EUVC

What exactly are LPs buying when they allocate to venture today and do they still believe in it?In this episode, Andreas sits down with Max Bray and Juliet Bailin, both Venture Partners at Kindred Capital VC to unpack what's really happening beneath the fundraising headlines.Max brings the raw perspective of trying to raise a first-time fund in 2025 with unicorn-founder GPs, strong angel track records, and still struggling to secure second meetings.Juliet brings the sharper counterpoint: LP frustration isn't always ignorance. Sometimes it's a rational response to how venture has been practiced, especially around transparency, liquidity discipline, and the unrealistic expectation that a GP should be world-class at everything.This is a conversation about:LP behavior in uncertain cyclesThe myth of the “full-stack investor”Why solo GP economics are brutalWhether software still needs ventureAnd why the fund model is splitting at the extremesNot hot takes. Not doom.Just honest mechanics.ShareWhat's Covered:01:04 Max's 2025 fundraising reality: even strong “on-paper” stories struggle to get second calls03:46 LP rotation: capital moving toward liquidity, security, and shorter-duration bets05:08 LP frustration: transparency gaps + liquidity decision-making07:09 LPACs as sparring partners, not governance theatre09:31 Europe's structural issue: too few LPs and GPs have lived full cycles12:47 The “full-stack investor” myth: investing + fund management + compliance + IR14:46 Solo GP economics: why 2/20 breaks at the small end26:08 The barbell thesis: platforms on one end, specialists on the other27:56 Software defensibility compression in the AI era30:24 Will AI decentralize outcomes — or centralize them further?33:10 The rise of AI roll-ups and alternative capital models35:19 The “middle-market squeeze” — real or overhyped?39:34 What founders actually care about when choosing a fund

Climate isn't “over.” But building in climate has entered a new chapter, defined by shifting regulation, politicized narratives, buyer confusion, and a market that funded dozens of overlapping platforms.In this episode, Andreas and co-host Carmel Rafaeli, Founding Partner at The Table, sit down with Lubomila Jordanova, Co-founder & CEO of Plan A, just weeks after Plan Ajoined forces with Diginex, the NASDAQ-listed sustainability technology company, at the end of 2025.The conversation is part of Leaders Shaping a Resilient Planet, a series spotlighting exceptional founders in climate tech who happen to be women. The focus is not identity as a theme, but execution as a discipline. These are operators building in some of the most complex and capital-intensive parts of the real economy.This is not an acquisition recap. It is a clear-eyed discussion about what it takes to build and responsibly exit a climate tech company in a market that is maturing quickly.What's covered:00:52 The Table: co-investing community + the Foundation's recoverable grants model02:05 Introducing Lubomila Jordanova and Plan A02:45 The acquisition: why Plan A chose to lead consolidation04:35 Fundraising logic → acquisition logic: what changed06:40 Founder outcome vs VC outcome: how alignment works in an exit11:30 “The truth is where the real economy sits”: what carbon software actually sells13:30 The uncomfortable line: “glorified consulting with a digital angle”15:05 What VC portfolios get wrong in climate: return distribution, capital stack, secondaries16:55 Why “climate” can't be one bucket: hardware vs SaaS vs reporting20:00 Managing investor perception: visibility, bias, and boardroom baggage23:15 The broader financial pyramid: VC vs public markets vs real-economy signals27:35 Post-exit reality: why a public-company KPI lens changes the conversation31:10 Three founder learnings (humility, ecosystem, real-world problems)33:55 A rare founder truth: pregnancy during the exit + building with “more hats than one”

In a market where “AI fund” can mean almost anything, Lumo Labs is unusually specific: digital deep tech, deployed early, and anchored in one of Europe's densest innovation clusters—Eindhoven, home of Philips' legacy and the High Tech Campus (“smartest square kilometer” energy).In this EUVC pitch episode, Andreas sits down with Andy Lurling, founder & GP of Lumo Labs, to unpack how an entrepreneur-turned-investor built a fund that's deliberately more than money: a structured support program, deep technical selection, and a thesis shaped by real-world constraints, health systems under pressure, and cities as the source of most emissions and pollution.ShareWhat's covered: 00:59 Why “Labs” and why Eindhoven: origin story + Philips legacy02:31 Andy's founder journey: EyeOpener, ESA as first investor, and the exit06:15 From angel tickets to a fund: two cornerstone LPs pull them into fund building08:26 Fund I recap: €20m, 23 pre-seed/seed investments08:58 Fund II status: just over €40m raised, targeting €100m final size10:34 The actual thesis: AI + digital deep tech (security, IoT, AR)13:12 SDG focus: health, education, sustainable cities + climate action (urban)15:31 Why these sectors: prevention over curing, and cities as the “source problem”19:22 Where they invest: Netherlands/Belgium/Germany core; Spain/Portugal + Nordics via scouts20:30 “Smart capital” in practice: leadership, market fit, storytelling, follow-on readiness23:30 Track record snapshot: 30 companies; 3 dead; 9 (soon 11) moving into scale-up territory

Welcome back to another episode of Upside where Dan Bowyer and Mads Jensen of SuperSeed go behind the headlines shaping European tech, capital, and power.This week we're joined by Eyal Malinger, co-founder of Resurge Growth Partners, to unpack a genuinely strange week in global tech.China unveils humanoid robots that look disturbingly battlefield-ready. Anthropic tries to draw moral lines in defence AI. Peter Steinberger leaves Europe almost as fast as he went viral. Munich becomes less “security conference” and more “Europe, wake up.” And in the background, billion-dollar AI seed rounds and quantum mega-funds quietly signal that the frontier is accelerating again.This isn't just a tech cycle.It feels like a systems cycle.This is Upside, where optimism is earned, not assumed.What's covered:02:10 China's humanoid robot moment: hardware dominance meets AI brains06:20 Battlefield AI and the ethics problem Anthropic can't avoid14:00 Raspberry Pi, edge AI, and Europe's accidental meme stock20:30 Anthropic vs Palantir: moral lines vs deterrence logic25:10 Peter Steinberger leaves Europe — ecosystem gravity in action31:00 AI inside venture: workflow automation vs real alpha43:00 Munich Security Conference: defence budgets, sovereignty, and Stark vs Thiel52:10 Psychedelics and glucose monitors: Europe's quiet biotech strength55:30 Quantum funds and Europe's billion-dollar AI seed round

In this EUVC Live at GoWest episode, Olivier Tonneau, Founding Partner Quantonation, Jeppe Høier, Co-Host at EUVC Corporate, Paolo Pio, Co-founder and General Partner at Exceptional Ventures, Fergus Bell, Founder and Managing Partner at The Players Fund, and Prashant Agarwal, Chairman and Managing Director at Scandian xplore one defining question:How does Europe turn frontier innovation into global scale?Across quantum, corporate capital, longevity, and sport, the same pattern emerges: Europe doesn't lack talent or research. It lacks the capital and market architecture required to scale strategic industries fast enough to stay independent.Olivier opens with Europe's quantum paradox. Europe supplies a meaningful share of deployed quantum computers globally, with strong startup and research clusters across the Nordics, France, Germany, and the UK. The science is world-class — but the financing is breaking. Over the last 12 months, the funding ratio between Europe and the US has shifted from roughly 1:2 to nearly 1:7, accelerating US scale-up, public listings, and acquisition pressure. Europe has 12–24 months to respond — not to avoid failure, but to avoid becoming the lab while others become the market.Jeppe shifts the lens to corporates. Corporate venture capital represents roughly 25% of global VC volume, yet the average lifespan of a CVC unit is only 3.7 years. His argument is blunt: most corporates launch venture arms believing they are “doing VC,” when they are actually building a strategic instrument without the operating system required to sustain it. Without durable governance — and a clear Build, Buy, Partner model — corporate venture becomes fragile instead of strategic.Paolo reframes health and longevity as deep tech moving at software speed. Genome sequencing has collapsed from decades to hours. mRNA proved that biology timelines can compress dramatically. With AI now embedded in diagnostics and discovery, health is entering an exponential era — and venture is being pulled with it.The session closes with a thesis most investors still underestimate. Fergus and Prashant argue sport is no longer entertainment — it is venture infrastructure. Athletes and rights holders are becoming capital allocators and distribution rails. Elite sport has evolved into a real-world deployment environment for deep tech, health tech, AI, and performance systems — where validation happens under pressure and at global scale.The takeaway across all five perspectives is clear:Europe invents early.But scale requires architecture.Late-stage capital depth.Liquidity.Corporate integration.Coordination.What's covered:00:30 Europe's scale question — five lenses on one problem02:00 Quantum's paradox — Europe leads in science, not in financing05:00 The 1:7 funding gap — why the next 12–24 months matter07:00 What Europe can do — capital architecture, procurement, scale funds11:30 Corporate venture — 25% of global VC, but structurally fragile13:30 Why CVCs fail — the 3-year vs 6-year test and governance gaps16:30 Longevity as deep tech — health moving at software speed21:30 AI in health — diagnostics, discovery, and exponential biology27:30 Sport as venture infrastructure — athletes and rights holders as rails34:30 Deep tech in sport — validation, performance systems, adoption under pressure40:00 Final takeaway — Europe has innovation; it needs scale architecture

