Venture Europe: Entrepreneurship | Technology | Venture Capital

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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.

Andre Retterath - Partner at Earlybird Capital, Lead of the EagleEye platform used for data driven sourcing and writing the popular newsletter Data-driven VC.

With over 2 billion Euro under management, nine IPOs and 31 trade sales, Earlybird is one of the most established and active venture capital firms in Europe, having made investments in formidable companies like UiPath and N26 among others.

Founded in 1997, Earlybird invests in all development and growth phases of technology companies and has grown to several autonomous, dedicated and specialized teams, focusing on different geographies and sectors.

During this episode we discuss about his journey from analyst to partner, the change in the competitive landscape for VCs and the drive to become more data driven, how they use primary and secondary sources for data driven sourcing and the extreme focus that founders should have on sustainable defensibility.

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.

Michel Elings is the founder of Vev.

Michel, has a history of delivering successful products with over 100 million users and with Vev they plan to empower millions of freelancers and SMBs by providing the basic tech tools they need so they can smoothly run their business.

Prior to Vev he founded and sold his first startup, Prss, to Apple and moved to Cupertino to help build Apple News. After returning to the Netherlands a couple of years later, he joined Booking to launch CityBook before founding his current company, Vev.

Recently they raised a Eur 5m seed round from Point Nine and Notion Capital.

During this episode we discuss about the founding story of Prss, his experience in Cupertino and the process of building a product used by millions of people, and the mission with Vev.

Enjoy!

Brought by - ⁠Edda⁠, the most collaborative tool for VCs and Private Equity investors that allows you to see in real-time the true dimension of your investments and the value and impact they create. From investment decision processes, to managing due diligence, supporting portfolio companies, data sharing and transparency – Edda streamlines the investment journey and fund operation management in an easy-to-use platform. Head to ⁠edda.co⁠ and use the code VPEDDA for a demo.

Jakob Sons is the co-founder of Cansativa.

Cansativa is building the largest cannabis platform in Europe and are offering the most desirable products and brands. Yummi!

In 2022 they’ve raised a 15m dollar round from Snoopp Dogg's, Casa Verde VC firm and currently they have a 20m euro run rate. Well done guys!

During this episode we discuss Jakobs transition from being a lawyer to founding a medical marijuana startup, his mindset of permanent improvement and the importance of deepwork and focus.

Enjoy!

Brought by - Edda, the most collaborative tool for VCs and Private Equity investors that allows you to see in real-time the true dimension of your investments and the value and impact they create. From investment decision processes, to managing due diligence, supporting portfolio companies, data sharing and transparency – Edda streamlines the investment journey and fund operation management in an easy-to-use platform. Head to edda.co and use the code VPEDDA for a demo.

Our guest today is Andreas Helbig - Partner at Atomico.

Atomico is the venture capital firm founded by the Niklas Zennstrom, one of the founders of Skype, and investing in disruptive technology companies from Series A onwards.

They have an exceptional track record having previously invested in Supercell, Wolt, Sorare and Lilium just to name a few.

During this episode we discuss about his journey as an investor from junior analyst at Project A to Partner at Atomico, what criteria they look for when investing and the exciting future of tech in Europe.

Please enjoy this this wonderful conversation with Andreas Helbig, partner at Atomico.

Brought by - Edda, the most collaborative tool for VCs and Private Equity investors that allows you to see in real-time the true dimension of your investments and the value and impact they create. From investment decision processes, to managing due diligence, supporting portfolio companies, data sharing and transparency – Edda streamlines the investment journey and fund operation management in an easy-to-use platform. Head to edda.co and use the code VPEDDA for a demo.

Our guest today is Kajetan von Armansperg, Co-CEO of Leapsome.

Leapsome is an all-in-one platform for people enablement. They combine the tools for goals and OKRs management, performance reviews and 360s, and compensation and surveys among other features. More than 1500 companies including Spotify, Northvolt and Unity use Leapsome platform to build high-performing teams.

After bootstrapping for 5 years, in 2022 they’ve raised a 60M dollar round from Insight Partners, Creandum and Visionaries Club.

During this episode we discuss about the importance of staying frugal, their bootstrapping journey from 0 to 10M ARR and the decision process of skipping seed and later opening an office in NY.

Many thanks to Sebastian Pollok for the intro.

