startup talks

Investors

In this edition of the Seedcamp Podcast Series focused on Asia, Carlos Espinal talks with Tytus Michalski, Managing Partner at Fresco Capital about the startup investment ecosystem in Asia. 

Tytus discussed his background, how he became involved in investing, offering his insights on what founders should consider when expanding to this geography, and the risks and challenges of not taking into account the cultural differences. Tytus has been investing, working and living in Asia since 1999. Previously, he was Chief Investment Officer of Equities at PMA Investment Advisors, an institutional hedge fund. He is an active supporter of startup ecosystem in Hong Kong and Asia with an emphasis on mentorship and education.

Tytus Michalski, Managing Partner at Fresco Capital

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 Suranga Chandratillake, General Partner at Balderton. He discussed his background, his experience raising investment for blinkx, growing the business, his latest experience as an investor at Balderton, and some of the lessons he’d tell his younger self.

Suranga joined Balderton as a General Partner in 2014. He was previously an entrepreneur and engineer. He founded blinkx, the intelligent search engine for video and audio content in Cambridge in 2004. He then lead the company for eight years as CEO through its journey of moving to San Francisco, building a profitable business and going public in London where it achieved a peak market capitalisation in excess of $1Bn. Before founding blinkx, Suranga was an early employee at Autonomy Corporation - joining as an engineer in the Cambridge R&D team and ultimately serving as the company's US CTO in San Francisco.

Suranga Chandratillake, General Partner at Balderton

In this episode we were joined by Marc Zornes, Founder at Winnow. He discussed his background, his involvement in the food industry, and his latest experience as founder at Winnow.

Marc Zornes started his career at a large wholesale grocers, and food and sustainability have been his two passions ever since. Recently he started Winnow because he saw a massive opportunity in solving the problem of food waste and he's a strong believer that technology can help us change the way we make food. Before Winnow he co-authored the Global Institute report “Resource Revolution: Meeting the World’s Energy, Materials, Food, and Water Needs.’ whilst working as a consultant at McKinsey.

Marc Zornes, Founder at Winnow

Bill is a managing partner at Connect Ventures. He has 10 years working in venture capital and startups, having worked as an investment manager at Amadeus Capital and in a variety of operational roles at several California based startups.  He is on the boards of Citymapper, Knyttan, Marvel, RetentionGrid, Secretsales, and TOTEMS. 

In this Seedcamp Academy podcast, we talk about Bill’s history and draw on his experience of participating in many board meetings. What are their true purpose? When and how should you be setting up your ideal board? And what are some of the best practices for founders to get the most of them.

Bill Earner, Managing Partner at Connect Ventures

In this episode we were joined by Will Critchlow, Founder and CEO of Distilled. He discussed his background, his experience as a founder, and the fundamentals of search, social and content for a startup company.

Will Critchlow founded Distilled in 2005 with Duncan Morris. Distilled provides online marketing services from offices in London, New York and Seattle, hosts the SearchLove conference series in the US and UK and produces the popular online training platform DistilledU. His academic background is mathematics with a degree from the University of Cambridge (St. John’s College) including a graduate thesis on auction theory. Previous jobs included programmer, strategy consultant in the telecoms industry and floor sweeper.

Will Critchlow, Founder and CEO of Distilled

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

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.

Tytus Michalski, Managing Partner at Fresco Capital

The Seedcamp Podcast