Is Europe's defense investment wave real, or is it simply venture capital wrapped in a Ukrainian flag?The debate featured Nicholas Nelson, General Partner at Archangel Ventures, and Sebastian von Ribbentrop, Founding Partner at Join Capital.At stake is more than narrative. It is about capability, returns, sovereignty — and the structural future of European capital markets.Until recently, defense investing in Europe was controversial. Many institutional LPs avoided the sector. ESG mandates were interpreted narrowly. Defense was often softened under the label “dual-use.” Russia's invasion of Ukraine changed the landscape. Defense budgets rose. Political rhetoric shifted. Venture capital began flowing into the sector at unprecedented levels.But the central question remains:Is this a structural capital reallocation — or a short-term momentum trade?The debate crystallizes around one fault line: defense-first vs dual-use.Nicholas argues Europe's hesitation to embrace defense-first investing is both strategically and financially misguided. Defense-only startups, he contends, have historically outperformed. Dual-use often dilutes focus by forcing two distinct go-to-market motions. Real capability requires designing directly for the warfighter — not adapting commercial products later. In his view, dual-use in Europe often functions as a reputational hedge rather than a strategy.Sebastian counters that dual-use is not compromise — it is risk management. Advanced technologies can serve both industrial and defense customers without duplicating entire teams. Diversified revenue reduces concentration risk. Non-dilutive defense contracts can substitute late-stage equity rounds in a region where growth capital remains thin. And Europe's comparative advantage may lie less in building vertically integrated primes — and more in dominating high-precision subsystems.As the conversation escalates, it moves beyond product strategy into a deeper structural issue: scale capital. Even where early-stage defense investment has improved, later-stage funding remains limited. Several leading European defense startups have relied heavily on US or Middle Eastern growth capital.Which raises uncomfortable questions:Can Europe build independent defense champions without foreign growth capital?Will its strongest companies inevitably “pick a flag” as they scale?Is fragmentation across 30+ procurement regimes Europe's structural disadvantage?Without coordination at scale, even strong early-stage ecosystems struggle to produce global champions.What's covered:00:30 Framing the question — structural shift or narrative trade?02:00 From taboo to trend — ESG optics and the Ukraine inflection point04:15 Defense-first vs dual-use — the core strategic divide07:30 The defense-first case — focus, procurement alignment, and capability building11:00 The dual-use counterargument — diversification and risk management14:30 Subsystems vs primes — where Europe's advantage may lie18:00 The growth capital gap — reliance on US and Middle Eastern funding21:00 “Picking a flag” — sovereignty vs scale23:30 Procurement fragmentation — 30+ regimes and scaling friction26:00 Final takeaway — Europe's defense future depends on capital conviction and coordination

Europe is not facing a crisis of ideas — it is facing a crisis of industrial depth.In this EUVC episode, Danijel Višević (Co-Founder & General Partner, World Fund), Heidi Lindvall (Founder & General Partner, Pale Blue Dot), Narina Mnatsakanian (Partner & Chief Impact Officer at Regeneration VC), Dr. Isabella Fandrych (Co-Founder and General Partner at Nucleus Capital), Jordan Billiald (Principal at IQ Capital), and Moritz Jungmann (GP at Future Energy Ventures) confront one of the defining questions of 2025:What does sovereignty actually mean?Danijel opens with history. In 1951, coal and steel powered conflict — so Europe integrated them. That integration was not symbolic. It was structural coordination under pressure. Europe repeated this reflex after the Berlin Wall, during COVID, and following the Russian gas shock. Europe does not collapse under pressure. It coordinates. But today, coordination must extend beyond policy — into capital markets and industrial systems.The structural gaps are stark. Europe produces less than 10% of the semiconductors it consumes. It imports the vast majority of rare earth materials. It raises significantly less venture capital than the United States. Only a fraction of European climate tech startups reach Series B. Europe can invent. It struggles to industrialize.Heidi reframes venture capital itself. Performance is necessary, but insufficient. Her equation is clear: Success = Performance × Trust. Trust — expressed through brand, values, and measurable impact — acts as a multiplier. Venture does not simply fund companies. It allocates the future. Narina reinforces the LP perspective: pension funds seek returns, but pensioners also seek stability, sustainability, and systemic resilience. Capital allocation is no longer purely financial. It is strategic.Dr. Isabella Fandrych shifts the conversation to materials. The energy transition is not just about electrons — it is about minerals: copper, lithium, nickel, manganese. Extraction today is geopolitically concentrated and environmentally destructive. Biology offers alternatives: microbes separating metals from rock, engineered proteins extracting minerals from waste streams, plants accumulating metals for harvest. Industrial decarbonisation is chemistry as much as energy policy.Jordan makes the case for baseload energy. Europe has reduced emissions partly through deindustrialization and outsourcing production. If Europe wants manufacturing, AI data centres, electrified transport, and economic resilience, it needs dense, dispatchable power. Renewables are essential — but intermittent. Nuclear remains one of the few proven zero-carbon baseload sources operating at scale. The debate, he argues, should be practical — not ideological.Moritz closes on infrastructure. Europe has built renewable capacity quickly. The constraint is no longer generation. It is grid orchestration. As energy systems decentralize, operators must manage volatile, distributed flows. The opportunity lies in software: orchestration, optimization, dynamic throughput management. Energy sovereignty is not just about producing electrons. It is about system design.Sovereignty in 2025 is not a slogan.It is an investment strategy.What's covered:00:30 Sovereignty redefined — from symbols to supply chains03:00 Europe under pressure — integration as a structural reflex06:00 The industrial gap — semiconductors, rare earths, and scale-up capital10:30 Venture as allocator — Success = Performance × Trust15:00 The LP lens — systemic capital and long-term responsibility19:00 The materials bottleneck — why decarbonisation is mineral-intensive23:00 Biology as infrastructure — new extraction paradigms27:00 Baseload power — nuclear as industrial policy32:00 The grid constraint — orchestration, optimization, software-defined systems38:00 Sovereignty as coordinated capital and industrial depth

Introduced by our very own Andreas Munk Holm, this EUVC Live at GoWest series spotlights the thought leadership of policymakers, institutional investors, GPs, corporates, and public capital leaders around one defining question:How does Europe mobilise its own capital to secure its technological future?Across the sessions, one theme emerges repeatedly:Europe does not lack talent.It does not lack innovation.It does not lack savings.It lacks coordination.ShareIn The Case for a United European LP Strategy, Philippe Tibi (The Tibi Initiative, French Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Recovery; Professor at École Polytechnique Paris) lays out the macroeconomic argument.Europe holds over €35 trillion in household assets.Yet European champions too often scale under foreign ownership with foreign upside.The issue is not capital scarcity.It is capital allocation.Tibi's prescription is direct:Mobilise pension funds and insurers to treat venture and technology as core asset classes, not alternatives, but necessities.For returns.And for sovereignty.In The Path to a United European LP Strategy, Chris Elphick (BVCA) and Philippe Tibi discuss how this mobilisation is playing out in practice.The obstacles are structural:regulatory conservatismfragmented mandatescultural risk aversionlimited cross-border coordinationInstitutional allocations to venture remain near zero in many jurisdictions.Reform is not optional.If Europe wants to capture more of the value it creates, institutional capital must move.Succeeding in Venture as a Long-Term Capital Investor shifts from policy to portfolio construction.Christina Brinck (Volvo Group VC), Daniel Keiper-Knorr (Speedinvest), and Joe Schorge (Isomer) explore how to underwrite European venture in a fragmented but maturing ecosystem.Recurring themes include:diversification across cyclespower-law return dynamicspatience as a structural advantagestrategic alignment with industrial directionFrom pension capital to corporate balance sheets, venture is positioned not as optional exposure.But as essential infrastructure for participating in technological transformation.The conversation then turns to public capital as ecosystem infrastructure. In The Role of Public Capital in European Venture Outcomes, Michiel Scheffer (European Innovation Council) explains how the EIC has funded hundreds of deep-tech companies and attracted private capital at scale.The EIC has funded hundreds of deep-tech companies and attracted private capital at scale.Public capital, he argues, is not distortion.It is market completion.Especially in:deep techunderserved geographiesgrowth-stage financing gapsWhen private markets hesitate, public capital can anchor.Not to replace the market.But to enable it.In Catalyst or Competitor? Why the European Investment Fund Exists and How It Shapes Venture, Adem Yakisirer outlines how EIF has backed more than 1,600 fund managers and built a financing continuum from pre-seed to pre-IPO.EIF operates as:anchor investorcountercyclical stabiliserecosystem architectIn the following fireside Q&A, in which Adem is joined by Mia Grosen (Venture Partner in Catalyst or Competitor, Superseed) and Andreas Munk Holm, the tone becomes candid.Questions surface:Is Europe becoming too dependent on public anchors?Does institutional backing signal quality — or create complacency?How should sovereignty, defence, and deep tech priorities shape private capital behaviour?EIF strengthens the ecosystem.But it also becomes its gravitational centre.Across all sessions, the conclusion converges.Europe's constraint is not innovation.It is capital coordination.From LP mobilisation to cross-border collaboration.From private portfolio construction to public market-building.If Europe wants technological sovereignty and long-term competitiveness, capital must move:With intent.With alignment.With scale.

