Why does Jean Schmitt feel physically ill every time someone mentions a unicorn? Because, as he puts it, no serious entrepreneur should want their company named after "a fake animal from fairy tales for girls." This isn't just rhetoric—it's a philosophy that shapes how Jolt Capital invests in European deep tech at the growth stage, targeting companies doing €10–20 million in revenue and transforming them into profitable, industrial-grade players.

The conversation unpacks Jolt's deceptively simple model: invest at €80 million post-money, grow revenue 5x to €100 million, and exit at €400 million for a 5x return. But execution is anything but simple. Schmitt describes the first 18 months as "intense re-engineering," where Jolt deploys three to four people nearly full-time per company to fix everything from customer support software (one company Jolt invested in claimed to use Jira but actually relied on Excel spreadsheets) to R&D roadmaps and M&A strategy. The firm takes controlling stakes not out of ego, but for speed—because when you're burning capital, you can't afford endless shareholder debates. Schmitt also challenges conventional wisdom on hardware versus software: hardware companies require less capital to reach IPO (€480 million vs. €1.2 billion for digital services) and deliver better exit multiples (16x vs. 11x). Yet Europe continues to bleed €200 billion annually in pension savings to the US, funding competitors while starving its own ecosystem.

🦏 Why "rhinos," not unicorns—and why Schmitt refuses to chase billion-dollar valuations

🏭 The square-cube law of scaling: how companies collapse without the right "scaffolding"

🤖 Jolt Ninja, the €10 million AI tool Schmitt gives away for free to build a deep tech community

🇪🇺 Why Europe has 11,000 high-quality deep tech companies (more than the US) but still loses the capital war

⚛️ The quantum computing hype check: why Schmitt questions qubit vendors but believes in quantum sensing

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/BVsMz71FJR0

Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital.

About Jean Schmitt [General Partner at Jolt Capital]:General Partner at Jolt Capital, a growth-stage deeptech investor that has backed European technology companies including advanced photonics firms Heptagon and NILT, which together exited for €2 billion. He began his career as a founder building AI companies in the 1990s, sold SLP InfoWare to Gemplus where he later ran a division, and served as Managing Partner at Sofinnova before founding Jolt. He also chairs the Baroque Orchestra La Chapelle Harmonique and holds a postgraduate degree in AI.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/

Deep tech ventures require years of patient capital, yet most of them reach Series B without any revenue at all. Matthias Winter explains why traditional metrics like monthly recurring revenue and churn rates simply don't apply when you're building quantum computers or photonic processors — and why that's exactly the point.

This conversation unpacks how Constructor Capital conducts due diligence when the technology is still in university labs and the market won't exist for another five years. Winter walks through the real bottlenecks: 90% of potential investments fail because the underlying research isn't distinctive enough, not because founders lack commercial drive. He describes why spending months validating scientific publications and consulting Nobel laureates matters more than projecting unit economics, and why companies like QuEra can raise $200 million before proving product-market fit in any conventional sense.

💡 Why revenue is often a distraction for deep tech founders in the early years — building the technology matters more than pilot contracts

🔬 How Constructor Capital validates breakthroughs: scientific reputation, publication history, and lab visits trump financial models

🌍 Why Europe's deep tech ecosystem has strong university spin-outs but still pushes founders to relocate to the US at scale

⚛️ What Google and NVIDIA's investments in quantum computing signal about which modalities might actually win

🎯 The surprising failure mode: brilliant scientists who can't handle operational complexity when the team grows past 30 people

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/PqFp4zdEC5o

Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital.

About Matthias Winter [General Partner of Constructor Capital]:General Partner at Constructor Capital, a science-first venture fund that closed its first fund at $110 million and invests across deep tech, AI-native software, and EdTech. He spent 26 years at McKinsey, where he advised over 100 organizations at board level across more than 20 countries and co-led McKinsey's Technology Council until 2023, focusing on the biggest telecom and tech companies in Europe before transitioning into venture capital.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/

If Europe wants resilience and sovereignty, it must stop treating green tech as a moral project and start treating it as the path to re-industrialization. Laurits Bach Soerensen argues that 92% of Europe's risk capital flows into software, fintech, and biotech—sectors designed to hit a profitability plateau—while the hard technologies needed to rebuild energy infrastructure, production systems, and supply chain independence remain starved of capital. The gap isn't ideological; it's structural. Traditional private equity can't handle the capex intensity and networking capital demands of industrial scaling, and venture capital lacks the operational discipline to navigate hyper-transformation.

