Chris Smith - Managing Partner of Playfair. (brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Seedrs⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)

Playfair is a generalist fund with a contrarian approach to pre-seed technology investing. Based in London, Playfair invests across the UK and Europe with an intentionally high conviction, low volume approach: making 6-8 investments a year and preserving time, capital and resources to help companies post-investment.

Playfair has backed more than 70 companies across two funds including Thought Machine, Andela, Mapillary, Recycleye and Orca AI among others.

During this episode we discuss how they asses investment opportunities at such an early stage, the number one mistake founders do when fundraising and how they support their founders to raise a Series A.

Enjoy!

Rex Woodbury - founder and Managing Partner of Daybreak, an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City. (brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Seedrs⁠⁠⁠⁠)

Before founding Daybreak, Rex was a Partner at Index Ventures the premier venture capital firm that invested in Adyen, Revolut, Roblox, Discord, and Figma among others.

Rex focuses on the application layer of technology, often investing in internet, software, and marketplace businesses with the potential for viral adoption.

He also writes Digital Native, a publication about people and technology that reaches 50,000 weekly readers which i highly recommend.

During this episode we discuss about the art of early stage investing, the pros and cons of social media and the power of technology to bring people together.

Kirsty Grant - Managing Director at Seedrs - Europe’s leading private investing platform.

Under her leadership, Seedrs has become the most active investor in early stage private companies in the UK, funding over 2,000 deals and participating in rounds totalling over £2.6 billion to date.

This year, she played an instrumental role in launching Seedrs' EU regulated entity.

During this episode we discuss the past and future of crowdfunding, how companies like Revolut and investors like Seedcamp used Seedrs to raise funds and why we need more founders in Europe.

Enjoy!

Mark Kugel - co-founder and co-CEO of Yuri. (brought to you by ⁠⁠Seedrs⁠⁠)

At Yuri they are sending payloads to space to take advantage of micro-gravity so they can build higher quality molecules and other useful biotech assets. Did you know that it is easier to print a heart in space as it has no gravity?

During this episode we discuss how the CDTM (Center for Digital Technology and Management) cohort from 2014 produced more than Eur 15B from 24 students, including Hanno of Personio and Thomas of Trade Republic among other, we discuss Germany’s PR problem and why it might be a better idea to invest in startups solving difficult problems than the next Saas for Saas for Saas!

Enjoy!

Ciao ragazzi e ragazze, I am here with Francesco Sciortino - co-founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion (brought to you by ⁠Seedrs⁠)

Originally from Italy, his passion for physics and plasma, took him across the world from Imperial College London for undergrad, to EPFL in Switzerland for his masters, before moving to MIT in Boston for his PhD.

Beginning of 2023, Francesco raised a 7.5M Euro pre-seed round from Plural, UVC Partners and High-Tech Grunderfonds, and co-founded Proxima Fusion a Munich-based startup that aims to develop robust, high-performance, and steady-state fusion power plants.

Proxima is the first-ever spin-out company from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.

During this episode we discuss his journey into plasma and different machines used to perform research, the difference between a Tokamak and Stellarator and Europes potential to compete in the global fusion race.

Enjoy!

Mikkel Skarnager - co-founder and CEO of the stealth startup Spektr. (brought to you by Brevo and Seedrs)

Mikkel is a second-time founder, prior to Spektr he was the founder and CEO of HelloFlow, an innovative no-code, drag-and-drop builder for client onboarding, monitoring, and digital workflow solutions --> orchestration layer for business identity.

In February 2022 only 2 years after founding the company they got an acquisition offer and sold to Trulioo for around ~50m Eur, a number I found online, that Mikkel cannot confirm nor deny, returning 5X to 50X times money back to his seed and angel investors in a very short time.

During this episode we discuss Mikkel's learnings with HelloFlow and his advice for first-time entrepreneurs, the first purchase he made after the exit, and his new company.

Thanks so much to his co-founder Ciprian and previous investor Tom from Seedcamp for the input to this episode.

Enjoy!

Fredrik Cassel - General Partner at Creandum.

Creandum is a venture capital advisory firm with offices in Stockholm, San Francisco, London, and Berlin funding early stage entrepreneurs from a 450m euro fund.

Fredrik has an exceptional track record having previously invested in several multibillion euro companies like Spotify, Kahoot!, Depop and Kry just to name a few. He doesn’t like to take the credit and attributes his success to the Creandum team. One Creandum as he likes to call it.

During this episode we discuss Creandum's culture, what he learned from Daniel Ek when investing in Spotify, and how to find user love.

Brought to you by ⁠Zoom⁠ and ⁠Brevo⁠. If you like the show please check out the sponsors as they are the ones making it possible. Thank you! 🙏

Brought to you by Zoom and Brevo. If you like the show please check out the sponsors as they are the ones making it possible. Thank you! 🙏

Jevan Nagarajah - is the founder and CEO of Better Dairy.

At Better Dairy they are using precision fermentation to produce the cheeses, yoghurts, ice creams, the type of products consumed and loved across the world but without having to use animals products.

During this episode we discuss about the founding story and how they managed to raise more than 20m Euros, splitting with his co-founder, his experience being part of the Rocket internet mafia and the future of tasty cheeses.

Enjoy!

Brought to you by Zoom and Brevo. If you like the show please check out the sponsors as they are the ones making it possible. Thank you! 🙏

Mars Geuze is one of the co-founders of Hardt Hyperloop.

Hardt Hyperloop is one of the leading teams in the world working to bring the concept of Hyperloop to life.

The Hardt Hyperloop team is a talented and ambitious team coming from Delft University. They were building race cars before taking on the challenge of building a hyperloop.

During this episode, we discuss how they transitioned from building race cars to winning the SpaceX Hyperloop competition, the complexity of building infrastructure, and their strategy of building a system that can be adopted globally and become standardized.

Enjoy!

Antoine Moyroud - Partner at Lightspeed.

Lightspeed is a venture capital firm focusing on multi-stage investments in the enterprise, consumer, and health sectors. Lightspeed invests in seed, early and growth-stage companies.

For over twenty years Lightspeed has been the first investor and an early backer of some of the most innovative companies in the world like Snapchat, Carta and BetterUp among many others.

During this episode we discuss about Antoine’s journey from failing Class Preparatoire to becoming a partner at Lightspeed at 28 years old, we discuss the firms commitment to Europe and the Eur 105M seed investment into the talented team of Mistral AI.

This is episode is brought to you by Zoom One, designed for however and wherever your team gets work done. Whether you need some focus time or want to collaborate with your hybrid team, Zoom One is the all-in-one platform designed to power your work day. Collaborate with your team and clients across phone, video, messaging, whiteboards, and even connect your favorite work apps – so you can focus on getting things done. Simplifying your work day and keeping your global team connected. One platform to connect. Zoom One.