🚀 From €10M to €1.2B+ — What It Takes to Scale a VC Firm (And What Comes Next)
If you're Speedinvest, you don't just scale — you reinvent.
In our latest episode of TheOnePoint Podcast, I sat down with Daniel Keiper-Knorr, founding partner at Speedinvest. What started as a boutique €10M fund in 2011 has now evolved into a €1.2B+ platform and one of the most active early-stage investors across Europe.
This episode isn’t just about numbers — it’s about how you scale thoughtfully and what's next for venture capital in Europe and beyond.
After publishing our Rethinking Venture Capital report, I’ve been exploring themes that often go unnoticed — and one of them is the venture fund management business itself.
As we enter what we call the Venture 3.0 era, fund management is being shaped by two powerful forces: 📈 Institutionalization and 🌐 DemocratizationIt might not always steal the headlines, but it’s increasingly where the future of venture is being built.
Daniel was the perfect guest to unpack this with. Having lived the full arc — from entrepreneur to investor — he brings rare clarity, sharp intuition on trends, and a candid, approachable voice.
These are the kinds of conversations that remind me why I love this work.
We talked about:
🏗️ The structural strategy behind their growth — from fintech-only in 2011 to now 6 vertical teams covering AI, climate, deep tech, health, and more
🌍 How they built a truly pan-European footprint — and why local presence still matters
🧭 Their intentional shift toward specialized, autonomous sectoral teams
But we also tackled the hard questions most firms avoid:
🔁 What does real succession planning look like in venture?
📉 Why most liquidity plans are broken — and how Speedinvest is using secondaries and other tools like sell-side M&A to unlock real value. Speedinvest now has three full-time team members focused solely on creating liquidity for LPs. Not fundraising. Not portfolio management. Just exits.
🔗 The increasing role of consolidation — and whether Europe will see €10B VC firms emerge in the next five years (Daniel thinks we should)
One venture insight from Daniel, where the industry needs a reset:
💥 “VC is a marketplace — capital in, capital out. But too many GPs still see IR as a burden instead of a core function.”
We wrapped with a strong call to arms:
→ Europe must close its Series B/C capital gap
→ LPs should fund innovation the way they fund infrastructure
→ Founders must know: VC isn’t for everyone — and not every company needs to be a unicorn
This is the playbook for Venture 3.0 — institutional, global, strategic… and deeply human.
