EUVC

Today we’re excited to introduce you to Vlad Tropko, Partner of Digital Horizon, a multi-stage VC fund investing in immigrant founders globally but with a special focus on Europe. Vlad is a seasoned VC/PE executive with over 15 years of experience investing in European and American startups. Vlad has closed more than 50 deals and is an active member of international VC communities like On Deck, 2hearts, and Alma Angels.

In this episode you’ll learn

- How Vlad with both Ukranian and Russian heritage thinks & reacts to the current geopolitical developments

- How Vlad and his team have used late stage deals to hack traction with LPs

- Why Vlad and Digital Horizon have built their thesis around backing immigrant founders and how that gives them an edge

Today we’re happy to introduce you to Dick Sietses, founding and managing partner of Health Innovations, an early stage fund for Dutch healthcare innovations.

Dick has been in VC since 2000 and founded **Health Innovations** with a strong eye to the market rather than the technology and thereby brings a different vantage point to the VC-world of healthcare than most funds in the space. We hope you'll enjoy this episode as much as we did making it.

In this episode you’ll learn:

- Why having a market-driven thesis rather than a tech-driven thesis is a differentiator for Health Innovations and how it unlocks new opportunities
- How Health Innovations have made the notoriously heavy regulatory space a strength rather than an obstacle and how they work with founders to scale out of their homemarket
- Dick’s learnings from going from Fund I to Fund IV, what they’ve changed in their initial thesis and what they’ve doubled down on.

The 56th episode of The European VC is out and we’re talking to Matthew Le Merle, co-founder & managing partner of Blockchain co-investors, a blockchain FoF investing in the leading pure-play blockchain VCs and managing partner of Keiretsu - one of the biggest and most active angel networks in the world.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

- Learnings on community building from building Keiretsu up to have global coverage and be one of the premier global angel clubs.
- How Keiretsu collaborates with VCs and how Matthew has taken that to the next level with his blockchain co-investors’ fund.
- What led Matthew to founding Blockchain co-investors, what they’re looking for in VCs and how they pick them.
- Why Matthew believes specialization is coming for the blockchain investment landscape and how he pursues this thesis
- Exactly what are the key learnings from Matthew’s book “The Fifth Era” and what it means to VCs

Today we’re hyped to be introducing you to Sean Seton-Rogers, Partner and co-founder of PROfounders Capital. PROfounders invests 500k to 2M$ tickets into young digital startups that fix broken customer experiences. They’ve supported and invested in [Made.com](http://made.com/), GetYourGuide, Unity/Applifier, Small Giant Games, and others. Sean also happens to be a recurring name on the Forbes Midas list, so if you need more than our validation that he’s worth taking cues from, there you go.



In this episode you’ll learn:

- How Sean has built pro-founders as a pan-European fund from day-1 and it’s impact on their operations
- How Sean thinks about the entry of the bigger American VC firms in Europe
- What’s the thinking, strategy and tactics behind PROfounders PROmoter strategy to source and win deals across Europe
- Sean’s take on different scout models and learnings from himself as well as the market.

Today, we're happy to welcome you to Sam Cash, newly named Partner at Project A, a pan-European focused seed and Series A fund, with $600m under management and offices in London and Berlin. Sam is heading the company’s London office and has helped build up its investment activities in the UK. He has written about technology entrepreneurship for TechCrunch, VentureBeat and occasionally shares his thoughts in his newsletter, [Socratic Tech](https://samcash.substack.com/), which is well worth a read!