The conversation unpacks why conventional investment models fail in green industrial contexts and what it takes to succeed: deep operational engagement, capital efficiency at early stages, and a systematic approach to managing the four forces of hyper-transformation—capex intensity, hypergrowth, value chain establishment, and regulatory dependencies. Soerensen explains why companies like Northvolt face exponential complexity when all four factors collide, and why pension funds crossing the chasm to play venture are making a category error. He also introduces the BCSA framework—better, cheaper, simpler, accessible—as the litmus test for whether a hard-tech company can survive the valley of death and achieve the conversion rates needed to scale capital-efficiently.

**Key points discussed:**

🔋 Why green tech must be framed as resilience strategy, not environmental stewardship, to unlock the capital Europe needs

⚙️ The hybrid transformation model required to scale capex-heavy industrial assets without running out of cash

🎯 How the BCSA framework determines whether a technology can convert 60–80% of prospects instead of 5%

🏭 Why Germany holds the deep industrial innovation Europe needs but receives only 10–15% of private equity flow

📉 What went wrong with Northvolt and why the J-curve was underestimated by orders of magnitude

Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital.

About Laurits Bach Soerensen [General Partner of Nordic Alpha Partners]:General Partner at Nordic Alpha Partners, a European growth-stage fund focused on industrial greentech. Before moving to the investment side, he spent 20 years as an operator, including growing a business from zero to $250 million in revenue across 27 countries at HP and taking Aastra Telecom Denmark from fourth to first in its market, overtaking Avaya, Cisco and Siemens. He led the raise of Nordic Alpha's €266 million Fund II in 2024 and has overseen 24 investments and 7 exits, including the sale of Spirii at 67 times annual recurring revenue.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/

Roland Dennert argues that European tech could grow one hundred-fold over the next twenty years—but only if the continent's pension funds and insurers shift from allocating roughly one percent of their assets to technology up to ten percent, matching their US counterparts. The capital exists; the problem is where it's directed.

Dennert explains how Cipio Partners operates in the growth equity segment between venture capital and traditional private equity, targeting companies with proven products, validated go-to-market strategies, and fifty to one hundred percent annual growth. At this stage, the firm no longer faces product or market risk—the focus shifts to execution risk and valuation. He discusses why cultural due diligence on founder teams matters more than technical audits, noting that when investments fail catastrophically, it's almost always a people issue, not a product problem. The conversation also covers Cipio's expansion into Central and Eastern Europe, where ambitious, well-trained founders face less competition for capital, and why the emergence of private equity buyers over the past decade has been a game-changer for European tech exits, creating competitive processes where previously only one or two strategic buyers might have been interested.

**Key discussion points:**

💰 Why European pension funds allocating ten percent to tech instead of one percent could unlock ten times more capital

🎯 The difference between venture risk (product/market uncertainty) and growth risk (execution/valuation)

🤝 Why people issues—not product failures—cause most catastrophic investment losses at growth stage

🇪🇺 How the absence of a deep, liquid European public market for large tech companies limits exit options

🚀 What makes Central and Eastern Europe an underestimated source of ambitious, well-trained technical talent

Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital.

About Roland Dennert [General Partner of Cipio Parters]:General Partner at Cipio Partners, a European growth equity firm investing at the intersection of venture capital and traditional private equity. He has led the firm for over twenty-one years, completing more than fifty trade sales and four IPOs across a portfolio spanning fifteen countries. Prior to Cipio, he worked at 3i, earned an MBA from MIT Sloan, and held roles in strategy consulting at Roland Berger and BCG following his start as a robotics engineer at Hitachi in Japan.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/

Most startups fail not from lack of talent, but from lack of experience. When a 28-year-old founder has only recruited three people in their life, they're walking into lethal mistakes that seem obvious to someone with 20 years of experience.

Elie du Pré de Saint Maur is co-founder of TOMCAT, a French venture fund and accelerator that works with early-stage B2B startups. Before co-founding TOMCAT in 2020, Elie spent 20 years in marketing and strategy leadership roles at Edenred, Cromology, and Doctolib, where he served as CMO during the COVID telemedicine explosion in 2020. At TOMCAT, he screens 2,500 startups a year and leads a six-month intensive programme that de-risks investment by working hands-on with founding teams before deploying capital.