Sponsored by - Edda, the most collaborative tool for VCs and Private Equity investors that allows you to see in real-time the true dimension of your investments and the value and impact they create. From investment decision processes, to managing due diligence, supporting portfolio companies, data sharing and transparency – Edda streamlines the investment journey and fund operation management in an easy-to-use platform. Head to edda.co and use the code VPEDDA for a demo.

Nathan Benaich is a General Partner at Air Street capital a investment firm investing in AI startups. When asking around in the European ecosystem his name came across several times as a thought leader in the AI space. I highly recommend you read the State of AI report which he co-authors. It’s an in depth report of about 100 pages long across Research, Industry, Politics and Safety.

Prior to founding Air Street Capital he was a scientist in residence at the investment firm PointNine for about 6 years.

During this episode we discuss his motivation and insight to start Air Street Capital in 2019 and how there were few to none VCs focusing exclusively on AI first startups, we talk about the power of AI models to make predictions across data sets and the increasing gap between academia and industry labs. We also discuss why AI should be on top of the political agenda and what does an AI first startup look like.

Enjoy!

FYI: We are launching a private network and peer-support group for CEOs working in the AI space in Europe. We already signed up some well-known tech CEOs from the ecosystem. The first gathering starts in September. If interested, sign up ⁠here⁠.

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro to Nathan

(02:30) The key developments in AI in the last 12 months and the speed of development

(05:45) The maturation cycle of advanced technology and crossing the chasm from labs to consumers

(08:20) The only constraint to build software will be your creativity and not your capability to engineer

(09:00) The background and founding story of Air Street Capital

(13:45) How Transformer models work and their capability to learn and make predictions across domains

(17:30) Can we replicate a human mind?

(20:00) The gap between academia and industry labs and the interest by nation states to own the technology

(25:00) What does an AI first startup look like and tying your predictions to ROI

(28:00) What does a successful AI startup-team look like

(31:15) The moment of pleasure as an investor

(33:00) What was the driver for his success

(34:00) Advice to his younger self

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Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results. 

Alex MacCaw is the founder and CEO of Reflect app. The note-taking tool that allows you to take notes the same way you think — by associating notes through backlinks.

Prior to Reflect he built and ran Clearbit a venture-backed 50M Eur annual recurring revenue B2B saas company.

During this episode we discuss about his journey with Clearbit from hacking the first sales to using the SaaS sales playbook, the differences between building a B2B and a B2C company, and the power of a committed community.

He is currently sailing around the world and this interview was made while he was docking in Grenada.

Please enjoy this excellent conversation with Alex MacCaw founder and CEO of Reflect app.

As mentioned during the episode we are launching a private network and peer support group for tech CEOs. We already signed up some well-known tech CEOs from the ecosystem. The first gathering starts in June. If interested, sign up here.

Brought to you by:

Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results. 

Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG1 covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

David is the founder and CEO of The Production Board, a holding company that builds and invests in businesses that solve the most fundamental problems that affect our planet, by reimagining global systems of production; across food, agriculture, biomanufacturing, human health, and the broader life sciences.

Prior to The Production Board, he was the founder and CEO of The Climate Corporation which he sold for $1.1B dollars to Monsanto. Spanning his career, he has contributed to 32 patents.

On the fun side he is also the co-host of the All-in pod, the super popular podcast co-hosted together with David Sacks, Chamath Palihapatia, and Jason Calacanis where they talk all things science, markets, venture capital, and politics. Which I highly recommend you listen to.

During this episode, we discuss the founding story of The Climate Corporation and the exit to Monsanto, why as an entrepreneur you should always be biased towards action, and his deep optimism and his mission of reimagining earth.

Thanks a million to Jan Hammer from Index Ventures and Siraj Khaliq from Atomico for the input to this episode, very very much appreciated!

Please enjoy this geeky conversation with the Sultan of Science, David Albert Friedberg.

As mentioned during the episode we are launching a private network and peer support group for tech CEOs. We already signed up some well-known tech CEOs from the ecosystem. The first gathering starts in June. If interested, sign up here.

Brought to you by:

Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results. 

Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG1 covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Lina Chong is a Partner at Target Global.

Target Global is one of the leading European venture capital investors with more than 3bn EUR in AuM and offices across Berlin, London, Tel Aviv and Barcelona.

They have backed more than 15 unicorns including household names such as Delivery Hero, Revolut, Wefox, Flink, TravelPerk and many others.

Lina was named Partner at Target earlier this year after working her way up from Associate. An American transplant in Berlin, she leads Target's German operations and co-leads the fund's early stage strategy. She is also a two-time founder herself, having started two companies one in Southeast Asia, and the other based in Germany/US. One was later sold to Living Social.

