In this episode, Seedcamp Partner Carlos was joined by Hugh Campbell from GP Bullhound. The conversation begins with Hugh explaining his time at Oxford where he studied "Physiology, psychology and philosophy". They then proceed into speaking about his work experience with City Bank and Goldman Sachs before his 3 co-founders decided to take the lessons learned in investment banking to create GP Bullhound. Since it's inception the company has now expanded outside London to new locations like Manchester, Germany and France to be closer to great tech companies because these come from all over Europe.

Speaking about the challenges of fundraising Hugh shares that in his view today's biggest challenge for founders in the UK is not to raise £1M early stage round given the existing tax benefits but it's much harder for businesses that are at 10 or 15 people and want to grow to 100 and need a larger round. He then proceeds to share his tips on fundraising and give examples on how to build better relationships with investors while explaining how trust plays a big part of an M&A deal.  Regarding exits they discuss the rise of private equity firms in the purchasing of tech busiensses and how those are different from traditional large acquirers like Google, Microsoft or Facebook.

During the podcast Hugh and Carlos also approach the state of enterprise software market especially regarding exit options. They then proceed speaking about the evolution of the European investor and tech scene during the last decade focusing in the IPO scene and how it is improving in Europe with IPOs like Auto Trader, Boohoo, Zalando and Rocket Internet. These have been impacting the entire European landscape including the German technology market fuelling it's incredibly fast growth - especially in Berlin all of which despite not having the tax brakes in the UK.

Finally they discuss the expansion strategies for UK based companies and Hugh shares his favourite book for young entrepreneurs so that they can evaluate if their idea is any good at an early stage.

Show notes from the episode:
Carlos Website: http://www.carlosespinal.com
Seedcamp: http://www.seedcamp.com
GP Bullhound: http://www.gpbullhound.com/


Related bio links:
Carlos: uk.linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / @twitter.com/cee
Hugh: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/hucampbell / https://twitter.com/hugh_gpb

Hugh Campbell, Founding Partner at GP Bullhound, on preparing your company for an exit

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.

I am a UX designer with 5 years of experience in development of web and mobile products from industries like e-commerce, transportation, telecommunication, banking and life science. I am able to define and execute UX strategy, create relationships with customers and support development teams. I offered my expertise to companies like iQuest, TedX, Informal School of IT, Edge Academy and Evozon. 

As a designer, I qualify for the ability of understanding complex business scenarios, identifying users needs, creating flow-charts, designing wireframes, prototyping and turning ideas in easy to understand stories. Jacob Nilson's 10 human-centric design principles are at the core of my expertise.

In a highly shifting IT industry, I learn very fast and teach others. I manage to build strong relationships with my team and stakeholders by crafting a UX strategy, refining scope requirements, presenting and defending product ideas in a collaborative way. 

My specialties include User Experience (UX/UI), Usability Research, Usability testing, Product design, Interaction Design, Digital Strategy, Marketing, Social Media and Public Speaking. 

Experienced in: Adobe CC Suite, Sketch, Axure, Marvel, InVision, Zeplin 

Interests: Life science industry, Machine Learning, BockChain, Crypto industry, Big Data, Car industry and Space exploration.

Hugh Campbell, Founding Partner at GP Bullhound, on preparing your company for an exit

The Seedcamp Podcast