Say hello to Rune Thiell, CEO and Co-founder of the Rockstart accelerator in Amsterdam. Rockstart, one of Europe's first multi-vertical startup accelerators, was founded in Amsterdam in 2011 with a goal to provide startups with access to the market, capital, knowledge, and community. Since then Rockstart has become the specialist in building entire ecosystems around specific domains—such as Digital Health, Smart Energy, and Artificial Intelligence. Rockstart is actively building up entrepreneurial infrastructures around the world with its acceleration verticals, as well as early-stage startup programs, Rockstart Impact and Rockstart Launchtrack. Since the inception, Rockstart has invested in more than 100 startups and supported them in their journey to raise more than €45 million and hire more than 600 people. Rockstart is an international team of 40+ professionals dedicated to support and empower startups to become scalable and change their world for the better.

On This Episode You'll Learn:

With Oracle’s acquisition of Wercker, Rockstart now has 5 alumni startups that have been acquired, how has perception and the attention towards deal flow coming out of Amsterdam changed since Rune started Rockstart?

What different traits of the leadership team does Rune think are needed in the early stage vs later stage as the company's scale?

What lessons has Rune learned when it comes to hiring during a state of hyper growth at Rockstart?

What has Rune the most excited when looking forward at the next couple years in Amsterdam tech?