During this episode we discuss her move to Germany from the US, how they asses investment opportunities at Target global and the importance to surrounding yourself with people that you admire.

Brought to you by:

Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results. 

Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG1 covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Koen Thijssen, founder and CEO of Insify. At Insify they modernize the insurance market for Europe’s small and medium companies.

Prior to founding Insify, Koen was the founder and CFO of Bloomon, a subscription based flower business disrupting the $60B flower industry, in 2021 Bloomon was acquired by Bloom & Wild.

12 months ago they’ve raised with Insify $17m round led by Accel with participation from Visionaries and Frontline to expand into more markets.

During this episode we discuss about the Rocket Internet Mafia and why there are so many great entrepreneurs coming out it, Formula 1 of entrepreneurship is the way he described it, how he stumbled upon a huge market while insuring goods and people at Bloomon and his new set of criteria when starting a new business.

A million thanks to Luca Bocchio from Accel and Robert Lacher from Visionaries for the input to this episode! Much appreciated!

Brough to you by:

Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, Rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results. 

Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG1 covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Stef van Grieken is the co-founder and CEO of the biotech company Cradle.

Based between Delft and Zurich, Cradle’s machine learning platform helps scientists to design and program ‘cell factories’ faster and more successfully, speeding up the development of a more environmentally friendly method of producing almost anything.

They have recently raised a 6 million dollar seed round co-led by Index Ventures and Kindred Capital.

Prior to Cradle, Stef spent 7 years with Google as a Senior product manager for Google AI known as Google Brain and Google X known for its moonshots projects.

During this episode we discuss about the founding story of Cradle, how you can program cells to produce milk, plastic and petrol-free chemicals among other things, and why Europeans should change from being definite pessimists to definite optimists and be more entrepreneurial.

Stef is one of those rare breeds of entrepreneurs with a high amount of raw intelligence paired with kindness.

Thanks so much for the input on this episode to Leila from Kindred and Sofia from Index! Thanks a million!

Enjoy!

Brough to you by:

Rows -  the spreadsheet where data comes to life. Connected with your business data and delightful to share, rows is how teams work with numbers and share their results. 

Athletic Greens - all-in-one nutritional insurance, AG covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

Our guest today is Eric Lagier - founding Partner at byFounders.

byFounders is an early-stage venture fund backed by a collective of some of the most accomplished founders from the Nordics.

After eight years in Silicon Valley, where he built an extensive network of investors and founders, Eric returned to Copenhagen to found byFounders and support the next generation of globally ambitious founders building a better tomorrow.

‍Eric has more than 20 years of operational experience in Silicon Valley and in Europe, was part of the early team at Skype and Tradeshift and he founded Memolane, which was acquired by HP.

During this episode we discuss the journey to Silicon Valley with his startup Memolane, The importance of showing the ugly slide in a pitch deck and we talk about his tattoo, Muditā, meaning the pleasure that comes when seeing other people succeed.

Please enjoy this wonderful conversation with Eric Lagier - founding Partner of ByFounders.

This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Our guest today is Filip Dames - Founding Partner at Cherry Ventures.

Cherry Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm led by a team of entrepreneurs with experience in building fast-scaling companies such as Zalando and Spotify. The firm backs Europe's boldest founders, usually as their first institutional investor.

They have a great track record having previously invested in the seed stage of over 90 companies across Europe, including FlixBus, Auto1 Group, Infarm, Forto, SellerX, Juni, and Flink just to name a few. They are based in Berlin with offies in Stockholm and London.

Before Cherry, Filip started his first startup company in 2008, a digital marketplace for art and collectibles (long before there were NFTs). He then joined Zalando (ZAL:GR) as member of the founding team and grew the business up to IPO.

During this episode we discuss about his journey with Zalando, the founding story of Cherry Ventures and why making the first million is the hardest.

Please enjoy this excellent conversation with Filip Dames, Founding Partner at Cherry Ventures.

This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Our guest today is Sabina Wizander - 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.

They have an exceptional track record having previously invested in Spotify, Klarna, Trade Republic, Kahoot! and Bolt just to name a few.

Part of her tenure as an investor at Creandum, Sabina joined the healthcare startup KRY. After they invested in their seed round she joined the team and was part of the journey from 20 to 1000 employees and from 0 to 150m Eur yearly revenue. In 2016 she rejoined the investment firm as a partner.