In this clip, Elie shares the single most powerful lesson he learned from Doctolib CEO Stan during the company's hypergrowth phase: the ability to prioritize brutally. He explains why saying no to 90 percent of topics is the skill that separates high-growth companies from those that stall, and why the most precious resource in a startup is not cash—it's the founder's time.

🎯 Stan's ability to say stop everything and do this one thing

⏱️ Why founder time is more scarce than capital

❌ The nine topics you need to say no to in order to make one thing happen

🏢 What traditional companies get wrong about prioritization

🔥 How Doctolib moved mountains in days during the March 2020 lockdown

Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital.

About Elie du Pré de Saint Maur [Co-founder TOMCAT]:Elie du Pré de Saint Maur is co-founder of TOMCAT, a French venture fund and accelerator for early-stage B2B startups. Before launching TOMCAT in 2020, he spent 20 years in marketing and strategy roles at Edenred, Cromology, and Doctolib, where he was CMO during the COVID telemedicine explosion in 2020.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/

No one wants to pay indirect tax. It is added to the sale price, collected from customers, and then businesses must file returns monthly just to hand it over to tax authorities. For companies selling internationally, the complexity multiplies across jurisdictions, each with different rates, thresholds, and filing deadlines.Gareth Kobrin is Co-Founder and CEO of Yonda Tax, a compliance platform for businesses trading across borders. He spent 15 years in tax before starting Yonda, working at Merrill Lynch and VAT Global. He bootstrapped the company for three years before raising a €15m Series A from Kennet Partners in late 2024. In this clip, Gareth explains what Yonda does, why he chose tax as a career, and the decision to leave a senior role to build something from scratch. The conversation covers product strategy, growth mechanics, bootstrapping versus institutional capital, and how AI is reshaping the tax compliance stack.📊 What Yonda actually solves for eCommerce and SaaS companies🧠 Why tax-first beats tech-first when building compliance tools💰 How they grew from zero to 400 clients without outbound sales🤖 Where AI agents already automate filing and where humans still matter🚀 The case for delaying venture capital as long as possibleSubscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital.About Gareth Kobrin [co-founder of Yondatax]:Gareth Kobrin is Co-Founder and CEO of Yonda Tax, a tax compliance platform for eCommerce and fintech companies. He spent his career at Merrill Lynch, VAT IT, and Vatglobal before leaving a senior director role to start Yonda, which he bootstrapped for over three years before raising institutional capital from Kennet Partners.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn:   / aulium  ➡ Thomas Viguier:   / tviguier  

AI valuations have reached levels that Thomas Bigagli from Plug and Play calls totally insane. But not for the reasons you might think. According to Bigagli, the race is justified — because we are literally building the companies that will shape the next decades.

Thomas Bigagli is a Partner at Plug and Play, one of the world's most active venture capital platforms, managing EMEA operations. He joined Plug and Play nearly a decade ago after launching his first ventures before age 18, and has since helped the firm invest in over 35 unicorns at pre-seed or seed stage. Plug and Play invests in more than 200 startups annually through a family office and 11 external funds, while running open innovation programs with over 550 Fortune 500 corporations.

🧠 Why current AI valuations reflect a talent war, not a bubble

⚡ How the AI mega-round playbook differs from traditional early-stage VC

🚀 Why Bigagli believes deep tech is now entering its best moment in decades

🔍 What investors betting on companies like OpenAI at $100B+ are actually thinking

Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital.

About Thomas Bigagli [Partner at Plug and Play Ventures]:Thomas Bigagli is a Partner at Plug and Play, where he leads EMEA operations for one of the world's most active venture capital platforms. He joined the firm nearly a decade ago after starting his first entrepreneurial ventures before turning 18, and has since helped Plug and Play invest in over 35 unicorns at pre-seed or seed stage while supporting open innovation programs with more than 550 Fortune 500 corporations.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/

Most startups vanish when they fail. But crypto tokens? They live forever at a fraction of a cent, visible to anyone, impossible to put into insolvency. Christopher May, Co-Founder and CEO of Finoa, explains why this fundamental difference makes crypto failure more visible than traditional startup death — and what that means for how investors should think about the space.

