Ventures

George Darrah, partner at Systemiq capital and a biologist by training, is revolutionizing how we invest in the intersection of nature and technology. We discuss the future of AI-driven biotech, the cost curves of genomic sequencing, and the portfolio companies transforming everything from soybeans to lab-grown fat.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction and George’s roots in industrial farming.

0:51 - The investment thesis: Where tech meets the physical world.

2:17 - Defining "Decoding Nature" and moving biology out of the lab.

3:47 - Human genome cost curves and the shift to profitability.

4:23 - Case Study: InnerPlant and DNA-sensing soybeans.

7:40 - Hoxton Farms: Lab-grown pork fat and modular manufacturing.

11:21 - VC as a commercial proposition and returning money to LPs.

12:15 - AI as machine learning for unstructured nature data.

13:07 - Basecamp Research: Mapping remote ecosystems for new medicines.

18:24 - Why farming is the ultimate unhedged business risk.

24:07 - The future: GLP-1s and the convergence of food and health.

Jon Coker has built a reputation for spotting consumer giants early, and this deep dive follows the massive news of Eka Ventures closing their $107M second fund.

In this episode, we discuss the evolution of early-stage investing, the proprietary tech stack powering their deal flow, and why the most valuable consumer users are often found in the "back of the churn curve."

Timestmaps

11:30 Jon Coker: Founding Partner, Eka Ventures

12:00 George Darrah: General Partner, Systemiq Capital

12:30 Andrea Gennarini: Co-Founder and Managing Partner, 2100 Ventures

13:00 Boris Paskalev: Co-Founder and CEO, LogicStar AI

13:30 Mio Fagerhäll: CEO, eve

14:00 Jarek Pilarczyk: Partner, Balnord

Timestamps:

0:00 - Raising $110M and the "Most Expensive Sofa Ever"

1:01 - The 80s Gaming Era: Writing code for Nintendo at 13

2:53 - The shift to Manna: Why drone delivery became an obvious bet in 2018

4:34 - Identifying "Regulatory Unlock" as the ultimate market signal

6:53 - Hacking the first prototype: From back gardens to aviation grade

9:15 - Breaking the "Travelling Salesman" Problem: Drones vs. Amazon Vans

11:47 - Energy Economics: Why a 10-cent "dead-head" flight changes everything

12:58 - Throughput Math: How one pad handles 8 deliveries per hour

15:38 - The Ryanair Blueprint: Managing a network of asymmetric flight bases

17:42 - Building through the eras: From Assembly to Cursor AI

19:42 - Human Chess: Transitioning from Solo Coder to CEO of 100x Output

20:52 - 97% AI Code: The startling velocity of modern software commits

22:43 - Beyond Food: Delivering blood, organs, and defibrillators to hospitals

23:42 - The US Expansion: Opening 40 new bases in 6 months

24:17 - The Golden Rule: Where to get a real pint of Guinness in Dublin

Timestamps:

0:00 - The impact of morning sunlight on Vitamin D and mood

1:17 - Introduction to Maxime and the mission of Lucy

2:36 - The context problem: Why 100+ biomarkers need a lifestyle questionnaire

3:51 - Building the recommendation engine: AI vs. Doctor supervision

5:34 - Partnering with local labs: The logistics of the "Nurse at the Corner"

6:42 - Why you can’t have coffee before a blood draw

8:15 - Proprietary stacks: Ingesting messy lab data into a "Health Score"

11:54 - The perfect timing: Why Gen Z is obsessed with longevity

13:10 - Health as Compounding Interest: Investing in your 20s for your 40s

14:41 - The YC algorithm: Building at a relentless pace in Europe20:46 - Hiring the 0.1%: Finding high-agency talent in Paris

22:43 - The future of the NHS and state-funded preventive care

26:24 - The science of tubes: Why we can't do "finger-prick" testing yet

29:20 - Targetting the "Hyrox" crowd: Using athletes as early advocates

33:00 - Parenting in the AI age: Teaching kids to prompt via voice

34:52 - Closing thoughts: Biological age vs. Chronological age

Timestamps:0:00 - Introduction

0:48 - Barbados think tank

2:38 - The Integrated View: Why energy, compute, and AI are inseparable

7:11 - The Physical AI Frontier: Why data-capture flywheels win in the real world

11:00 - VLA Models vs. Dream Space: Pragmatism vs. the platonic ideal of simulation

14:03 - Oral Networks: Solving the GPU networking bottleneck with photonics

16:21 - Beyond Vector DBs: Reasoning-based retrieval with Page Index

18:30 - The skill of extrapolation: Turning bottlenecks into levers of value

20:02 - Agentic Workflows: How Albion uses AI to map the ecosystem

22:12 - Radical Authenticity: Why Sebastian refuses to win on someone else's terms

23:14 - The "Clock Speed" Heuristic: Identifying founders who exhaust you

Its Apple's bday

It's Thursday, 2nd April and Today on VENTURES we have a stellar slate.On the show today:11:30 Sebastian Hunte: Investment Director, AlbionVC12:30 Leo Lerach: Co-Founder and COO, ENAPI13:00 Maxime Berthelot: Founder and CEO, Lucis13:30 Luke Ramsden: Co-Founder and CPTO, Architect13:50 Jasper Deprez: Co-Founder and CEO, TerraSpark14:10 Vishal Chatrath: Co-Founder and CEO, QuantrolOx14:30 Bobby Healy, Founder and CEO, Manna

Luke Pappas spent his early career in the high-stakes trenches of Morgan Stanley, working under the "Godfather of Tech Banking," Michael Grimes. Now a Partner at NEA, he’s leveraging those "bake-off" battle scars to help European founders scale toward massive liquidity events.

Timestamps

0:00 – Introduction4:01 – The Lore of Michael Grimes: High standards and the Uber/Airbnb "bake-off" stories6:08 – Positioning Snap: Why the "camera company" angle won over public investors9:24 – No room for error: Drawing a live valuation for Evan Spiegel10:11 – From Banking to VC: Applying liquidity-event discipline to early-stage investing12:15 – What an "IPOable" business looks like in 2026: Profitability and terminal value14:52 – The Synthesia Story: What makes a world-class AI founder and storyteller18:01 – Proprietary Data: How Aquabyte uses 8 years of fish photos to create a "gold mine"21:51 – The robotics "Aha" moment25:34 – The Final Frontier: Rare earth metals and the heavy capex of energy fuel cells

Matt Francis spent his childhood watching his father struggle with supply chain bottlenecks in a coffee machine factory. Now, the Cambridge-educated engineer is using that early trauma to fuel Rama.

Timestamps

0:00 – Introduction and the $3M seed announcement1:43 – Why supply chain resilience is the key to solving species-level problems2:11 – Watching the "epidemic" of broken factories as a kid in Basingstoke4:00 – Rama’s product: Ingesting millions of data points to operationalize brokers5:28 – The Pacific Advantage: Predicting shortages based on Asian port activity6:40 – Why big SaaS failed traditional electronics manufacturing7:51 – Innovation cycles: Lowering the cost of breakthroughs for defense and tech primes9:24 – Beyond mitigation: Buying alternative stock before disruptions affect prices11:18 – Meeting Aiden at EF16:08 – Tariff mitigation: Why US manufacturers experience pain more acutely19:57 – Building reputation with customers