During this episode we discuss about her journey with Kry and how that changed her investor mentality to have more empathy towards the entrepreneurs, we discuss about the struggle of finding a balance when having a family but also a job that you love, and why she is excited about the energy industry.

Please enjoy this wonderful, heartfelt, honest conversation with Sabina Wizander - Partner at Creandum.

This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Julian Kley Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of AVI Medical.

Avi Medical is a Munich-based health tech company that runs patient-centric, tech-enabled medical practices that provide a convenient, personalized, and holistic digital and physical patient experience.

They recently raised a 50m Euros Series B, round led by Balderton with participation from Eurazeo, Heal Capital, and the UiPath founder and CEO Daniel Dines among others.

During this episode, we discuss about his career path from pursuing medicine to becoming an entrepreneur, how to learn to trust your gut instinct, and the future of healthcare.

Please enjoy this honest and wonderful conversation with Julian Kley, co-founder and COO of AVI Medical.

This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Our guest today will try to answer some of these questions so please welcome Alfonso Peccatiello Founder & CEO of The Macro Compass.

The Macro Compass is an investment strategy firm whose mission is to democratize professional macro analysis, by giving access to tools and portfolio strategies.

Before launching The Macro Compass, Alfonso was the Head of Investments for a $20 billion portfolio for ING Germany.

During this episode, we discuss the current macro environment and how got here, what should be the strategies for consumers and investors to protect themselves during this period, and some economic predictions for 2023.

Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Alfonso Peccatiello, founder and CEO of the Macro Compass

This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Please meet Francesco Simoneschi - Co-Founder and CEO of TrueLayer.

In a couple of short years Francesco and his co-Founder Luca, have built TrueLayer into one of the world's leading providers of financial APIs.

Their mission is to grow the Open Banking economy by creating a truly global platform for companies to develop new financial services and products.

In September 2021 they’ve raised a 130m dollar round led by Tiger Global and Stripe pushing the company to unicorn status. Previous investors count the likes of Northzone, Temasek, and Anthemis.

During this episode, we discuss the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, open banking, and the challenge of managing a high-growth company that raised over $100m at the top of the market.

A million thanks to Tony Jamous the founder and CEO of Oyster invested one of the first tickets in the company in 2017. 

Enjoy!

This episode is brought to you by Affinity - a relationship intelligence platform that empowers teams to find, manage, and close high-quality deals. Find out why firms like Octopus Ventures, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital choose Affinity by heading to Affinity. Networks are everything: don’t forget to mention you're a friend of Venture Europe when you chat with the team.

Our guest today is Joel Nordström, co-founder and CEO of Atlar. At Atlar, they automate and streamline bank payments for companies.

Prior to founding Atlar, Joel was employee #12 at Tink – the open banking pioneer acquired by Visa for $2.2 billion – where he also met his cofounders.

They recently raised €5M Euros round led by Index Ventures and joined by La Famiglia, Cocoa, and some prominent angels like Revolut CFO Mikko Salovaara, former Executive Vice President of global sales at Adyen, Thijn Lamers, and N26 CFO Jan Kemper.

During this episode we discuss how Joel hustled to get the job at Tink, how they ideated and tested ideas until reaching and settling for Atlar, and their product strategy for global domination.

Enjoy!

Sponsored by Affinity - the most powerful relationship intelligence platform enabling teams to leverage their network and close the next big deal. Used by Lightspeed, Dawn, and Firstminute Capital among others. Say you are a friend of the pod and get a discount ;)

DHH is the Creator of Ruby on Rails the popular web development framework used by companies like Twitter, Github, Shopify, AirBnb, Square, Twitch and Zendesk to name a few.

He is also a co-owner and the CTO of 37signals the company responsible for developing Basecamp and Hey email service.

David has many talents, besides being a top programmer, he is a bestselling author and a Le Mans class-winning racing driver.

During this episode, we discuss his anti-VC philosophy, why Ruby on Rails became so popular, and his learnings from building a bootstrapped company and working remotely for the last 20 years.

Kerry Murphy is the founder and CEO of The Fabricant.

The Fabricant is a digital fashion house that operates at the intersection of technology and fashion. They use technology to create seductive fashion narratives unconstrained by the boundaries of the physical realm.

They recently raised a 14 million dollar Series A round led by Greenfield One with participation from Ashton Kutcher and other strategic angels.

During this episode, we discuss the importance of fashion in our identity, the components of a story, and the vision of The Fabricant in the future of the Metaverse.