Welcome back to another episode of Upside where Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen of SuperSeed and Lomax Ward of Outsized Ventures go behind the headlines shaping European tech, capital, and power.This week is an AI-heavy sprint with a guest who's right in the Gulf capital flow: Sam Marchant. Anthropic's monster round is the headline, but the more interesting story is underneath: enterprise AI is becoming workflow-sticky, while OpenAI feels like it's drifting toward consumer monetization experiments.Then we get into the “AI productivity” paradox: why generative tools aren't giving us leisure, they're giving us more output… and more work. From there: Alphabet's 100-year bond and what it says about tech becoming a utility, plus the uncomfortable European angle — our savings funding US hyperscalers while we debate sovereignty.Finally, Europe sovereignty vibes: Mistral's enterprise ramp, the 28th regime rhetoric, and whether political systems can actually execute. We close with space: Orbex collapsing, “data centers in orbit,” and why maybe civilization needs billionaires burning capital on high-variance cathedral projects.This is Upside, where optimism is earned, not assumed.ShareWhat's covered:00:21 Anthropic's $30B: why the market can't stop throwing money at enterprise AI03:42 The real shift: OpenAI → consumer/ads vibes, Anthropic → coding + enterprise execution04:50 Gulf capital dynamics: OpenAI relationships vs QIA showing up in Anthropic07:21 Claude vs ChatGPT: switching costs are collapsing… until workflows become the moat10:54 HBR's “AI intensifies work”: why productivity becomes pressure, not leisure12:19 Autonomy + mastery + dopamine: AI as the ultimate short feedback-loop machine13:25 Practical use cases: research across languages, idea stress-testing, “AI as a first hire”22:05 Alphabet's 100-year bond: tech is now priced like infrastructure24:51 The pension problem: Europe's savings financing US scale while Europe underfunds Europe32:44 Europe's GDP gap is a tech gap: productivity isn't the issue, tech scale is39:51 Mistral's enterprise ramp: sovereign AI or local services + transformation advantage?45:37 The 28th regime: big words, hard execution — can Europe actually push reform through?50:32 Space data centres: PR-on-steroids or physics-defying inevitability?53:07 Orbex collapses: why “mid-sized countries” can't win launch alone55:20 Fusion/quantum: Europe's deep R&D edge, blocked by capital markets structure56:25 Deal of the week: Olex's $1B+ moment and Europe's chip-shaped ambition

Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast, where we bring you the people and perspectives shaping European venture.In this pitch episode, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Pedro Ribeiro Santos, Partner at Armilar, to walk LPs through the story, strategy, and succession plan behind Armilar Fund IV — the firm's new pan-European early-stage fund.Armilar is one of Europe's longest-standing independent tech VCs and Portugal's original venture firm. Born inside a bank 25 years ago, spun out almost a decade ago, and now a multi-generational partnership, the firm has backed some of Portugal's most important tech companies and quietly built a track record of dragons (fund-returners), not just unicorns.Fund IV doubles down on what the team knows best: early-stage, tech-intensive companies across data, digitalization, and connectivity, with a strong focus on Portugal & Spain and selective investments across the rest of Europe.ShareHere's what's covered:01:17 | What is “Armilar”?02:30 | Origins & Spinout 03:40 | Why being based in Portugal with almost no local ecosystem 04:50 | From US to Europe, Then Back Home 07:22 | Fund IV in a Nutshell 09:44 | Geography & LP Backbone11:41 | Track Record, DPI & Dragons 13:51 | Selected Portfolio & Staying Power 16:19 | Team & Generational Design 21:38 | Iberia's State of Play (Portugal & Spain) 27:45 | Golden Visa & LP Angle 29:29 | Closing & What LPs Should Care About

Welcome to another episode of the EUVC Podcast! Today, we're diving into How Corporates Might just be able Beat VCs in the AI Race. Or maybe more importantly, how we can collaborate.Our guest is Alex Dang, co-author of the bestselling book The Venture Mindset: How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth. Alex is a seasoned technology executive and innovation advisor with over two decades of experience. He was a product leader at Amazon, where he launched new businesses across e-commerce, supply chain, and AI; a partner at McKinsey, helping Fortune 500 companies build digital ventures; and today advises corporate leaders and investors on AI strategies, venture building, and applying VC principles to large organizations.In this conversation, Alex shares provocative insights on why the venture mindset is now non-negotiable for corporates in the AI era, where incumbents hold hidden advantages over VCs, and how to avoid “innovation theater” while turning data, distribution, and scale into real venture wins.Let's jump in!Here's what's covered:01:56 | The Venture Mindset in one frame with nine principles from 20 years of Stanford VC research: uncertainty → portfolios → outliers03:44 | The post-book update Alex wishes he had added time compression: “days, not weeks,” and the rise of the “one slice team”05:53 | Venture mindset applied to AI 07:34 | Why “adding AI” is the wrong framing; start customer-backward, not tech-backward08:43 | “AI theater”, innovation theater and press release strategies vs real product value11:19 | The European corporate trap: regulation, consensus, and downside protection as the enemy of transformation11:56 | The right AI rollout sequence with start in back office to learn and protect trust, then go customer-facing at scale15:21 | Why CVCs die after 3.7 years: incentives, leadership fear, and why corporate venturing fails structurally17:24 | AI is now the world's most democratized intelligence: everyone has the same tools; the gap is execution18:47 | Where corporates fit in venture + startup ecosystems: strengths: data, distribution, enterprise scale20:38 | When corporates should build in-house, when to partner, and why AI must become an internal muscle25:24 | Incentives drive behavior: why executives won't take venture-style risks unless failure is structurally safe28:18 | AI-native teams and corporate reskilling among smaller, senior teams + digital workers replacing junior tasks35:24 | What happens to the average corporate employee: tasks disappear, workflows evolve, but people still matter38:50 | If Alex were CEO: how to move a workforce into an AI-safe future and target 25% profit uplift through AI44:01 | Most counterintuitive venture principle — “drop bad ideas fast” and why persistence is sometimes the wrong discipline46:05 | What top CEOs are doing right now: coding with Claude, learning by building, and staying close to users49:00 | The compounding effect: “what was impossible 6 months ago is normal today” and why constant feedback loops win

Europe's debate about gender equity in venture has moved beyond awareness and intention. The real question now is much sharper: how does capital actually move, where does it get stuck, and what genuinely changes outcomes for women building companies today?In this episode, Andreas sits down with Debbie Wosskow, a serial founder, investor, and Chair of the UK's Invest in Women Task Force, to discuss what she has learned from 25 years inside the system. This is a conversation about incentives, power, institutional capital, and why gender equity in venture is not a “nice to have” but a performance strategy.We move from founder mindset to investor behavior to ecosystem and government-level levers and end with a clear-eyed reflection on DEI, ESG, and feminism. At a moment when many are retreating, but the case for backing women has never been stronger.Context: the data doesn't lie, and it isn't improving fast enough

Welcome back to another episode of Upside where Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen of SuperSeed and Lomax Ward of Outsized Ventures go behind the headlines shaping European tech, capital, and power.This week is a high-velocity sprint through the AI model wars, hyperscaler capex, and the growing sense that SaaS is about to be structurally repriced by agents. Anthropic and OpenAI go toe-to-toe with flagship model releases just 20 minutes apart, while China quietly ships open models that are starting to look dangerously close to frontier performance at a fraction of the cost.The panel also digs into the so-called SaaSpocalypse, the early signs of a European “uncoupling” from US big tech, and why Spain's crackdown on social media is being reframed as a public health issue rather than a free speech fight.And then there's Muskanomics: the $1.5T SpaceX/xAI logic, the data-centers-in-space narrative, and whether any of it survives contact with physics.What's covered:02:10 AI model arms race: Anthropic Opus 4.6 vs OpenAI GPT 5.3 (20 minutes apart)10:45 China's open-source push: Kimi K 2.5, Qwen3 Max, and swarm capabilities14:05 Alphabet's $180B capex signal and Wall Street's “infraspend” panic22:35 SaaSpocalypse: $300B wiped off software and the seat-based SaaS collapse narrative30:05 US–EU uncoupling: France bans Zoom/Teams, Germany moves off Microsoft, sovereignty vibes36:35 Spain's social crackdown: CEO liability, under-16 bans, and the censorship slippery slope43:30 Muskanomics: xAI + SpaceX, “data centers in space,” and why it feels like PR on steroids56:30 Anthropic Super Bowl ads vs OpenAI: brand war and the ad-monetization fault line59:25 Critical minerals: EU set to miss 2030 targets and China's grip on rare earths1:02:20 Deal of the week + Europe unicorn shout-outs + the new €1B growth fund

