Deep Dives

Investors

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

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

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, 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, 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

The mistake many Western tech giants have made is seeing China as just another country where they could easily get a few million users instead of focusing on localising their product offering.

Carlos is joined in the studio this week by one of our very own partners, Sia Houchangnia, who has recently returned from a month-long deep dive of exploring the venture landscape in China and south-east Asia. 

In this episode, Sia unpacks the key differences in approach between VCs in the far East and those in the West - from investment strategy and portfolio construction all the way to the differing perceptions of what investor value-add looks like. He also provides unique insights into the challenges faced by European companies when entering the hyper-competitive Chinese market (and vice-versa), the rise of Chinese ‘super-apps’, how to address the gaps in engineering talent coming out of the region today as well as why the prospect of more EU-Chinese collaboration is one we should be excited about. 

Links: 
Sia Houchangnia - twitter.com/siahouchangnia 
Carlos Espinal - twitter.com/cee
Seedcamp - seedcamp.com

Sia Houchangnia, partner at Seedcamp, on navigating the venture landscape in Asia

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.

Sia Houchangnia, partner at Seedcamp, on navigating the venture landscape in Asia

The Seedcamp Podcast