Sebastian Pollok is a founding Partner of Visionaries Club.

Visionaries Club is a Berlin-based early stage VC fund, backed by leading European digital founders and family business entrepreneurs.

They recently raised 400 million Euros of fresh capital across 3 funds. A seed fund, a growth fund, and a science-driven focused fund.

They have an excellent track record, having previously invested in Personio, Miro, Choco, Xentral, TrueLayer, Pigment, just to name a few, and they invested alongside top-tier VCs such as Sequoia, Accel, Index, Lightspeed and Bessemer.

Previously, Sebastian was the co-founder and co-CEO of AMORELIE, which he exited to ProSiebenSat.1 Media in 2018.

During this episode, we discuss why Europe has to wake up to compete in the global arena, how he asses founders, and why it’s all about the people.

Please enjoy this excellent conversation with Sebastian Pollok founding Partner at Visionaries Club.

Julien Codorniu is a partner and investor at Felix Capital, the 600m Euro fund investing in brands and related enabling technologies. 

At Felix he focuses on SaaS (Worktech in particular) and gaming investments.

Before joining Felix, Julien spent 11 years at Facebook, where he led the global platform partnerships team, helping Facebook partners build, grow and monetize their mobile apps and games. Also he has been serving as Vice President of Facebook Workplace. Under his leadership, Workplace went from 0 to 10 million paid subscribers at companies like Walmart, Nestlé, McDonald's, Chevron, Astrazeneca, Spotify and many others.

His angel portfolio include fantastic companies like TripleDot Studios, BeReal, Linktree, Bloom & Wild, Pigment, Xentral, and Bits, among others.

He grew up in France, and he loves croissants. Now he lives in London with his wife and their two boys.

During this episode, we discuss the crazy growth journey that he experienced with Facebook from 500m users to the IPO, how the best investments he made took 2 seconds to decide and why sometimes you should go slow and don’t break things.

Michel Traore - the co-founder and CEO of anotherblock, a Web3 platform democratizing music ownership through NFTs.

Anotherblock connects music rights to NFTs, and creates a smooth and easy way to both buy and sell music rights. With his cofounders, Michel plans to introduce music to a free and open market, increasing its value and solving the imbalance of power within the industry.

Before Anotherblock he spent several years at Schibsted, and in the European startup scene, building fintech products from scratch. Growing up between the pop-wonder of Sweden and Burkina Faso, where his father created its first modern label - Music has been a big part of his life. In 2021, Michel combined his fintech expertise and love of music to found Anotherblock.

During this episode, we discuss web3, NFTs, how they are fractionalizing music, and how the holders will earn royalties. Also, we discuss their latest drop coming October 20 for the song - Alone part II by Alan Walker and Eva Max - a song that has 400m streams only on Spotify today.

Without further ado, please enjoy this wonderful conversation with Michel Traore, co-founder and CEO of Anotherblock.

My guest today is Timmu Tõke - the founder and CEO of Ready Player Me.

Ready Player Me is a cross-game avatar platform for the metaverse and more than 4,000 companies use their avatars in their products.

They recently announced their series B of 56 million dollars led by a16z with participation from some iconic names like Roblox co-founder David Baszucki, King Games co-founders Sebastian Knutsson and Riccardo Zacconi, and Twitch cofounder - Justin Kan among many others.

Before building Ready Player Me the young team spent many years building avatar tech for enterprise customers like Tencent, HTC, Vodafone, Wargaming, H&M, and Huawei.

During this episode, we discuss about grit and persistence, why you should Play to win, and the importance of knowing your strengths.

Please enjoy this excellent conversation with Timmu Tõke - co-founder and CEO of Ready Player Me.

Anthony Danon is a co-founder and general partner at Cocoa, the angel fund 100% backed by founders. Anthony has spent the last 7+ years as an early-stage VC focused on investing in what he calls "fintech is everything".

He started his career as an operator in fintech, building credit risk models for an invoice financing company.

As an investor, Anthony has been lucky to partner with companies such as TrueLayer, Primer, Wayflyer, and Ramp Network, to name a few.

Prior to Cocoa he was a Partner at Speedinvest leading their Seed fintech strategy across Europe and an investor at Anthemis Group before that.

All that, after a failed career as a graffiti artist and an attempt at becoming a professional soccer player.

During this episode, we discuss how Anthony become a partner in a relatively short time, the key elements that make a good investor, and the positioning and mission of Cocoa.