This episode starts with a surprising origin story: before building one of Europe's most iconic on-demand companies, Sacha Michaud left home at 16 to become a professional racehorse jockey.From there, we go deep into the operator playbook behind Glovo's rise: launching fast, expanding internationally with limited capital, choosing battles ruthlessly, and pulling out of markets quickly when the data says the flywheel won't spin.This is a conversation about discipline, focus, and survival in one of the most brutal categories in venture—where network effects are real, fundraising can consume the CEO, and consolidation is always lurking.Less theory. More real-world execution.ShareWhat's covered:01:10 From racehorse jockey to startup founder: discipline, sacrifice, and the founder mindset02:20 How Glovo started: meeting Oscar, shipping in 2.5 months, and rebuilding the MVP later05:05 International scaling principles: why Europe isn't enough and why speed mattered06:25 Fundraising reality: the “lead investor” trap and why multi-stage funds can matter08:05 Split-scaling and the growth-at-all-costs era: what the ecosystem learned (and didn't)10:15 Expansion playbooks: the launch team model and copying what Uber did right13:25 Competition strategy: when to enter, when to avoid, and why capital constraints shape everything15:25 Exiting markets fast: Brazil, iFood, and the moment you realize the playbook won't work17:35 Network effects in delivery: why the flywheel is more extreme than most marketplaces19:05 Exclusivity vs multi-homing: how restaurants evolved from “threat” to “channel”25:55 Emerging markets: Latin America → Eastern Europe → Africa and what changes operationally33:00 Glovo Cares: why executives still deliver orders and what it teaches the org34:30 Acquisition mindset: what founders get wrong about selling (and not selling)43:20 YELLOW VC: building a disciplined pre-seed fund without losing operator sharpness

Welcome back! In this episode, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Simon Thomas, CEO of Paragraf, one of Europe's rare hard-tech success stories, taking graphene from scientific breakthrough to industrial-scale electronics.Graphene has been called the “wonder material” for two decades. The promise has always been clear: faster, better, and dramatically more energy-efficient electronics. The missing piece has been execution at scale. Simon and the Paragraf team are building that missing bridge, with the world's first graphene electronics foundry in the UK, a growing portfolio of real commercial products, and a deep conviction that the next era of computing will require new materials, not just bigger data centers.This is a conversation about what it truly takes to build venture-backed hardware in Europe. How you fund capex-heavy deep tech. How do you keep investors aligned when timelines are long. How you keep teams motivated through delays and national security reviews. And why AI may accelerate materials discovery, but won't replace the brutal, necessary work of turning atoms into real manufacturing.ShareWhat's covered:01:27 What Paragraf is building and why graphene matters now03:50 Graphene wafers and the world's first graphene electronics foundry04:23 What graphene changes for power consumption and device life05:01 Why graphene isn't already inside data centers06:13 The future of “2D electronics” beyond graphene08:02 Foundry versus product company: why Paragraf does both09:40 Graphene's 20-year journey from papers to real-world scale13:15 When venture investors first showed up and what they needed to see16:58 Sovereignty, British Patient Capital, and why “national backing” matters24:08 The product-to-foundry loop and how you hook customers early27:36 Capex, equity limits, and the painful mechanics of deep-tech financing30:22 Surviving hard moments: people, pivots, and the NSI Act review38:10 How to structure boards over time, from tactical to strategic42:23 Keeping teams committed through uncertainty46:10 Where Paragraf is today: headcount, geographies, and commercialization49:16 AI in materials discovery and why manufacturing is still the bottleneck

Welcome back to another episode of Upside where Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen of SuperSeed, and Lomax Ward of Outsized Ventures go behind the headlines shaping European tech, capital, and power.This week's episode opens, as always, with light deal banter, closing jokes, and a reminder that fourth-time founders are still the most bankable asset in venture. From Saudi Arabia's surprisingly coherent Vision 2030 to Europe's chronic inability to articulate a shared mission, this is a wide-ranging conversation about strategy, scale, and what actually forces societies to act.Along the way, the panel digs into autonomous AI agents that can negotiate car purchases and manage your inbox, the $100B arms race between OpenAI and Anthropic, ASML's signal on the durability of the AI buildout, and why defence spending is becoming Europe's most structurally important tech opportunity.The episode also tackles the uncomfortable questions: whether Europe only moves under pressure, whether the United States of Europe is real or pure projection, and whether social media bans and AI retraining schemes are genuine policy or just optics.This is Upside, where optimism is earned, not assumed.

Welcome back to the EUVC Corporate Podcast. This week, Jeppe sits down with Axel Deniz, CEO of Bosch Business Innovations and Head of Venture Building at Bosch.Axel is building Bosch's venture-building engine with a clear mandate: get Bosch technology out into the world, through founder-led spinouts, joint ventures, and seed rounds that can stand on their own with external investors. With ~80,000 active patents, 20 new patents per day, and 20,000 researchers globally, Bosch has the assets. Axel's job is turning them into investible companies.

In conversation with our very own Andreas Munk Holm, Christian Hernandez, founding GP of 2150 and Jan Hofmann of the Viessmann Generations Group, look at how climate investing is moving from narrative to industrial reality, where cities, energy, materials, and manufacturing become venture-scale markets, and execution matters more than slogans.Today, 2150 officially launched its €210M second fund, bringing total assets under management to €500M and reinforcing its position as one of Europe's leading investors backing the technologies shaping future cities and industrial systems.Fund II reflects growing institutional conviction in 2150's thesis: that cities generate around 80% of global prosperity, and that the next wave of venture-scale outcomes will come from making urbanisation and industrial activity sustainable at planetary scale. The fund attracted a diversified LP base across Europe, Asia, and North America, including Viessmann Generations Group, Novo Holdings, EIFO, Chr. Augustinus Fabrikker, Carbon Equity, and Church Pension Group.Momentum is already underway. 2150 Fund II has already invested into seven companies, including AtmosZero, GetMobil, Metycle, Mission Zero Technologies and three further unannounced deals. Across both funds, 2150's 27 portfolio companies generate more than $1B in annual revenue, employ 4,500+ people globally, and deliver megatonne-scale climate impact.Key takeaways:Urban and industrial systems are now venture-scale markets.Energy, cooling, industrial heat, mobility, materials, and circular economy solutions are no longer niche climate bets — they are core infrastructure categories with global demand.Impact and returns are converging.2150's portfolio demonstrates that companies tackling planetary-scale problems can also generate outlier financial outcomes, measured in real revenues, jobs, and deployment at scale.Institutional capital is leaning into climate infrastructure.The breadth of Fund II's LP base signals a shift: long-term institutions are increasingly backing strategies that combine sustainability with durable, industrial cash flows.Execution matters more than narratives.2150's analytical, problem-first approach targeting the hardest bottlenecks in cities and industry is translating into faster scaling and earlier commercial traction across the portfolio.Europe can build global category leaders.With platforms spanning energy, materials, and urban systems, 2150's portfolio shows that European-founded companies can scale globally without compromising ambition.

Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen of SuperSeed, and Lomax Ward of Outsized Ventures go behind the headlines shaping European tech, capital, and power.This week's episode starts, as ever, with tech failing spectacularly, planes landing late, and VCs reminding each other they really should be doing deals. Then it gets serious.From a billion-pound UK data center stopped in its tracks, to Davos and Mark Carney's quietly devastating diagnosis of the global order, to Europe's long-awaited 28th regime finally getting real momentum, this is a conversation about whether Europe can still act at scale or whether fragmentation will finish the job.Along the way, the trio digs into China's AI strategy, whether SaaS has quietly peaked, why defence IPOs are suddenly everywhere, and whether science in the US is really “collapsing” or just being reshuffled under Trump.This is Upside, where optimism is earned, not assumed.ShareWhat's covered:00:02 Mads back from the Gulf + Lomax in Nazaré00:04 UK data centre blocked: what happened + why it matters00:07 Fast-tracking data centres: national infrastructure vs EIAs00:12 Davos standout: Mark Carney and the end of nostalgia economics00:18 Middle powers and fragmentation: why Europe can't go solo00:24 AI and jobs: are entry-level roles really disappearing?00:27 EU Inc / the 28th regime: momentum, labour law, and risk00:34 Has China already won AI? redefining what “winning” means00:43 SaaS, defence IPOs, and Europe's capital reset

Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast, where we bring you the people and perspectives shaping European venture.This week, Andreas Munk Holm is joined by Max Schertel, co-founder & CEO of finmid, and Tim Rehder, General Partner at Earlybird, to unpack the rise of embedded lending infrastructure for B2B platforms.From food delivery and PSPs to ride-hailing and fleet platforms, finmid lets marketplaces offer financing directly to their merchants – with a single integration, across 30+ European markets. Together, they break down why embedded lending is often new capital, not just smoother UX; how better data lets you underwrite the “invisible” SME segment; and what it really takes to scale regulated infra across a fragmented Europe.Here's what's covered:01:03 – What finmid does: One integration for platforms to offer any financing product to business users across Europe02:02 – Why embedded wins: Tim on data access, risk scoring, and turning platforms into “banks in all but the balance sheet”04:05 – Owning infra, not capital: Regulation, operations and data engine vs outsourcing pure funding to institutions06:43 – Economics & margins: Market size, 60%+ gross margins, and why net income beats headline spread10:47 – Customer examples: How Wolt Cash works, proactive offers in the merchant dashboard, and +80% retention uplift12:32 – Impact on the market: New capital for underserved SMEs vs just smoothing the bank journey17:57 – Ticket sizes & duration: Typical loans of €10–20k, up to ~12 months, 85% renewal and the path to larger, longer credit21:15 – AI & risk: Using generative and agentic AI in ops (adverse media) and data science (millions of data points, daily model iteration)29:20 – Scaling to 30 countries: U27 + UK, CH, IS – regulation, payments rails and why “ugly detail work” is the real moat40:17 – Partner alignment: Making financing core to platform metrics (GMV & retention) and hard-won lessons on incentives

Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen of SuperSeed, and Lomax Ward of Outsized Ventures cut through the noise shaping tech, venture, and geopolitics in Europe and beyond.This week starts lightly, as all good episodes do, with kids, illness paranoia, and the small joys of enforced medical naps. It escalates quickly.From OpenAI's new health-focused ChatGPT and the FDA's sudden sprint toward deregulation to Trump's Greenland fixation and what it really signals about European sovereignty, to Meta buying its way into the AI application layer, pension funds destroying value at scale, and Nvidia's push into physical AI. This is one of those episodes where everything connects.The common thread is power. Who has it. Who's losing it. And who's still pretending nothing has changed.This is Upside, where the takes are sharp, the systems are breaking, and the optimism is… cautiously conditional.What's covered:03:00 ChatGPT Health launches and why Europe is locked out05:00 The FDA's pivot to deregulation and what it means for health startups10:00 Using multiple LLMs as a “second medical opinion”13:00 Trump, Greenland, and the slow collapse of Pax Americana18:00 Sovereignty, defence spending, and Europe's strategic wake-up call23:00 France moves to ban social media for under-15s27:00 Meta buys its way into the AI application layer30:00 Kraken spins out of Octopus at multi-billion scale34:00 Revolut's Turkey move and the march to 100 million users37:00 UK pension funds, catastrophic underperformance, and broken incentives45:00 Why venture returns matter more than fees49:00 FTSE hits 10,000 and why it doesn't mean what you think56:00 CES, Nvidia's autonomous ambitions, and physical AI01:04:00 Grok's $230B valuation and free speech trade-offs01:07:00 Deals of the Week

Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast where we go behind the craft of building and backing venture-scale companies in Europe.Today, we're joined by Sean Mullaney, Founder & CEO of Seapoint, and Will Prendergast, as the Founding Partner at Frontline Ventures.Seapoint has just come out of stealth with a $3M pre-seed to rebuild the fragile and fragmented financial stack that European startups (and later: mid-market companies) rely on. With a Stripe-forged team, AI-native development culture, and operators from Revolut, Tines & more on board, Seapoint wants to become the financial home for European startups.This conversation dives deep into founder pain, broken tooling, AI-native product building, engineering culture, the changing shape of startup teams, syndicate-building, and why Frontline backed Sean with high conviction.Here's what's covered:01:07 The Mission: “The financial home for European startups”03:32 Frontline's conviction moment06:24 The founder pain: 5 tools, 5 accounts, zero clarity08:07 The invisible tax: fragmentation, reconciliation hell, no real-time view10:14 Why this problem is structurally important12:19 European vs US lens: why Seapoint is ahead13:18 AI-native engineering: “We rebuild the stack from processes, not accounts”15:19 AI agents allow senior engineers to ship full-stack features alone — compressing timelines that previously required 2–3× more engineers.17:19 Rethinking teams: fewer people, more senior, more generalist19:33 Productivity does NOT reduce funding needs — it increases ambition21:27 Culture: curiosity, experimentation, and founder-led technical push36:11 Syndicate design: Angels as a go-to-market weapon.40:23 From startup financial home → to powering Europe's mid-market backbone: lending, treasury, automation, embedded finance.

Welcome back to another episode of the EUVC Podcast. Today, Jeppe sits down with Emil Eifrem, founder & CEO of Neo4j, the world's leading graph database and a core infrastructure layer for AI applications used by all 20 of the top US banks, 9 of 10 global pharma giants, and every major automotive OEM.Emil recently announced a $100M global startup program to back founders building the next generation of AI-native products on top of graph technology — from knowledge graphs to hallucination-free LLMs.We delve into why graph thinking matters now, how Neo4j came of age during the Panama Papers investigation, and why Europe is better positioned than people think to compete in the AI platform shift.Here's what's covered:02:00 — The Panama Papers “Coming Out Party”How journalists used Neo4j to uncover 7-layer-deep financial relationships invisible to traditional databases — and why it triggered a wave of global adoption.06:40 — Why Graphs Are the Missing Link for AIKnowledge, meaning, context, and relationships: why LLMs without structured knowledge graphs hallucinate.08:50 — The $100M Startup ProgramWhy Neo4j is returning to its roots to support AI-native founders — and why the packaging for startups had to change.12:00 — What Founders GetFree Aura credits, dedicated graph engineers, joint GTM, and access to the world's largest graph developer community.14:30 — Early Traction: 300+ Startups in WeeksWhy early demand is far ahead of expectations — and the kinds of companies applying.16:10 — Community as a Strategic Moat500+ annual global events, deep developer love, and why skill availability is now a CIO-level buying criterion.19:00 — Building Deep Tech in EuropeWhy Neo4j kept engineering in Europe, how the ecosystem matured, and what today's founders can learn.22:00 — Regulation & CompetitivenessWill Europe overregulate itself out of the AI race? Emil's perspective on models vs infrastructure vs applications.23:40 — The Future of AI InfrastructureWhy every company must rethink its stack — and why the biggest threat is assuming your business will survive without change.

In this episode, Andreas Munk Holm speaks with Oskar Hartmann, legendary operator turned super angel. From Kazakhstan to Germany, Russia, Japan, and now Dubai and Silicon Valley, Oskar has built and exited more than 10 companies, invested in 150+ ventures (14 unicorns among them), and today is pioneering a new way to solve concentration risk for founders and angels: Accumulator, a share-pooling model unlocking liquidity and diversification.They dive into Oskar's “beast mode” founder philosophy, his candid battles with burnout, the importance of product–soul fit, and why Europe doesn't just need more unicorns, it needs deca- and hectocorns. Along the way, Oskar shares his learnings from India's ecosystem, his obsession with avoiding adverse selection, and his belief that communities, not individuals, create enduring success.

Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where ⁠Dan Bowyer⁠,⁠ Mads Jensen⁠ of ⁠SuperSeed⁠ and ⁠Lomax Ward⁠ of ⁠Outsized Ventures⁠⁠⁠ cut through the noise shaping tech, venture, and geopolitics in Europe and beyond.This week starts lightly, as all good episodes do, with kids, illness paranoia, and the small joys of enforced medical naps. It escalates quickly.From OpenAI's new health-focused ChatGPT and the FDA's sudden sprint toward deregulation to Trump's Greenland fixation and what it really signals about European sovereignty to Meta buying its way into the AI application layer, pension funds destroying value at scale, and Nvidia's push into physical AI. This is one of those episodes where everything connects.The common thread is power. Who has it? Who's losing it? And who's still pretending nothing has changed?This is Upside, where the takes are sharp, the systems are breaking, and the optimism is… cautiously conditional.ShareWhat's covered:00:00 Intro: ChatGPT Health launch, privacy/encryption, “use with skepticism”00:03 FDA shifts: deregulation + faster approvals for AI medical devices / wearables00:09 Trump + Greenland + NATO: geopolitics, minerals, defense, European sovereignty00:18 France proposing social media ban for under-15s; phones in schools; EU vs US regulation00:23 Meta reportedly buying Manus (AI agents / applications layer)00:25 Octopus Energy's Kraken spin-out: valuation, contracted revenue, European “hidden champion”00:27 Discord IPO chatter: nearing ~$1B ARR; monetization model00:32 UK pensions: pressure to allocate to privates; constraints + risk/return tradeoffs00:42 FTSE 100 hits 10,000; UK vs S&P; defense-driven rally; low tech weighting00:50 CES: Nvidia autonomous driving + open sourcing; “physical AI” + Mercedes partnership00:54 China & Nvidia H20 pressures; AMD vs Nvidia software gap; Intel relevance

Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast where we connect and champion the people building European venture.In this episode, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with two pillars of Italy's modern tech ecosystem:Giovanni Daprà, CEO & co-founder of Moneyfarm, one of Europe's leading digital wealth management platformsPaolo Gesess, co-founder & GP at United Ventures, one of Italy's premier early-stage VC firmsTogether, they unpack how Moneyfarm went from a Milan-founded startup to a pan-European fintech player; how Italy's ecosystem has evolved; how United Ventures backed Giovanni through multiple strategic inflection points; why the shift from Blitzscaling to Default Alive made Moneyfarm stronger; and how European fintech is entering an era of consolidation and acquisition-led expansion.This is an episode full of concrete frameworks, real founder–VC dynamics, and hard-earned lessons from building across Italy, the UK, and Europe.Here's what's covered:04:00 | Moneyfarm as a digital wealth manager built to make investing simple, guided + discretionary, now managing £6.5B across Italy & the UK04:54 | Why United Ventures backed them: early conviction in a massive savings problem, founder clarity from day one, and a mission that remained unchanged for 13 years06:31 | Building from Italy first: leveraging local regulatory fluency + talent cost advantages while keeping a pan-European vision from day zero08:59 | Italy today vs. 2012 — more capital, more repeat founders, more international operators returning, and a dramatically deeper talent pool13:21 | The “tipping point” moments — moments where the board must choose: buy back shares, bring in global investors, widen the model (e.g., B2B2C)17:45 | Where Moneyfarm is now — strong in Italy + UK, product expansion complete (brokerage + pensions), and preparing for the next geographic phase18:37 | Surviving the capital cycle: seeing interest rates spike in real-time, shifting from burn to profitability in 24 months, and reshaping the framework for Europe19:50 | The Europe playbook: “default alive” — why blitzscaling never fit most of Europe, and how disciplined scaling becomes a competitive advantage22:25 | Founders vs. VCs on growth vs. profit — debunking the myth: alignment, capital structure, and long-term value trump forcing hypergrowth23:09 | Managing founder stress & incentives — secondaries, refreshed equity plans, changing founder roles, and adapting governance over a 10-year journey25:41 | The cap table reality — Moneyfarm with VCs, PEs, and industrials: why no one could force a “burn it all” strategy even if they wanted to27:41 | Building European-style VC — United Ventures' thesis: European standards, European ambition, and preparing founders for international Series B/C investors30:09 | The next frontier: pan-European expansion, from product expansion → to commercial optimization → to cross-border consolidation34:13 | Growing into M&A as a founder — Moneyfarm's three acquisitions, building the muscle, and using M&A as a growth lever when organic slows36:11 | The M&A playbook — when to build vs. buy, why scale matters, and the founder's job in orchestrating product-led acquisitions37:40 | What founders often underestimate — M&A is expensive, cognitively draining, and requires dedicated people so you don't destroy core execution39:47 | The board's role — independent perspectives, long-term value thinking, and helping the CEO avoid deal fever or tunnel vision41:00 | The hard question: exits & fund cycles — how VCs manage tail-end holdings, DPI realities, continuation funds, and why selling is not betrayal43:48 | DPI explained simply — why some funds need liquidity earlier, and why United didn't (strong DPI → more patience → no forced exit)

In this episode, Andreas sits down with Michael Sackler, founder of Supernode Global, to unpack the thesis behind Supernode's Fund II: backing application-layer software with great UI/UX — the tools people actually use every day at home and at work — at a time when most European funds avoid consumer and default to “AI-infra everything.” Michael shares how his background in film shaped his view on tech leverage, why Supernode focuses on consumer-grade experiences applied to B2B, what their six theme areas are (wellbeing, productivity, community, creative and professional augmentation), and why they're putting unusually strong skin in the game with a 34% GP commit.

Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast where we dive deep into the craft of building and backing venture-scale companies in Europe.Modern software doesn't fail quietly.It fails on Black Friday.It fails while the CFO is in a board meeting.It fails when your biggest customer is mid-way through a critical workflow.And when it does, there's one brutal reality:The data is there but nobody has time to interpret it.Today we're exploring one of the most under-discussed yet mission-critical parts of building modern software: reliability in production.Joining Andreas are:

Welcome back to another EUVC Podcast, where we explore the lessons, frameworks, and insights shaping venture ecosystems across the globe.In this special Southeast Asia edition this week, David Cruz e Silva from EUVC and Ambika from Circle Capital sit down with Binh Tran from AVV (Ascend Vietnam Ventures) - a VC firm headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, backing tech founders across Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and the U.S.A serial founder turned VC, Binh sold his first company Klout for $200M in 2014 before launching 500 Startups Vietnam and later AVV, which has now backed about 500 startups, including unicorns Turing, Skymavis, and ApplyBoard.Together, they unpack Vietnam's ecosystem growth, power-law returns in emerging markets, government catalysts, and how to back founders with both grit and global ambition.

If you've spent any time in European venture lately, you've probably noticed two things:Everyone says they “do AI now.”Almost nobody wants to touch consumer.That's exactly where Michael Sackler and Supernode Global are leaning in.Michael started his career not in venture, but in film. He founded and ran Rook's Nest Entertainment in London, producing and executive producing 12 feature films, including cult horror hit “The Witch”, which still makes the rounds every Halloween.As the streamers rose in the early 2010s, he watched technology companies steamroll the media value chain. At the same time, he began angel investing around the edges of content and tech. It didn't take long before it was obvious where the real leverage was.Today, Michael runs Supernode Global, an early-stage fund focused on application-layer software that people use every day at home and at work. Fund I proved out the model. Fund II is where it scales.This episode is essentially Michael's Fund II pitch and it's a good one.Here's what's covered:02:40 | Fund I → Fund II — expanding from “content + tech” to technologies that enhance daily personal and professional life03:55 | The thesis shift — six themes across wellbeing, productivity, vitality, life-ops, community, and creative/pro-work augmentation05:27 | The unifying thread — application-layer software + UI/UX obsession (consumer-grade experiences applied to enterprise)07:50 | Fund II in motion — 13 companies already deployed and why the portfolio itself tells the story10:36 | Sourcing edge — 50/50 inbound/outbound, a gender-balanced team, and why that drives deal flow from overlooked founders12:57 | Speed as a superpower — winning competitive deals through fast conviction, aggressive execution, and deep consumer focus14:42 | Value add in practice — growth support, fundraising pathways, and SuperNode's “connector” identity (with a shoutout to Naomi)15:33 | 34% GP commit — why Michael and Gina put unusually large personal capital into the fund (and what it signals to LPs)18:51 | The AI elephant — where AI enhances work vs. where it risks erasing human craft (with the Graswold example)21:56 | Human creativity vs. automation — why AI will reshape the menial, not the art, and why stories still anchor value23:32 | AI art, authenticity & meaning — when fully AI-generated output loses emotional value, and where hybrid human–AI creation wins

Welcome back to another EUVC Podcast, where we explore the lessons, frameworks, and insights shaping Europe's venture ecosystem.Today, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Matti Hautsalo, Founding Partner at Nordic Science Investments (NSI), a €60M early-stage fund dedicated to university spin-outs across the Nordics and Europe. With a team spanning tech transfer, research, founding, VC, and investment banking, NSI backs science-powered companies at pre-seed and seed, then helps recruit commercial leaders, navigate TTOs, and transfer IP cleanly so these companies can raise from broader deep-tech syndicates.

Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast.Today Andreas is joined by Stefan Roebel, Co‑Founder & CEO of ARX Robotics — one of Europe's fastest-rising defense tech startups.From his 12 years in the German Armed Forces to leadership roles at Amazon, eBay, and Grover, Stefan has lived both sides: the military front line and the global business battlefield. Now, he's combining that experience to tackle one of the most pressing challenges of our time: Europe's ability to defend itself in a new era of war.In this episode, Stefan shares ARX's journey from DIY decoy robots to NATO-backed modular robotic systems already deployed in Ukraine. We dive deep into why Europe must break with its slow procurement culture, how startups can become the “new primes,” and what it really takes to build dual-use autonomy in a defense-first world.Here's what's covered:00:56 | From Afghanistan to Amazon to ARX Robotics: Stefan's unlikely founder journey02:30 | The broomstick that became a digital decoy — ARX's origin story06:34 | The first breakthrough: selling duct-taped prototypes that worked08:30 | ARX's modular robotics suite explained (500kg payload, autonomy, retrofits)10:47 | Educating VCs: how defense tech went from “too weird” to oversubscribed13:55 | Picking investors: big names vs true believers with military insight16:53 | Real deployments in Ukraine: ammo supply & medevac in the kill zone19:49 | Why Ukraine's lessons are shaping Europe's defense future23:24 | The drone war changed everything: solving Europe's “lack of mass”27:31 | Will ARX become a “new prime”? Why incumbents can't move fast enough29:17 | Dual use beyond defense: disaster relief, critical infrastructure & NGOs32:36 | AI in defense robotics: solving missions, not chasing the holy grail35:21 | Hiring for defense: when military background matters (and when it doesn't)40:57 | Why Stefan is hopeful for Europe's defense tech ecosystem44:56 | Veterans, perception, and why “peace comes from strength”

