Deep Dives

LegalTech & Legal Matters

Founders

Operators

On this edition of the Seedcamp Podcast Series, Carlos Espinal and Tom Wilson, Investment Manager (and ex-Lawyer) at Seedcamp, have a chat with Tina Baker, Partner & Co-founder of JagShawBaker (http://www.jagshaw.com/) and real-life rockstar (http://tinab.tv/tinabhome.html).

Rockstar Lawyers and how to tackle early-stage legals with Tina Baker

We had the chance to sit down with Fred and Todd of Foley & Lardner (http://www.foley.com/) to discuss points startups should consider as part of 'flipping' to the USA or starting off as a foreign company vs. one based in the USA.

A little bit more background on Fred & Todd:

Fred Adam is a partner and business lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP. He advises public and private multi-nationals, investment funds, and fund portfolio companies regarding international outbound and inbound tax planning, fund formation structuring, domestic tax matters of all types and international tax matters relating especially to global business model planning and global tax efficiency projects, transfer pricing, mergers and acquisitions, financial services (PE, Venture, Hedge, etc.), and pre- and post-transaction integration structuring. In particular, Mr. Adam concentrates his practice on taxation and structuring involved in international and domestic tax matters, fund formation and investment transactions, private equity investments, and domestic and international mergers & acquisitions. His experience also includes domestic and cross-border fund formation, taxation and structuring, domestic and international real estate matters, and day-to-day advisory for international and capital market businesses. Integral to his planning experience, Mr. Adam also has significant experience relating to tax controversy matters and transfer pricing. 

E. Thom (Todd) Rumberger Jr. is a partner and corporate lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP where he focuses his practice on private equity, mergers and acquisitions and venture capital, and Internet, software, telecommunications, digital media and financial services companies through all stages of their growth. He is vice chair of the firm’s Private Equity & Venture Capital Practice, co-chair of the Technology Industry Team and is a member of the Transactional & Securities Practice.
Mr. Rumberger counsels his corporate clients, ranging from start-up, emerging growth stage and venture backed, to public domestic and foreign companies, on a wide variety of matters ranging from formation, capitalization, key executive employment and general employment issues, and corporate governance, to early (convertible debt and seed preferred) and later stage venture capital, debt and public equity financings and offerings, strategic partner, reseller, and similar commercial agreements. In addition, he has broad transactional experience representing public and private company, and private equity, buyers and sellers involved in mergers and acquisitions and financings. Additionally, Mr. Rumberger works with foreign start-up and growth stage companies in establishing a presence in the United States.

A discussion on "Flipping to the USA" with Fred & Todd of Foley & Lardner

In this episode we were joined by Josephine Goube, Director of Partnerships & Communications at Migreat. She discussed her background, how she became involved in making immigration easier for companies, discussing Entrepreneur Visa options available to set up a business in the UK.

Listed as one the top 35 women in Business in Britain in 2015 by Management Today, Joséphine currently heads Migreat, the fastest-growing global platform for migrants to get access to information and immigration support. She previously worked at TechStars London and Rainmaking, co-founded the London School of Economics Business Incubator & graduated from the New Entrepreneurs Foundation.

Josephine Goube, Director of Partnerships & Communications at Migreat

In this episode we were joined by Dan Appelquist, Startup ambassador at The Open Data Institute. After discussing his background, Dan talks about Internet of Things, Privacy, and Open Data, giving insights in to how companies should explore data in a new way.

Daniel Appelquist works with the Open Data Institute startup program and the Open Data Incubator for Europe to build bridges with the startup and entrepreneurial community across Europe. Dan is a Mobile and Web industry veteran technologist who has been bringing innovative and disruptive services to market for two decades. He was an early Internet and Web pioneer, and has been a dot-com CTO and later a dot-com refugee. He helped to launch Vodafone Live! in the UK and has been instrumental in the development of industry standards initiatives and ventures such as dotMobi, the W3C Mobile Web Initiative, and device APIs such as the W3C Geolocation browser API. He has been a community instigator, founding MobileMonday London, as well as the Mobile 2.0 conference series in San Francisco and the Over the Air hack days in the UK. He worked as Open Web Advocate for Telefónica Digital and with Mozilla to bring FirefoxOS to market and build the ecosystem around HTML5.


