Investors

Sessions

March 2018

In the latest episode, Carlos was joined by Jeff Veen, Design Partner for True Ventures, a Venture Capital firm that focuses on supporting the earliest stage Founders and their teams. In the podcast, Jeff and Carlos discuss how a Partner with a design background views potential investment decisions, unearthing a lot of advice on design for startups in the process. 

http://www.seedcamp.com
http://www.carlosespinal.com
https://trueventures.com/

Jeff Veen, Design Partner at True Ventures, on How a Design Expert Views Investments

Seedcamp Partner Carlos Espinal had the chance to sit down with Playfair Capital founder, Federico Pirzio-Biroli, to discuss his background prior to starting Playfair and Co-Working space Warner Yard. 

In this episode, Federico shares with us his passion for frontier markets, and his views on the opportunity to move the needle in those areas for the better, leveraging his experience in building Playfair and seeing the EU ecosystem develop over the years.

For more on Federico's latest move, check out the Business Insider piece covering his departure:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/playfair-capital-founder-federico-pirzio-biroli-is-moving-to-africa-and-warner-yards-coworking-space-is-closing-2016-6

https://twitter.com/fede_r1c0
https://twitter.com/cee

Founder of Playfair Capital, Federico Pirzio-Biroli, on the future of investing in Africa

In this episode of the Seedcamp Podcast Sean Seton-Rogers from PROfounders Capital meets Carlos to share some of the lessons learned over his career as an investor – from experiencing the “The Bubble” first hand to more recently being able to invest in almost 30 European companies in the last 5 years.  

Sean has been working closely with great founders helping them to focus in the right things to make sure they can grow and are able to raise their next round.

Sean also shares with Carlos the story of his times through the “Social Wars” and how he met with Michael Birch and Xochi Birch founders of Bebo while at Benchmark and helped them grow through their acquisition by AOL.

Carlos and Sean also discuss the evolution of the startup ecosystem in Europe and how it became a relevant market for the US investor as well as the rise of Unicorns coming out of Europe.

http://www.profounderscapital.com/


Sean Seton-Rogers, Partner at PROFounders Capital

In this episode, Seedcamp Partner Carlos was joined by the experienced investor and entrepreneur Christoph Janz, Managing Partner at Point Nine Capital. The result is an in-depth conversation about investing in SaaS companies and the key KPIs to have in mind for this sector.

Listen to Christoph​ sharing his story​ about catching the “entrepreneurial virus” at just 12 years old​, and re-living some of the stories from his time as the co-founder of DealPilot.com(acquired by Shopping.com) and Pageflakes (acquired by LiveUniverse), as well as an investor in companies such as Zendesk, FreeAgent Central, Geckoboard and many others.

If you’re a founder, operator or investor in any globally ambition SaaS business then you’ll want to hear Christop’s take on key metrics that early startups should have in mind to scale their businesses and get his thoughts on everything from customer acquisition challenges to sales pipelines.

Show notes from the episode:
Christoph's blog: http://christophjanz.blogspot.com
Seedcamp: http://seedcamp.com

Related bio links:
Carlos: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / @cee
Christoph: https://de.linkedin.com/in/christophjanz / @chrija


Christoph Janz, Managing Partner at Point Nine Capital

In this episode, Seedcamp Partner Carlos was joined by Vincent Jacobs from Kima Ventures. Together they speak about Vincent's education and career which includes working at Seedcamp back in 2012.

Sharing some insights on how Kima Ventures works, Vincent speaks about their investment strategies as well as the deal pipeline management techniques they have been building since 2010.  These strategies allow them to manage a large amount of applications and also a portfolio of 380 companies.

Vincent and Carlos also dive into the evolution of the startup landscape in the last few months and the challenges that Kima faces when investing in companies all over the world, including countries that are underserved by investors. Finally Vincent speaks about the evolution of the requirements for raising a Series A round during the last few months and how those differ between the UK and the US.

http://seedcamp.com/
http://www.kimaventures.com/
https://twitter.com/vincejaco
https://twitter.com/cee

Vincent Jacobs, Partner at Kima Ventures

@2timesx 
@minimalwave 
— 
http://2-times.com/online/music/mixes/veronica-vasicka-minimal-wave-for-2-times

2-TIMES

Veronica Vasicka for 2-TIMES

I launched the Seedcamp 'This Much I Know' Podcast back in 2015 with a view to hearing and sharing the exceptional and often unknown stories of many inspirational thought leaders. We've learned about our guests' lives, goals and ambitions as well as their thoughts and first-hand experiences when it comes to building and scaling startups, teams and communities. 

As we near our 150th podcast and following feedback from you, our listeners, we are introducing a new, shorter-form podcast called 'Sessions'. Our Sessions interviews will be hyper-focused on a specific issue, idea or functional area and provide you with digestible content and tangible actions you can take away and apply to your own businesses. 

Naturally, we will continue to do our long-form podcasts for those of you who enjoy the deeper dives and we hope Sessions will be the perfect accompaniment to this. 

So please do tune in and let us know your thoughts along with any 'Session' areas you'd like us to explore or guests you'd like to recommend.