In this episode you’ll learn
- Sam’s route into venture and making partner
- How Sam thinks about fintech, crypto and communications and how to leverage being part of a platform VC with a huge operations team
- How to think about the last couple of year’s markets, new dynamics and the introduction of more US capital in Europe and phenomena like micro-VCs, super angels and the tiger cubs

Gary Leyden, co-founder and GP of Leyden Ventures an early stage fund operating out of Dubai and have invested in breakout companies like Coinbase, Superhuman, and Instacart long before they occupied the front page of TechCrunch. And importantly, he’s also the host of [🌮⭐ TacoStars](http://tacostars.org/), the largest founder social community in the UAE and is hands-down one of the funniest guys we’ve brought on to the show 😍

In this episode you’ll learn

- What has Gary so excited about the MENA region’s ecosystem and what he thinks everyone gets wrong
- Gary’s views on fundraising in the MENA region and
- The story behind Tacostars, Leyden VC and Gary’s love for rolling funds, SPVs and plug and play fund admin

Claus Rehfeld is a Danish Business Angel with a unique thesis around health tech and some strong contrarian perspectives. Claus sold his company that did business intelligence for the health care sector in 2018 and has since made 8 investments. Join us for an episode that’s certain to lift your mood.

In this episode, you'll learn:

- Why the Nordics is a perfect sandbox for VCs in HealthTech and a deep dive on importance of collaboration between hospitals, universities and the tech world.
- The primacy of data in the future of health care and why many VCs struggle to capture the opportunity it holds
- Why HealthTech should be perceived as distinct from from biotech, medtech, and digitalhealth
- What’s behind the quote “founders want the glamour of startups, but not the sweat and tears” and how Claus thinks about investing and mentoring early stage founders.

Today, we’re happy to introduce you to Winter Mead, co-founder of oper8r, one of the world’s leading VC accelerators and which, since recording, has rebranded to now be operating under “Coolwater Capital”. So sorry for the confusion this might cause!

Winter has also authored the book “How To Raise A Venture Capital Fund: The Essential Guide on Fundraising and Understanding Limited Partners” which is a thorough and enlightening read for any emerging VC. So do go and check that out!

**In this episode you’ll learn:**

- The amazing journey he’s been through to write his book “How To Raise A Venture Capital Fund”
- Winter’s take on good practices for GPs trying to raise their first fund
- His take on the skills of a good founding managing partner
- The incredible process of co-founding Oper8r, where they strive to build the next generation of institutional VCs with their amazing program

Meet Finn Murphy, newly-named Partner at Frontline Ventures, one of Europe’s leading B2B Enterprise VC firms. Finn is a true “Product-&-Growth-Marketing-Person” turned VC - Looking to find and help grow the best new business ideas in Europe & the US. As a teenager, Finn wanted to be a professional ocean racer after which he went on to ace Engineering & Maths at Trinity College, then start a series of startups and finally go into VC with Frontline Ventures.

In this episode you’ll learn:

- Finn’s journey and learnings with Frontline drawing key lessons for VCs aspiring to make partner
- How Finn and Frontline adapted to the bull market that has been characterising the last few years and extenuated during Covid.
- How Finn thinks about collaboration in VC, how to foster it with fellow co-investors and his analysis of why collaboration seems to come and go as markets go up and down
- Why being a junior in the industry can actually be a strength and why you should remember that your relationships are yours, not your fund's... until you make partner that is.

Episode #49: Cristobal Alonso, Startup Wiseguys

Today, we're happy to introduce you to Cristobal Alonso, founder and CEO of Startup Wiseguys, one of Europe’s leading and ambitious B2B accelerators. Cristobal and his team have made more than 180 investments into early-stage SaaS, Sustainability CyberSecurity, and Fintech B2B startups and are set to scale their accelerator model in globally in the coming years. Welcome to an episode packed with Cristobal’s knock-out energy and bold thinking.

In this episode you'll learn:

- How Startup Wiseguys contrast to YC, Tech Stars and Startupbootcamp
- How Cristobal leverages the accelerator model to hack VC and employ a contrarian investment strategy involving bagging early wins at Series A.
- How Cristobal thinks about building a culture and org that can grow to become “YC of the rest of the world”
- Why the legal team is loved by founders, what the secret is behind getting to an 80% survival rate in the accelerator portfolio and what has got Startup Wise Guys to a 50% follow-on rate.
- Most importantly, where and when the Startup Wiseguys Party will be this coming year