Dan Appelquist, The Open Data Institute

In this episode of the Seedcamp Podcast, we were joined by Sheila Marcelo, Founder, Chairwoman & CEO of Care.com. 

Sheila joined Seedcamp on our US tour to meet with our Founders and talk about the personal life experiences and passion that led to her building Care.com, the world’s largest online care destination. She touches on everything from creating company culture and failing fast as a young Founder, to scaling the company and being coached as a CEO.

Sheila Marcelo, Founder of Care.com

Phil Libin, Co-Founder and Chairman of Evernote and Managing Partner of General Catalyst Partners, joined Carlos Espinal for a chat at Web Summit in Dublin. 

Phil and Carlos discuss everything from his long-standing career as a CEO, looking at his key advice for managers making the transition from early-stage leader to the CEO of a growth company, to the origins of Evernote and, in Phil’s new role in Venture Capital, what the future of apps looks like. Phil gives insight into the thoughts that led to him stepping down as CEO of Evernote as the company scaled. Debating when to recognise that someone skilled in running larger organisations makes sense for your business and that you can hire the best talent. 

Phil Libin, Co-Founder & Chairman of Evertnote and Managing Partner, General Catalyst Partners

Keith Wallington, Expert in Residence for Seedcamp and ex-Chief Group Officer of Mimecast, joins Carlos for this Podcast to explore key lessons learned from his experience helping operationalise businesses as a mentor, and internally at Mimecast through his multiple C-level roles. Looking at how these processes can be implemented in different organisations for their own benefit.


Keith Wallington, Expert in Residence, Seedcamp

Ben Drury, Founder of 7Digital, joined Seedcamp’s Dave Haynes for this interview talking through his journey as an entrepreneur. From starting in the first dot-com boom within early online music tech to building 7Digital during the dot-com crash, Ben discusses everything from building new services for a new era of technology, acquiring and selling other companies, to 7Digital’s own IPO. 

Ben Drury, Founder of 7Digital

In this episode, Carlos was joined by Yodit Stanton and Verena Wimmer, to unpick exactly what we mean when we talk about Data Science, the role of the Data Scientist, how startups can think about using data and when to consider hiring for the role, which tools are best and what we'd like to see in the future. If you're ready to learn more about the power of data, this podcast provides a great place to start.

Yodit Stanton is Founder of new Seedcamp company Open Sensors, the Internet of Things startup providing public and private infrastructure for real-time data, she is also the organiser of Women in Data Meetups in London.

Verena Wimmer is Lead Data Analyst at Hassle, the online cleaning marketplace recently acquired by Helpling. Verena also organises Data Mates, which brings together data-wizards, journalists, and data-driven designers to tell beautiful stories with data every eight weeks in London.

Seedcamp Dives into Data Science

Will Herrmann, Head of Commercial Operations for Hassle.com, joins Seedcamp's Dave Haynes in this podcast which follows Hassle.com's recent exit, having been acquired by Helpling. Following a session with some of our startups, Will discusses everything from scaling company operations following Hassle.com's Series A round to valuations and M&A.

Will Herrmann, Head of Commercial Operations, Hassle.com

Dimitar Stanimiroff, Managing Director of Stack Overflow Developer Insights at Stack Overflow, a Q&A site for programmers with over 4 million members, joins Carlos and Dave for this deep dive into hiring. 

Discussing everything from the hiring process, how to overcome challenges, hiring from within, and how to recruit technical talent if you're not technical.

Dimitar Stanimiroff, Managing Director, Stack Overflow Developer Insights at Stack Overflow

In this episode, Carlos was joined by Damian Kimmelmann, Co-Founder and CEO of DueDil, a fintech company that provides accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date private company data. 

After talking through Damian's background as a serial entrepreneur and the idea that built DueDil, we switch focus and talk through sales, looking at how to find and scale a b2b sales team.

Damian Kimmelmann, Co-Founder and CEO, DueDil

In this episode, Carlos was joined by Dr. James Smith and Jonathan Heusser, for a look into Bitcoin - what it is, what it means for the industry and how the startups developing within this new space. If you want to get to grips with Bitcoin and the future of payments, this podcast is the best place to start.

James Smith is CEO and Co-Founder of Seedcamp-backed startup, Elliptic. The company identifies illicit activity on the Bitcoin blockchain and provides services to the leading bitcoin companies and law enforcement agencies, globally. The team recently announced a $5M series A round to keep building out its blockchain forensics tool.  

