European seed rounds are ballooning. Last month Yann LeCun’s AMI Labs picked up $1bn at a $3bn valuation while David Silver’s Ineffable Intelligence was reported to be raising $1bn at a $4bn valuation. 

“Thankfully, the billion dollar seed round is not the standard across Europe — yet,” Philipp Moehring tells host Amy Lewin on this episode of the Sifted podcast. “That would be concerning.”

Philipp started microfund Tiny VC with Andy Chung almost a decade ago to invest in the hottest companies in Europe before anyone else. Its portfolio of 450+ startups includes self-driving car company Wayve, AI-powered video creator Synthesia, legal tech Lawhive and workflow automation platform N8n. 

But unlike many VCs, Tiny doesn’t join boards, or lead rounds and doesn’t really ‘do’ media. It last raised a third £53m fund in 2023, and was crowned 20VC’s ‘top European microfund’ earlier this year.

This week on the podcast, Philipp and Amy discuss:

• How VC will change over the next 10 years
• When Tiny takes money off the table 
• Why young people make awesome founders
• Anxiety-inducing LinkedIn posts
• And, for better or worse, the return of the tech bro