We're thrilled to kickstart Sessions with David Mytton, CEO of Server Density, on why you can't build SaaS without significant funding

In a recent blog post, David argues you can't build a SaaS company in 2018 without significant funding. With increased competition from alternative vendors, investing in product and engineering to differentiate from other solutions is imperative -- and comes at a significant expense. Tune into this informative podcast as David, who received investment from Seedcamp in 2009, explores why bootstrapping a SaaS business in 2018 is no longer viable plus much more. 


Show notes:
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
David's blogpost: https://davidmytton.blog/you-cant-build-a-saas-company-in-2018-without-significant-funding/

Related bio links:
Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee
David: www.linkedin.com/in/davidmytton / twitter.com/davidmytton

Seedcamp Sessions: David Mytton on SaaS funding

At $765m Atomico IV is one of the largest venture capital funds ever raised in Europe. But what do Atomico look for in the companies and founders which they choose to back? In this second Seedcamp Sessions podcast, Ben Blume, Principal at Atomico, elaborates on the fund's investment thesis and processes, explaining the high level benchmarks that the firm looks for when investing in entrepreneurs, from technological defensibility to deep domain experience and inherent scalability. Ben describes in more detail the principles which guide's Atomico's decision making process (including 'Now is the Age of the Entrepreneur'), as codified in their manifesto, as well as their appetite for 'visionary and risky bets'.

Show notes:
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Atomico's Manifesto: http://www.atomico.com/manifesto

Related bio links:
Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee
David: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/benblume / https://twitter.com/benblume

Seedcamp Sessions: Ben Blume on what funds like Atomico look for in founders

Rob Moffat joined Balderton Capital in 2009 and was promoted to partner in 2015. He is currently a board director or observer with five portfolio companies: Carwow, Wooga, Nutmeg, Prodigy Finance, and Patients Know Best.  Prior to joining Balderton, Rob worked for Google in London, as a Manager in the European Strategy and Operations team, and for five years in strategy consulting at Bain. In this Seedcamp Sessions podcast, Rob covers the different growth engines which have proven successful for startups -- from paid marketing for companies like Carwow, who need to be rigorous in how they think about acquisition, through to continuous product innovation for companies like Revolut, and partnerships and business development for startups like Zego. Rob also covers how to navigate VC and strategic partnership relations, and how Balderton is thinking about the evolving Insurtech landscape.

Show notes:
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Balderton: www.balderton.com

Related bio links:
Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee
Rob: linkedin.com/in/robmoff / twitter.com/robmoff

Seedcamp Sessions: Balderton's Rob Moffat on startup growth engines

Edward Wray graduated Oxford University to pursue a job at JP Morgan, where he spent 7 years eventually leaving as the VP of Dept Capital Markets & Derivatives. Going on to co-found Betfair in 1999, he was its first Chief Executive until 2003, when he moved to Australia to set up the company’s joint venture. It floated on the stock market in 2010, valued at £1.4 billion and is now one of the world’s largest online sports betting operators, processing more than 5 million transactions a day.

In this Seedcamp session, Ed shares many aspects of his journey, from raising £1m from his family and friends, as no VC was prepared to back him, to important life lessons he learnt through first time mistakes, like trusting your gut instinct. Now Director of Funding Circle, Ed says that when joining as director of a company, it’s imperative that employees live and breathe the business as well as understand that they themselves don’t always have the answers.

Show notes:
Carlos Medium: sdca.mp/2entVR3
Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Funding Circle: https://www.fundingcircle.com/uk/

Related bio links:
Carlos: linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal / twitter.com/cee
Ed Wray: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-wray-b25b011/ /  https://twitter.com/edwray21

Edward Wray on scaling up, learning from mistakes and creating liquidity

Hiring and retaining talent is one of the most severe challenges of early-stage companies. Employee stock options are a fair, but often misunderstood tool for aligning interests between early employees. Fortunately, the Director of Talent at Index Ventures, Dominic Jacquesson has combined knowledge from both sides of the Atlantic and created a comprehensive guide called “Rewarding Talent”.

In the podcast, Dominic shares his findings on the differences between European and US startups and gives tips for early-stage founders on building sustainable long-term relationships with its employees. 

“We are very much advocates of giving something to everyone. It might be a small amount, but as you scale, try to make everyone an owner.”

Seedcamp: www.seedcamp.com
Index Ventures: https://www.indexventures.com

Carlos: 
medium.com/@cee
www.linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal
twitter.com/cee

Dominic:
https://medium.com/@domjacquesson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicjacquesson/
https://twitter.com/domjacquesson

Rewarding Talent: https://www.indexventures.com/rewardingtalent
Rewarding Talent (online version): https://www.indexventures.com/rewardingtalent/handbook/rewarding-talent
Rewarding Talent (quick guide): https://www.indexventures.com/blog/rewarding-talent-quick-guide

Index Ventures OptionPlan: https://www.indexventures.com/optionplan

Dominic Jacquesson, Director of Talent at Index Ventures, on employee stock options

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.

Seedcamp Sessions: Ben Blume on what funds like Atomico look for in founders

The Seedcamp Podcast