Jonathan Heusser is Founder of Queueco, a market maker for digital currencies. They develop a scalable, automated trading platform and deploy it globally to trade on all major digital currency exchanges. Their strategies rely on the latest statistical and machine learning techniques and support the digital ecosystem by adding much-needed liquidity.

Seedcamp Dives into Bitcoin & Blockchain

In this episode, Carlos was joined by Ernesto Suarez, CEO of Halo Insurance Services, and Nikolaus Sühr, CEO and Co-Founder of Seedcamp's own KASKO, to discuss the future of insurance tech. The insurance market, like the financial and property markets, is poised for startups to shake up the status quo - and they already are! In this conversation, the three discuss what is happening in the space, the key players emerging across the sector and what we can expect to see in the coming years.

Seedcamp Dives into the Future of Insurance

In the ‘Seedcamp Podcast Series’ we talk with key people in the tech startup industry to hear their stories, key advice and learnings from their experiences.

In this episode, Dr. Edward Challis Founder and CEO of Seedcamp-backed Re:Infer (https://reinfer.io/) and Christoph Auer-Welsbach, IBM Watson Partner Innovation, joined Carlos to discuss Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and whether or not we will have to worry about humanity’s fate in the future.

With their experienced backgrounds, we covered the state of artificial intelligence today, some of the plausible uses and evolution of AI in the near term, and dispelling some of the myths around what is AI and what it can and can’t do.

Related Bio Links - 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardchallis
https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophauerwelsbach/en

Seedcamp Dives into Artificial Intelligence with Reinfer & IBM Watson

Starting by scoring a first interview with Guy Kawasaki Harry Stebbings walks us through how he started his network from scratch and built his massive following for his 20 Minute VC podcast show. 

In this podcast, Harry shares his story with Carlos giving unique insights on to some of the amazing marketing efforts that he has created to drive user growth and retain his audience all while highlighting the accomplishments of his interviewees. Discover how he uses channels like Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter to drive his audience to the show and how he discovered which channels best converted for him.  

www.thetwentyminutevc.com
www.twitter.com/HarryStebbings
www.seedcamp.com
www.carlosespinal.com

Harry Stebbings, Founder of the 20 Minute VC Podcast

In this episode, Carlos was joined by Matt Buckland, Head of Talent and HR of Lyst (www.lyst.co.uk), the fashion commerce platform, and Rob O’Donovan, Co-Founder & CEO of Seedcamp-backed CharlieHR (www.charliehr.com), the free HR platform for small businesses. We took a deep dive into best HR practices, a really hot topic for companies that are scaling their businesses and looking for the best tools and practices to manage their teams.

The importance of creating a company culture is already common knowledge, but as part of this podcast we explore this in more detail by actually defining it with examples from Matt & Rob's extended experience. They touch on ways to institutionalise and organise the processes, how software can turn real social interaction into meaningful data, and the importance of having a smooth, genuine on-boarding process for your new hires. 

Listen to great advice and real stories on what works best (or doesn’t) when it comes to categorising behaviour and getting a reality check on what does the new generation of hires find fulfilling in their roles - key defining elements that build up your brand culture and values.

Related Bio Links :
uk.linkedin.com/in/mlbuckland / twitter.com/ElSatanico 
uk.linkedin.com/in/robodonovan / twitter.com/rjodonovan
www.seedcamp.com / twitter.com/seedcamp
www.carlosespinal.com / twitter.com/cee

Seedcamp Dives into scaling Human Resources with Lyst and CharlieHR

In this episode, Carlos was joined by our very own Tom Wilson, a qualified UK Lawyer and member of the Seedcamp investment team. Together, they took a deep dive into the Legal Tech sector, an area that Tom is particularly passionate about given his past experience (and headaches) as a lawyer prior to joining Seedcamp.

We touched upon defining the Legal Tech sector and the various sub sectors that make up the legal eco-system. We went on to discuss some of the topics that are making the Legal Tech space so interesting right now including: a push for increased transparency, tech solutions focused on the automation of processes (i.e. NLP etc.), the maturing ecosystem, the generational shift and more broadly the innovation (i.e.AI etc.) and areas of our interest taking place right now in legal services.

