since grown its presence to more than 25 UK universities. The inspiration for the model came from his time at Stanford where he was an investor at Dorm Room Fund. Jamie is a true thought leader in the space and is leading the charge pioneering a new generation of funds that we expect to see from in the future! Buckle up, ‘cos Jamie is going places - fast.

In this episode you’ll learn:

– Why the Creator Fund is investing in top European universities and the new founder's profile coming out of those academic environments

– Their strategy of not just backing great founders but supporting a generation of student investors, leaders and technology talent

– How can phD founders have more ownership of the IP in their universities with Creator's alternative negotiations

– Why transparency is a key value on a VC's relationship with its LPs