Scaling Europe

Andreas Klinger has just raised $15m for his new fund. His previous funds have been in top 5% of funds globally.

We chat it all through.

Timestamps:

01:25 - What does first cheque mean in Hardware/Robotics? 03:35 - Sourcing strategy

06:11- Does Europe underfund hardware companies at the early stages?

07:50 - Prototype Value-add

09:25 - How Andreas analyses investment opportunities

12:30 - Previous Funds performance and fundraising

16:10 - Why this fund is focused on Europe not Globally like the others

21:40 - Biggest wins in venture to date

24:40 Quickfire (favourite AI tool, number 1 trait in a founder, biggest venture miss)

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

Appcharge has become the fastest-growing global payment solution, enabling game studios to scale paying user growth, customise web stores, optimise player retention, and gamify offerings all Direct-to-Consumer (DTC).

The company recently raised a $58 million Series B round (led by IVP) and saw a year of record growth in which the company processed more than $500 million in transactions and grew fourteenfold year-over-year.

Prior to Appcharge, Maor was the CEO and co-founder of Appush, a leading and profitable video advertising platform, which he led from bootstrapped startup through acquisition by Magic Software Enterprises.

We discuss it all!

Aikido Security has just raised $60 million USD in a Series B funding round at a $1 billion valuation, led by DST Global.

Aikido’s Series B follows a year of rapid growth for the company, including five-times revenue growth and nearly three-times customer growth.

The company is now the fastest-ever European cybersecurity company to reach unicorn status.I caught up with Madeline to get all the details.

At the age of 23 Edgar created Enzo Ventures. The firm invests millions into startups in Southern Europe every year and co-invests with some of the leading firms in the world.We sat down to discuss tech in southern europe, building a VC firm in your twenties and much more.

Peter's first company - The Graduate Guide, started as a podcast at university.

He turned that into a successful business which just got acquired.

Now he's building his second one. Tune in to hear his story from student to podcaster to serial entrepreneur.

Judith is one of Europe's leading European VCs. Her portfolio includes unicorns such as Personio and Parloa and her substack is quickly becoming one of the hottest media assets in European Tech.

She writes deep dives about tech and the state of the ecosystem and every article causes a lot of noise and chatter across tech.

We get into the newsletter, why Europe is heading for a perfect storm and what we should be doing about it, AI margins and so much more.

Itxaso del Palacio, General Partner at Notion Capital, has just released an amazing report on founder wellbeing which states:

• Overall founders report feeling healthy (7 on a scale from 1 to 10)
• Early stage founders report more stress than later stage founders
• 40% of founders exercised for more than five hours a week
• Most founders who work over 80 hours a week don’t report fatigue or burnout. The report surveyed over 100 founders and was contributed to by leading founders in the ecosystem.

We get into it all!

Tamar and Wiem met at Palantir before emabrking on their own entrepreneurial journey with Ankar.

Ankar is building the AI operating system for innovation, reinventing how companies generate and protect their inventions and has already signed with leading Fortune 500 companies.

They've just announced raising $20m raised from Atomico.

Ben is an employee benefits platform helping enterprise clients manage their benefit programmes.

It has just announced raising a $27m Series B funding round led by Mercia Ventures with strong participation from existing investors Atomico, Cherry Ventures and DN Capital, along with Revolut founder Nik Storonsky’s Quantum Light Capital.

I spoke to their Founder and CEO about the round, surpassing £10m ARR and much more.

Index has just co-led a $41m seed round into Mirelo alongside Andreessen Horowitz.

The team at Mirelo have built the market leading foundation model for developing sound for videos.

The founders have a unique background of being musicians, academics, and having experience working in the big tech labs.

I speak to Georgia about why they invested, and Index's view of AI across Europe