Christopher brings a rare perspective to institutional crypto. After four years at McKinsey advising banks and insurance companies, he left to solve a personal problem: managing 80+ tokens across 30 different wallets during the 2017 ICO boom. That chaos — including losing €8,000 to a forgotten private key — led him to co-found Finoa in 2019. Today, the company is building onchain banking infrastructure for institutions, pivoting from pure custody toward stablecoin payments and treasury services as blockchain evolves from an asset class into financial rails.

In this clip, he addresses a fundamental question about crypto valuation. Like startups, 95% of crypto projects fail within five to seven years. But unlike startups, failed tokens never disappear — they persist onchain, trading at fractions of a cent, as long as a single node runs. It's a visibility problem unique to tokenized ventures, and it shapes how the market perceives risk and survival in ways traditional finance never had to confront.

Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital.

About Christopher May [CEO of Finoa]:Christopher May is Co-Founder and CEO of Finoa, a digital asset custody and financial services platform for institutions. He previously spent four years at McKinsey after completing a banking apprenticeship in Frankfurt, and co-founded Finoa in 2018 alongside Henrik Gebbing after experiencing the challenges of managing crypto assets firsthand.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/

Most entrepreneurs obsess over building the perfect product — and ignore the numbers that actually keep their business alive. Sevan Marian, Co-Founder and CEO of Fleet, explains why focusing on margin and cash flow from day one is the difference between scaling to €100M and shutting down after three months.

Sevan built Fleet from €5,000 to a €100M valuation without raising VC, using an asset-light financial model inspired by Amazon's playbook: cash flow positive, zero inventory, and contracts sold to banks upfront. He shares how most first-time founders make the fatal mistake of chasing product-market fit while their financials quietly bleed out — and why understanding the difference between profitability and cash flow matters more than most realize.

💡 The fatal mistake first-time founders make with cash flow

📊 How Fleet scaled with €5K — no VC, no inventory, no debt on the balance sheet

🔄 Why being cash flow positive beats being EBITDA profitable

⚙️ The Amazon-inspired model: collect early, pay late, stay asset-light

🚀 What changed after the €100M LBO with ISAI — and what didn't

Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital.

About Sevan Marian [Co-founder of Fleet]:Sevan Marian is Co-Founder and CEO of Fleet, a €100M-valued IT management platform serving companies across Europe and the US. He previously worked at Rocket Internet's Jumia, where he launched and scaled e-commerce operations across North Africa. Sevan bootstrapped Fleet to €35M ARR with fewer than 40 employees before completing a growth LBO with ISAI in 2024.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier and Markus Perkumas.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/➡ Markus Perkumas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markusperkumas/

Being smart and hardworking isn't enough to build a successful startup. Timing, co-founders, networking, and sheer luck all play a role—and most entrepreneurs don't realize that until they've lost everything.

Bogdan Ochiana is the Founder and CEO of Orbotix, a Poland-based defense technology company building autonomous drone swarms designed to operate in GPS-denied, radio-jammed environments. A serial entrepreneur from Romania, Bogdan studied at ETH Zurich, worked across five European countries as a management consultant, built and exited a €20M IT services company, and personally invested €3M to launch Orbotix in response to the war in Ukraine. The company raised €6.5M led by US national security VC BVVC, operates R&D in Romania and Spain, and is now fielding battle-tested systems for NATO allies and critical infrastructure clients across Europe.

💡 He explains why his first Paris-based startup failed despite having experience, funding, and multilingual skills

📉 Why timing, co-founders, and the right idea matter more than effort alone

🎯 How losing everything at 32 became the MBA that shaped his next moves

🔄 Why networking, luck, and market conditions can't be replaced by grit

🚀 What he learned from failure that success could never teach

Subscribe to Aulium for more conversations on innovation and private capital.

About Bogdan Ochiana [Founder and CEO of Orbotix]:Bogdan Ochiana is the Founder and CEO of Orbotix, a defense technology company building autonomous drone swarm systems for European militaries. Born and raised in Romania near the Ukrainian border, Bogdan studied at ETH Zurich, worked as a management consultant across Europe, and built a successful €20M IT services company before founding Orbotix in response to the war in Ukraine. Today, Orbotix operates across Poland, Romania, Spain, Ukraine, and Estonia with 43 employees and two production facilities.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier and Markus Perkumas.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/➡ Markus Perkumas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markusperkumas/