EUVC

Joe Schorge is the founding and managing partner of Isomer Capital, one of the most formative Fund of Funds in the European ecosystem. This is the second part of a two-part episode and this episode focuses on Joe’s views on disruption in the VC space, the current state of The European ecosystem and how he assesses emerging managers. To top it off, Joe also left us with some clues of what’s coming next for him and for Isomer Capital.

In this episode you’ll learn:
- What it takes to start a VC firm and get interest and money from the best LPs.
- Why GPs attempting to disrupt VC rarely catches Joe’s interest.
- Why being the first and the only is a bad strategy to be fundraising on in VC
- How and why Joe and the Isomer team worked close with the founders of First Entrepreneur.
- Why LPs should consider investing in a Fund of Funds instead of directly into VC funds.

Joe Schorge is the founding and managing partner of Isomer Capital, one of Europe's absolute strongest Fund of Funds. Joe started his career in technology management positions that got him up close with M&A which led Joe to a whole string of accomplishments in PE and VC doing direct as well as fund investments. To top it off, Joe has also made Angel investments. In this first part of a two-part episode we're truly talking to one of the greats as we dive deep on the origin story of Isomer Capital, Joe's investment thesis and what it takes to be a great VC.

In this episode you’ll learn:
- What made Europe so unique that Joe, as an American, had to start his fund here.
- What profiles make up the VC dream team – the VC hackers, hipsters and hustlers.
- Why innovation requires an open minded attitude while searching for past patterns.
- How Isomer Capital creates value for their portfolio of VC funds.

Chris Smith is the managing partner at Playfair Capital investing in seed & pre-seed in the UK, Europe and Israel. This is the second part of a two-part episode with Chris. If you haven’t done it yet, we strongly recommend you go back and listen to episode 14 with Chris on being a single-LP firm, post-Covid market dynamics . In this episode we dive deep on deal flow, founder profiles, and Playfair’s value add strategies.

In this episode you’ll learn:
– Ways to get privileged access to stellar first-time founders.
– How Playfair’s value add strategy goes way beyond the ordinary and draws on every partner at their team.
– Why and how Playfair goes beyond the headline grabbing capital injections and actually cares for their founders’ well-being.
– What led to the creation of the female founder office hours and its impact in Playfair’s deal flow so far.

Ryan Floyd is a Founding Managing Director of Storm Ventures based in Silicon Valley but investing globally. He focuses on early stage enterprise SaaS and has a true love for applications and cloud/infrastructure related companies. Ryan is dedicated to making VC more accessible and is doing important work on this via his YouTube channel Ask A VC. In this episode we put the spotlight on how to think about startup advisors and strategies for breaking into VC.

In this episode you’ll learn:
• The role of advisors and how to use them best in building success
• How to think about compensation for advisors
• What skills are most important in a venture investor and how to build and prove it
• Strategies for breaking into venture, including shadow portfolios and angel investing
• How Storm Ventures think about go-to-market strategies for early stage companies

Chris Smith is the managing partner at Playfair Capital where he focuses on seed (and pre-seed) deals in the UK, Europe and Israel. Chris is particularly interested in autonomous transportation, business and industrial automation (especially through AI, ML and computer vision), HealthTech (except diagnostics and therapeutics) and B2B SaaS. But what gets Chris truly excited is when he can find companies operating in unloved/overlooked sectors that are ripe for disruption.

In this episode you’ll learn:
•The impact of being a 1-LP fund & how Playfair brings their heart with them into VC.
•Strategies for VCs and founders to win in the current bull market
•Why globally distributed teams are more resilient than traditional businesses
•The post-COVID effects on deal sourcing strategy and VC operations
•How PlayFair thinks about value add as a hands-on pre-seed & seed investor

Nico Goulet is founding and managing partner of Adara Ventures where they focus exclusively on B2B startups solving complex problems with breakthrough solutions. Adara are behind 36 investments and are responsible for the exit of AlienVault - the largest Spanish deep tech exit ever. Nico is a world-class thinker whose teaching at INSEAD and IE Business School has inspired VCs across all of Europe.
In this episode you’ll learn:
• Why dragons are often a better bet than unicorns.
• The difference between pickers and allocators and what each strategy’s strengths and weaknesses are
• How to craft a strategy and story that will convince investors to invest and stick with you through three busts and booms.
• How Nico thinks about portfolio strategy, modelling and the importance of staying coherent

Yuri Navarro is the founder and managing partner at Kanata Ventures. At Kanata they invest in promising B2B Enterprise technology startups and help them enter the North American market through Canada. Kanata Ventures operates out of Toronto and is attracting the best global founder teams to help them settle and grow out of Canada.

In this episode you’ll learn:
•How to hustle your way to raising a fund
•How to hack public programs for increased deal flow
•Why European startups should attack North America through Canada
•Why Yuri believes in the power of community and cooperation in the VC Industry.

Pedro Vieira is a founding and managing partner at newly launched Shilling Founders fund. We dive deep with Pedro on everything from raising the fund, how they’ve strategically designed their LP-base for a superior value add to their investment & portfolio management strategy. We also featured Pedro in our 8th episode where we dived deep with him on his time as Europe & Africa Lead at 500 Startups and creator of West to West.

In this episode you’ll learn:

•Why Pedro and Shilling share their profit with founders
•Shilling’s SLA to founders: in thirty days you’ll have money in the bank or a no-go.
•How to handle the pre-seed space as an institutional investor
•How to think about partnering with founders and other VCs for a competitive edge

Itxaso Del Palacio is a Partner at Notion Capital, one of Europe’s strongest early-stage SaaS and enterprise tech investors. Notion Capital was founded in 2009 and has invested in more than 60 startups and has more than €500 M assets under management. Itxaso joined the team of entrepreneurs and operators turned investors with a laser focus on product led growth and a truly founder-centric perspective that has quickly made her a central figure in the SaaS space.

** In this episode you will learn **

•What is product-led growth and why it’s one of the best growth routes for B2B SaaS in Europe.
•Why product-led growth companies are extra resilient during hard times.
•How Itxaso views startups advisors and best practice for working with them.
•Key lessons from Itxaso’s work with some of Europe’s best SaaS success stories.

Kate Talbot is Senior Forbes contributor and Marketing strategist for great VC firms such as Plexo Capital, Community Fund and Flybridge. Kate has a background from working directly with none other than the famed Richard Branson, in startups backed by revered firms such as Andreesen-Horowitz and has now started her own consultancy where she works with VCs on developing and executing their marketing strategy.

** In this episode you will learn **

• The importance of saying "Yes!".
• The strength of a well-crafted content marketing strategy & how to build it.
• Why marketing needs to be top of mind of any VC firm.
• How to humanize VC & make it leverage the power of community.