Scaling Europe

Wave Ventures is a Nordic venture firm that invests in young founders right from the start. It's now on its third and biggest fund at €10m, and people who built some of the region's unicorns are among its backers.

Margarethe Böhme is Managing Partner at Wave Ventures. The firm started at Slush in Helsinki in 2016 as Europe's first student-run fund, and everyone on the team is under 25. From the very first investment, they connect each company with the people who can help it grow.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk

Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

Parloa: https://www.parloa.com/

Conveo: https://conveo.ai/

NatWest: https://www.natwest.com/

World Wide Technology: https://www.wwt.com/

Dust: https://dust.tt/

AWS Startups: https://aws.amazon.com/startups/

Civo: https://www.civo.com/

Junior: https://www.myjunior.ai/

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction
1:01 From Slush to a €10m fund
3:51 Pitching investors on the next generation
4:56 Running a fund at 23
5:59 Why the team rotates every two years
7:21 Giving founders more than they give up
9:41 The advantage of being young
11:16 Hiring for agency
12:58 Advice for a career in venture
14:38 The rise of the new Nordics
16:33 Taking the model across Europe
18:37 Building pan-European teams

Metis Reasoning just launched with a white paper on building AI that reasons the way a scientist does. Its answers come with the evidence and steps behind them, so people can check exactly how it got there.

Thore Graepel is CEO and Co-Founder at Metis Reasoning. The system works through a question the way a researcher would, coming up with possible answers and checking each one against evidence before deciding. The team has already built the first version, and scientists are now testing it on PhD level questions.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk

Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

Parloa: https://www.parloa.com/

Conveo: https://conveo.ai/

NatWest: https://www.natwest.com/

World Wide Technology: https://www.wwt.com/

Dust: https://dust.tt/

AWS Startups: https://aws.amazon.com/startups/

Civo: https://www.civo.com/

Junior: https://www.myjunior.ai/

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

0:15 Launching Metis Reasoning

1:04 What reasoning really means

2:45 Separating knowledge from reasoning

5:45 What Move 37 teaches us

8:54 Why AI moved to language models

11:07 The trust problem with today’s AI

13:23 How Metis Reasoning works

16:09 Reasoning beyond games

17:54 Using language models to check evidence

19:57 Prototypes and robotic

Wiz keeps the cloud systems of thousands of companies safe, and it has kept running as its own business since Google bought it earlier this year. It just launched Scan for Good, which uses its AI agents to find weak spots in critical services like hospitals and national archives before anyone can exploit them.

Yinon Costica is Co-Founder and VP of Product at Wiz. Hackers are using AI to find security holes, so businesses need AI on their side to get to them first. Wiz is now building towards security that runs around the clock, with agents finding and fixing problems within minutes.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk

Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

Parloa: https://www.parloa.com/

Conveo: https://conveo.ai/

NatWest: https://www.natwest.com/

WWT: https://www.wwt.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction0:14 What AI has in common with the move to cloud3:12 How customers are reacting
5:24 Red, blue and green agents7:34 Deciding what to build next10:28 Life inside Google
12:46 The launch of Scan for Good
16:10 What the red agent found
20:29 Attackers vs defenders
27:14 Getting ready for AI threats
30:13 Security that never switches off
31:50 Finding and fixing problems in minutes

Masia just closed its first fund at €18m, backed by more than 70 founders, tech leaders and investors from Barcelona. It invests in startups with ties to the city at the very earliest stage, and connects them with some of the best funds from around the world.

Carlos Trenchs Sainz de la Maza is Co-Founder and Chairman at Masia. The city now has a growing number of founders who have already built and sold companies, and funds from across Europe come every week looking for the next ones. Masia just opened Masia House in the city centre to bring this community together, with space for visiting investors to stay and work.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk

Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

Parloa: https://www.parloa.com/

Conveo: https://conveo.ai/

NatWest: https://www.natwest.com/

WWT: https://www.wwt.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction
0:23 What Masia actually does
1:38 Why Barcelona is at a turning point
4:19 Raising the €18m fund from 70 investors
6:36 Startups Masia has backed
9:11 Opening Masia House
11:19 Venture as a people business
13:09 Keeping the second fund small
15:17 Getting returns back earlier
16:06 What he learned from backing other funds

It’s easy to start selling online today, but growing an e-commerce brand into a much bigger business is still really hard. ZyG takes over the work of scaling for brands with great products, and its AI agents run everything from marketing to customer support.

Omer Kaplan is Co-Founder and CEO, and they just launched ZyG Score to help online brands see their growth potential. Brands selling over $1 million a year can apply, and those with a high score are invited to become scale partners. As partners, they can let ZyG handle the scaling and spend their time on making great products.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel.

Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk

Lovable: https://lovable.dev/Parloa: https://www.parloa.com/

Conveo: https://conveo.ai/NatWest: https://www.natwest.com/

WWT: https://www.wwt.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

0:15 Where the idea came from

2:16 What holds brands back from growing

4:14 Taking on the whole job of scaling

5:24 The new ZyG Score

11:53 Testing 500 brands

15:39 The business model

17:57 Smaller companies getting bigger with AI

20:43 Taking the luck out of building a brand

25:56 Advice for founders

30:00 Shopping with AI agents

Attio just launched a new version of its CRM built for a world where AI agents do more and more of the work. Attio now handles 1.6 billion API calls a month, with usage growing 50% every month.

Nicolas Sharp is Founder and CEO of Attio. Agents now handle the busy work, from routing leads to prepping calls, while sales teams spend more of their time with customers. In its first year on Attio, the typical customer sees 2.5 times more deals without adding to the team.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk

Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

Parloa: https://www.parloa.com/

Conveo: https://conveo.ai/

NatWest: https://www.natwest.com/

WWT: https://www.wwt.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction
0:13 Attio's new version built for agents
1:17 How fast agent use is growing
1:52 What the agents are actually doing
4:12 Software turning into infrastructure
5:52 Paying for all that computing power
7:56 What changes for sales teams
10:45 Using Attio inside other apps
13:17 What will keep Attio ahead
15:40 Making it easy for anyone to set up
17:44 Building from London

Singular is a Paris and London based venture firm backing some of Europe's most exciting early stage companies, from Basecamp Research to Aikido.

Raffi Kamber is General Partner and Co-Founder at Singular. Europe is especially strong at combining AI and science, and a new generation of researchers is now starting companies of their own. Singular has made this one of its biggest bets and helps turn the research into businesses, and it's now growing its team in London to find more of them.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk

Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

Parloa: https://www.parloa.com/

Conveo: https://conveo.ai/

NatWest: https://www.natwest.com/

WWT: https://www.wwt.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

0:19 Backing Basecamp Research

3:17 Europe's edge in AI and science

4:58 Helping researchers become founders

9:11 Why Singular is betting on London

11:33 Vibe's sale to Walmart

13:27 What an early win means for Singular

14:29 Thinking about a third fund

15:57 Staying open to any industry

18:08 Running their own firm

19:27 Competing with bigger funds

Atomico is one of Europe's best known venture firms, backing tech companies from their early days all the way to going public. Europe now produces as many new tech companies as the US, and a lot of them will need big funding rounds as they grow.

Laura Connell is a Managing Partner at Atomico, where she works with founders at the growth stage. More investors from the US, Asia and the Middle East are now backing these companies, while Europe's own growth funds are still too small to take a big share of the biggest rounds.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk

Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

Parloa: https://www.parloa.com/

Conveo: https://conveo.ai/

NatWest: https://www.natwest.com/

WWT: https://www.wwt.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction
0:08 Laura's role at Atomico
0:45 How Europe's growth stage has changed
4:03 Why outcomes are getting bigger
6:06 What growth investing means now
9:46 Backing The Exploration Company
11:37 Investors from outside Europe
14:10 Why Europe needs bigger growth funds
15:17 Her article on AI infrastructure
17:46 What she looks for in founders
20:10 From brain research to investing

Metaview just raised a $60m Series C led by Insight Partners, only a year after their previous round, bringing total funding to $110 million.

Siadhal Magos is Co-founder and CEO of Metaview, which has grown from a tool for making sense of hiring conversations into a full set of AI agents for recruiting. They just launched their newest agent, fillmore, which finds and reaches out to candidates and books them into meetings. It takes on the time-consuming parts of hiring, so recruiters can focus on the people they want to hire.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk

Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

Parloa: https://www.parloa.com/

Conveo: https://conveo.ai/

NatWest: https://www.natwest.com/

WWT: https://www.wwt.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction0:09 The new $60m Series C0:29 What changed since the Series B2:27 Millions of hiring conversations4:33 Plans for the new funding6:37 Launching fillmore9:38 Could AI make 10x recruiters12:08 Why recruiting is high stakes15:06 Early results from fillmore17:40 How to tell if hiring is going well20:31 How fast Metaview hires

Zenithon AI just raised $10m from Backed, Lunar, Seraphim, MMC, SOSV and others. It's building AI that runs complex physics simulations a million times faster than today's tools, so engineers can test far more designs before building anything.

Alex Higginbottom is Founder at Zenithon AI. With the new funding, his team is training larger AI models and getting them into the hands of their first customers in fusion and chipmaking. Both fields have trillions of possible designs to explore, which is where that speed matters most.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk

Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

Parloa: https://www.parloa.com/

Conveo: https://conveo.ai/

NatWest: https://www.natwest.com/

WWT: https://www.wwt.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction
0:13 What Zenithon AI does
0:46 Leaving a PhD to start a company
3:19 Working with fusion companies
5:24 A million times faster
6:40 Where the product is today
9:01 What won investors over
10:28 Where the money goes
12:18 From researcher to founder
16:13 What's next
17:06 Using it for chipmaking
18:33 The bigger mission