Show notes from the episode:

Apply to Seedcamp x Nextlaw labs - http://seedcamp.com/seedcamp-x-nll/
Tom's blog post on the sector - http://bit.ly/29KtaAf

Related bio links:

- Tom -  https://twitter.com/tom_wils / https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tomwilsonseedcamp
- Carlos - www.carlosespinal.com / twitter.com/cee
- Seedcamp -  www.seedcamp.com / twitter.com/seedcamp

Additional show links:

- Apperio - https://apperio.com/
- Lexoo - https://www.lexoo.co.uk/
- Beagle.ai - http://beagle.ai/
- Legal Robot - https://www.legalrobot.com/
- Juro - https://www.juro.io/
- Legal Zoom - http://www.legalzoom.com/

The Legal Tech Sector explored with Tom Wilson

What does the advent of artificial intelligence spell for the future of legal services and lawyers themselves? On that topic Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal is joined by founder and CEO Matt Osman of Legit Patents, the startup building AI-powered applications to automate parts of the R&D process, and Neil Miller, Partner at JAG Shaw Baker and formerly General Counsel at SoundCloud.

"The lawyer of the future is going to look much closer to a combination of a strategic advisor, an account manger, and someone in charge of customer support," suggests Matt, pointing to the recent phenomenon of law schools incorporating coding into their studies. "Quite a lot of their job will be interpreting and packaging the results that are produced by software."

Meanwhile Neil describes which aspects of the legal process will be automated first - including much of the grunt work currently performed by paralegals and associates. Yet he notes there are services which will be immune, including family law which 'requires a level of empathy you won't get with AI'. 

Speaking about his experiences at JAG Shaw Baker and SoundCloud, Neil also provides a 101 on legal basics for startups and 'the things that become more complicated if you don't fix them early on,' from incorporation, cap tables and granting options, to keeping track of open source libraries and rights associated with them.


Show notes: 
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Legit Patents: www.legitpatents.com
JAG Shaw Baker: www.jagshawbaker.com

Related bio links: 
Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee
Matt: linkedin.com/in/matthew-osman-36b658110 / angel.co/matthew-osman
Neil: linkedin.com/in/neilmiller

The future of legal services with Legit Patents and JAG Shaw Baker

At Seedcamp, we are passionate about identifying and investing early in startups using emerging technologies that have the potential to solve real problems. We began to invest in companies using blockchain technologies back in 2014 and our portfolio includes the likes of Clause, building the dynamic contracting infrastructure of the future, to Elliptic, providing the forensic tools with which to identify illicit activity on the blockchain. And we believe that there are several iconic companies of the future using blockchain technologies that are yet to be built.

If you missed our event on blockchain, tokens and ICOs, tune in to hear from our lively founder panel including Peter Hunn (CEO of Clause), Irra Ariella Khi (CEO of Vchain), Richard Burton (CEO of Balance) and Ben Livshits (Chief Scientist at Brave). The panel is moderated by Kyran Schmidt and Sia Houchangnia from Seedcamp.

And check out our Facebook page for the live video of all the panels from the event: www.facebook.com/seedcamp

Show notes:
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Vchain: www.vchain.tech
Clause: www.clause.io
Balance: www.balancemy.money
Brave: www.brave.com


Related bio links:
Sia: linkedin.com/in/siahouchangnia / twitter.com/siahouchangnia
Kyran: linkedin.com/in/kyran-schmidt / twitter.com/kyranschmidt
Irra: linkedin.com/in/irraariellakhi / twitter.com/irra_k
Peter: linkedin.com/in/peterhunn / twitter.com/peterhunn
Richard: linkedin.com/in/richardjburton / twitter.com/ricburton
Ben: linkedin.com/in/ben-livshits / twitter.com/convoluted_code

'Distributed Futures': Blockchain, Tokens and ICOs - Founders' Panel

This Much I Know is the podcast from Seedcamp, Europe’s seed fund.

Tune into hear the inside story from startup founders, investors and leading tech voices: the people who’ve built businesses, scaled globally, failed fantastically and learnt massively.

Seedcamp invests early in world-class founders attacking large, global markets and solving real problems using technology. Seedcamp provides the infrastructure to fast-track a founder’s vision and create value through immediate access to smart capital, a lifelong community of support and a global network built upon a decade’s experience backing exceptional talent.

'Distributed Futures': Blockchain, Tokens and ICOs - Founders' Panel

The Seedcamp Podcast