Nina works with transformational companies like ServiceTitan, Shopmonkey, Gong, and DeepScribe.

During this episode we discuss about vertical Saas, VC career advice and how to separate a great a pitch from a great founder.

Please enjoy this excellent conversion with Nina Achadjian Partner at Index.

My guest today is Ulric Musset the founder of Vauban.

Vauban is a venture capital platform that makes it easy for investors & VCs to launch their funds, SPVs and syndicates. Over $1bn has been invested via Vauban's platform since its launch. Ulric is an angel investor as well as an entrepreneur with a keen passion for supporting the venture capital ecosystem.

During this episode, we discuss what led Ulric to become an entrepreneur, the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, and Vauban's mission.

Let's go and talk with Ulric.

Her investments for Index include Remote, a platform to enable distributed working; Multiverse, the company bringing apprenticeships into the digital age; Fonoa, the automated tax platform; and Beauty Pie, the online cosmetics and beauty subscription service.

During this episode, we discuss her first day at Index, how she assesses founders for grit and perseverance, and the future of work.

Please enjoy this excellent conversion with Hannah Seal Partner at Index.

They recently closed a 165M Euro seed round of Equity and Debt capital - round led by LocalGlobe with participation from Creandum and some prominent angels including Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen, Zettle by PayPal founder Jacob de Geer, Embark Studios founder Patrick Söderlund, King founder Sebastian Knutsson, and EQT Ventures founding partner Hjalmar Winbladh

Prior to ArK, Henrik was a partner at EQT Ventures - the Swedish venture capital fund that announced its first 566m Euro fund in 2016. At EQT Ventures Henrik was also leading EQT’s Motherbrain division. Motherbrain is the data platform that supports EQT to be truly data-driven in finding and assessing the best tech start-ups to invest in.

Before EQT, Henrik worked as the VP of analytics at Spotify during 2010-2016 when Spotify was one of the highest-growing scale-up in Europe. He is the mastermind behind Spotify’s award-winning Analytics team building it from the ground up and contributing to many major strategic initiatives to build the world’s largest music subscription business.

In the words of Ted Persson from EQT - Henrik has made “analytics” his trademarks, from Spotify to EQT Ventures and now ArK.

During this episode we discussed about data-driven decision making and the DIBBs framework, how to build a data-driven culture and why Henrik is called the 9-minutes man.

Without further ado, please enjoy this excellent conversion with Henrik Landgren co-founder and CPTO of Ark Kapital!

My guest today is Eléonore Crespo co-founder and co-CEO of Pigment, the business planning platform (gopigment.com).

Prior to Pigment, Eléonore was an investor at Index Ventures, working side-by-side with entrepreneurs and spearheading investments in Alan, Spendesk, Swile and Slite. Before Index she worked as a senior analyst at Google, reporting directly to the EMEA president and CFO on matters of strategy and planning.

During this episode we discussed about how she managed to raise 73M dollars 1 month after giving birth to twins, why as a founder you should always be hiring and the importance of calibrating of what great talent looks like for certain positions.

Please enjoy this excellent conversion with Eleonore Crespo co-founder and co-CEO of Pigment!

Mathias is organising the Marketplace Conference (Nov 16-17 2021) with speakers like: Andrew Chen, General Partner of A16z, Talia Goldberg, Partner of Bessemer Venture Partners, Elmar Broscheit of Gorrilas and he was kind enough to give us a 20% discount (see link). The attendees will get a free copy of Andrew Chen's book - The Coldstart Problem.

Karl Munthe-Kaas is the Co-founder and CEO of Oda, Norway´s largest online grocery store. Oda was founded in 2013 by a group of ten friends, combining skills in software development with traditional Lean operations. They have used the Lean Startup philosophy extensively, both in the overall startup strategy, as well as in their daily experiments. Oda was valued at 1B Euro in 2021 after raising 265M Euro from Kinnevik, Prosus, and SoftBank to expand to Finland and Germany.

Oda has a fully integrated warehouse and distribution system, resting on proprietary technology and operational processes. This has enabled them to compete profitably with discount supermarkets, while offering the convenience and time-saving of online retail and maintaining a distinctly Nordic approach to ensuring sustainability.

During this episode we dive into the market opportunity in Europe and the online grocery value chain, the key learnings and tactics for implementing operational excellence in the organisation and Odas' secret sauce for winning against competition. Karl shares some great lessons throughout the episode that any entrepreneur can learn from.