This week on the EUVC Podcast, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Matthew Wilson, co-founder of Jack & Jill, and Peter Specht, General Partner at Creandum. Fresh off a $20M seed to take their AI recruiting agents global, they dig into how conviction is built in Europe, from founding insight to investor belief, and what it now takes to scale an agent-native company with speed, precision, and craft.Jack helps candidates find and optimize their careers. Jill helps companies hire brilliantly. Together, the two agents form a high-signal, two-sided network that aims to become the world's most networked AI-powered recruitment agency — without the classical incentive conflicts of human middlemen.Here's what's covered:02:35 | Why Creandum leaned in, conviction on voice-based interfaces and why recruiting is a massive, broken vertical for agent AI03:38 | The founding moment: leaving Omnipresent, 18 months in the wilderness, and the February insight that agents make talent marketplaces finally viable07:07 | Recruiting is broken (and AI made it worse): why first-principles thinking is needed to avoid “more noise, not more signal.”09:15 | Investor conviction: founder/market fit, why this moment is different, and the defensibility of a two-sided agentic marketplace12:22 | The user experience: the “coffee chat” with an AI recruiter: deep voice conversation → matching, prep, coaching, introductions16:30 | Solving the incentives trap: why Jack works 100% for candidates and Jill works 100% for companies (fixing agency conflicts)19:10 | Coaching as core: how AI unlocks career guidance, interview prep, and hands-on support that humans rarely get today22:47 | Building fast in the AI era: talent density, global expansion, and why a 20M seed makes sense for a dual-product marketplace26:35 | Two companies in one: scaling Jack (consumer) + Jill (B2B) simultaneously, across markets, with AI leverage34:02 | The GTM playbook: engineering-led marketing, AI-driven creative testing, instant value, and rethinking B2B buying entirely37:47 | The new AI go-to-market: speed, PLG dominance, virality-by-design, and why distribution now matters more than ever43:52 | Two GTM worlds: viral AI products vs. slow, enterprise-heavy AI deployments (and why both will coexist)47:15 | The “productization” of marketing — why engineering now powers growth, not headcount-heavy marketing orgs50:29 | Final advice (VC POV) — start with a unique insight, not a trend; think in 5–10 year arcs, not quick ARR bumps

Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where ⁠Dan Bowyer⁠,⁠ Mads Jensen⁠ of ⁠SuperSeed⁠ and ⁠Lomax Ward⁠ of ⁠Outsized Ventures⁠⁠⁠ gather for a holiday-home special to cut through the noise around Europe's tech, geopolitics and AI shifts. What begins as an innocent debate about whether DeepMind is “still a UK company” quickly spirals into a tour of sovereign AI strategy, the SpaceX mega-raise, Europe's increasingly uncomfortable place between China and the US, defence-spending reality checks and a surprisingly uplifting set of deep-tech deals across the continent.It is classic Upside: the takes are sharp, the geopolitics gets spiky, and the optimism… well, it arrives eventually.What's covered:04:36 AI-for-Science, robotics and the new “AI scientist” era06:50 A national-curriculum Gemini and the vision of a tutor for every child09:39 The SpaceX 2026 IPO: what investors are actually buying14:00 Starship, orbital compute and the trillion-dollar imagination gap18:07 Why Europe missed the space race once again19:43 Portugal flips the script: “Economy of the Year”22:58 Europe between China's export tsunami and America's cold shoulder32:07 Defence budgets: the hype, the delay and the reality for startups34:25 AI Corner: bubble fears, Mistral's comeback, Meta goes closed, China goes full-stackComms Strategy Expert SessionApply or share the opportunity with a founder or investor in your network: https://luma.com/euvc-comms-expert-session

If you're in B2B SaaS, you probably feel it already: the old way of “just hire more SDRs and send more emails” is broken.Everyone has the same tooling. Everyone is running the same sequences. Everyone is “personalising at scale” with the same prompts. Yet pipeline quality is down, efficiency is under scrutiny, and suddenly… go-to-market (GTM) design has become a first-class strategic problem.Few people are better positioned to talk about this shift than Harrison Rose.Harrison co-founded Paddle, helped turn it into one of the UK's fastest-growing software companies, and has now raised a $13M Series A (led by Notion Capital, with participation from Robin Capital, Inovia, Salicap, Common Magic, Andrena and more) to build GoodFit – an AI-driven GTM data platform.Here's what's covered:00:47 | What GoodFit actually does — mapping your entire market and scoring every account01:32 | Paddle origins → the first-principles GTM problem that later became GoodFit03:31 | From internal tool to standalone company — recognizing the “product inside Paddle”04:18 | Who buys GoodFit — why B2B tech is the first adopter (and why the market is much bigger)06:28 | Second-time founder advantage — credibility, networks, and selling before the product exists08:29 | Choosing investors — why Notion, avoiding echo chambers, and constructing a syndicate13:24 | Bootstrapping for four years — optionality, profitability curiosity, and knowing when VC is the right path18:34 | AI's real impact on go-to-market — why most teams are just automating bad outreach22:25 | The GoodFit vision — deciding who to sell to, why, and how (and leaving execution to others)35:34 | Leaving Paddle — identity, founder evolution, and learning to lead differently the second time around46:40 | Giving back — why Harrison opens his inbox for “weird, gnarly, unsaid” founder questions

This week, Andreas Munk Holm talks with Sergey Jakimov, Co-founder and Managing Partner at LongeVC, a leading longevity-focused venture fund backing breakthroughs in biotech, AI-driven drug discovery, and the science of healthy aging.From pre-seed biotech spin-outs to multi-hundred-million-dollar exits with Big Pharma, LongeVC is building the category-defining fund at the frontier of life extension. In this episode, Sergey walks us through the team's 3x+ MOIC track record, how LongeVC's scientific advisory board unlocks proprietary deal flow, and why longevity and healthspan investing could be venture's next trillion-dollar frontier.

In this episode, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Ole Lehmann to explore the rise of the solopreneur movement, what AI unlocks for solo founders, and how blockchain may finally have its moment as the infrastructure layer for AI. Ole also unpacks his new initiative, Built in Europe, and why he's betting on a future where ambitious company builders thrive without moving to the U.S.Here's what's covered:00:52 Ole's Journey: From Music Production to Crypto to AI Education03:57 Crypto Disillusionment & the Promise of Blockchain Infrastructure10:08 Inside the Solopreneur Mindset: Freedom, Curiosity & Leverage16:32 Content Market Fit > Product Market Fit: A New Way to Build21:18 Why Interest Graphs Beat Follower Counts in 202528:43 A New Class of Founders—and the Portfolio Play to Back Them39:10 How AI Tools Empower a One-Person Media Company43:31 Building in Europe: More Than a Narrative Play47:05 The Cultural and Regulatory Hurdles Still Holding Europe Back50:08 Why European Tech Founders Need to Enter the Political Arena

Andreas Munk Holm opens the episode by introducing Charles Dunn, Principal at SV Health Investors, and Ruth McKernan, CBE and Operating Partner at SV Health, former CEO of Innovate UK. SV Health is a transatlantic healthcare specialist with a focus on company creation and full-spectrum biotech investing. Notable wins include the exit of SV-created EyeBio to Merck & Co for up to $3bn including $1.3bn upfront, and the recent launch of SV's newest company creation Driag Therapeutics, a UK-based neuropsychiatry company, which recently announced its $140m Series A financing.SV Health's approach blends early-stage company creation with later-stage venture investment. Charles emphasizes that this structure allows:Diversified risk for LPs: Early-stage opportunities carry higher risk but higher upside; later-stage investments provide more stability.Learning across stages: Experience in late-stage investing informs early-stage decision-making, and vice versa.Flexible company formation: SV Health creates companies across different development stages, sometimes even after Phase 1 data exists, as with Draig Therapeutics.

Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where ⁠Dan Bowyer⁠,⁠ Mads Jensen⁠ of ⁠SuperSeed⁠, ⁠Lomax Ward⁠ of ⁠Outsized Ventures⁠⁠⁠, and Andrew Scott of 7percent Ventures to break down the real stories behind the headlines shaping European tech and venture.From Bending Spoons' audacious European rollup strategy, to Brexit's economic hangover, to the existential challenges facing Volkswagen, to Google vs. OpenAI's new “Code Red”, and finally whether Europe has had its long-overdue shock moment — this episode goes wide, fast, and deep.This is Upside, where the takes are sharp, the macro is messy, and the optimism is… conditional.What's covered:02:00 The valuation reset, debt-fuelled M&A, and the Italian PE–VC hybrid model04:00 Arbitrage: firing US teams, rehiring elite Italian engineers06:00 Do rollups really work? Tech debt, distribution, and execution risk07:00 Brexit revisited: GDP losses, trade collapse, and political reality08:00 The myth of “you can't know the counterfactual” — and why you actually can10:00 Will the UK rejoin the customs union? And would Europe even take us back?12:00 Europe's manufacturing crisis: Porsche, Volkswagen, BYD and the end of German exceptionalism15:00 China's shift: stop importing, start replicating17:00 Welfare-state complacency and the European stagnation problem20:00 The bitter truth about Europe's carbon “success story”22:00 How to actually fix European tech: R&D, immigration, procurement, capital markets24:00 Why 0.02% pension allocation to VC is Europe's biggest structural handicap26:00 Should we “Farage-pill” Europe into a tech-first agenda?33:00 Distribution vs. loyalty: why consumers don't care about brand36:00 Who wins the cost base war: Google, Amazon, Meta, or OpenAI?38:00 Anthropic's IPO plans and what they signal about the private capital cycle42:00 Deals of the Week: Black Forest Labs, ICEYE, Expedition Growth Capital44:00 Robotics is the next AI wave — and the picks-and-shovels startups emerging now

This week on the EUVC Podcast, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Mikael Johnsson, Co-founder & General Partner at Oxx, one of Europe's leading specialist B2B software investors.Mikael has a very clear-eyed view on the current AI wave: he's seeing valuation discipline slip, fundamentals being stretched, and a real risk that the market mistakes pilot-driven excitement for lasting enterprise value.In this episode, they explore how to distinguish hype from substance, what “real” AI adoption looks like within a business process, and how both founders and investors can remain level-headed when everyone else is losing theirs.

Welcome back to another episode of the EUVC Podcast. Today, we're thrilled to feature Leyla Holterud, partner at Vintage Investment Partners. Many know Leyla from her years at StepStone, where she led venture growth across EMEA. Now, at Vintage, she's helping deploy $4.3 billion from their global platform to double down on Europe, anchored by the firm's new London office. With a strategy spanning fund-of-funds, growth, and secondaries, Leyla offers a rare vantage point on the European VC landscape.

Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast, your inside track on the people, models, and math reshaping European venture.This week, Andreas talks with Damian Cristian and Guy Conway, co-founders of Rule 30 - an AI research lab building what they claim is the world's first fully systematic venture strategy. We go deep on the difference between “data-driven” (hygiene) and decision-driven (engine), why labels matter, and how portfolio math crushes intuition.They unpack founder-trajectory signals, graph-based network evolution, market topology (yes, biology-inspired stats), and a portfolio design targeting 3x+ minimum returns with 97.5% confidence. We also debate the “access myth,” party rounds, and why they won't sell their alpha.Whether you're an LP testing managers, a GP rethinking reserves, or a founder curious how algorithms “see” you - this one's for the nerds and the pragmatists.Here's what's covered:01:46 | What is “Quant VC” and how it differs from traditional venture06:39 | Why pre-seed isn't an access problem — it's a triage problem09:55 | Can AI really make investment decisions at pre-seed?14:13 | Training the model on 15 years of startup data to find top-decile winners20:55 | The “Outlier Trajectory” of founders — decoding team evolution through data26:42 | Why Rule 30 calls itself an AI Research Lab, not a VC fund35:36 | Portfolio construction math: the danger of the “middle” strategy55:57 | Follow-ons vs upfront bets — why they avoid reserves entirely61:40 | Access myth-busting — why 99 % of pre-seed deals are open to smart capital

This week, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Jack Leeney, co-founder of 7GC, the transatlantic growth fund bridging Silicon Valley and Europe and a backer of AI giants like Anthropic, alongside European rising stars Poolside and Fluidstack.From IPOs at Morgan Stanley to running Telefónica's US venture arm and now operating a dual-continental fund, Jack shares how 7GC reads the AI supercycle, why infrastructure and platforms win first, and what Europe must fix to unlock the next wave of venture liquidity.

Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where ⁠Dan Bowyer⁠,⁠ Mads Jensen⁠ of ⁠SuperSeed⁠, ⁠Lomax Ward⁠ of ⁠Outsized Ventures⁠⁠⁠, and this week's special guest Robin Haak break down the real stories behind the headlines shaping European tech and venture.Robin joins us as the founder of Robin Capital, an early employee at SmartRecruiters, angel in 100+ companies, including eight unicorns, and one of the most active emerging GPs in Europe. He brings deep operator insight, especially into the German ecosystem, politics, and economy, which this episode leans heavily into.We cover everything from UK policy signals to German recession warnings, AI dominance to Europe's bureaucratic drag, the rise of solo GPs, and why the next decade of tech will be won or lost on energy availability more than anything else.What's covered:04:00 EU wants to restrict social media for minorsThe team debates the proposals to ban or limit social media for children under 16, the mental health case, and the tension between safety and overreach.06:00 Surveillance creep & messaging regulationRobin explains concerning drafts that would've allowed governments to read private messages. The group breaks down the slippery slope of “protect the children” legislation.10:00 UK Budget: surprisingly startup-friendlyDan and Lomax unpack EMI reforms, EIS/VCT clarity, and why the market reacted calmly. Signals of a more innovation-forward UK emerge.12:45 Lovable.ai's VAT scandal & Europe's compliance mazeA Swedish engineer's viral post on LinkedIn sparks a discussion on Europe's inconsistent VAT rules, compliance complexity, and whether hypergrowth and European regulation can co-exist.17:00 N26's long struggle with German regulatorsRobin, an early angel, offers an insider's view on the fintech's challenges—BaFin restrictions, governance issues, and the counterfactual: “Would N26 be worth €20B if it were French?”20:00 Germany's big macro problem: stagnation + overloadA brutally honest breakdown of the German economy: energy scarcity, migration overload, rising welfare costs, labor shortages, and political paralysis.28:00 Education, welfare, pensions & the cost structure crisisRobin explains why Germany's systems are buckling: the collapse of PISA scores, overloaded municipalities, and an economic model no longer supported by productivity.33:00 Nuclear shutdowns & Europe's AI energy deficitWhy Germany shut down its safest reactors, how it backfired, and why France and the Nordics will become the new AI infrastructure hubs.40:00 Startup ecosystem: the good, the bad, the bureaucraticFrom Munich's deep tech boom to notary nightmares, ESOP fixes, GmbH limitations, and how founders are learning to hack the system.55:00 The rise of Solo GPsThe team discusses the American roots, European trajectory, operator funds, fund-of-funds appetite, and why founders increasingly prefer solo GPs.01:00:00 AI CornerOpenAI's trillion-dollar capex future, Google's TPU resurgence, Anthropic momentum, Michael Burry shorting AI (and why it's misguided), and the geopolitics of compute.

Welcome back to another episode of the EUVC Podcast, your trusted inside track on the people, deals, and dynamics shaping European venture.This week, Andreas Munk Holm is joined by Max Kufner, Co-Founder and CEO of again, and Jan Miczaika, Partner at HV Capital.again is one of those rare European deep-tech stories that blends academic brilliance, industrial execution, and venture pace. Born out of DTU, with roots at Stanford and MIT, again uses gas-eating microbes to turn CO₂ emissions into valuable chemicals and materials. In plain English: they take carbon that's already in the air (not the ground) and repurpose it into things we use every day, from plastics to fertilizers.Backed by HV Capital, GV, and a handful of top European and US investors, again is on a mission to decouple industrial growth from fossil carbon. But the conversation goes far beyond climate tech.Max and Jan unpack what it takes to build deep tech at venture speed, the reality of talent scarcity in Europe, the cultural differences between US and EU deep-tech ecosystems, and how to navigate board dynamics, milestone-based investing, and the journey to a Series B in a capital-intensive world.Whether you're a founder, investor, or LP curious about deep tech's reindustrialisation wave — this one's for you.Here what's covered:01:24 | again in one line — gas-eating microbes → chemicals (no oil out of the ground)02:53 | Why HV Capital backed again — climate upside and a chance to redefine European chemicals04:31 | Investor → founder pendulum — why Max went from Atlantic Labs partner back to operator06:20 | The serial founder advantage (and its hidden trap)10:17 | Building deep tech in Europe — talent constraints, optimism gaps, and moving early to the US15:30 | Multipolarity — global operations, risk appetite, and where to spend your time23:38 | Boardcraft — how to use your board (and avoid being over-managed)28:39 | On-air sparring — asset-heavy vs. platform-heavy business models33:17 | Prepping for Series B — risk, IRR, and the difference between validation and scale36:59 | Milestone-based investing in deep tech — bridges, binaries, and how to keep momentum43:12 | LPs and VCs — why deep tech is high-risk and high-alpha46:08 | Founder lessons — customer co-creation, speed, and building fast with scientists48:06 | Final reflections — Europe's industrial renewal through deep tech

Corporate venture capital isn't just having “a bit of VC on the side.” Done well, it's a strategic lens on the future. Done badly, it's a short-lived pet project with a half-life of 3.7 years and a trail of confused founders and annoyed co-investors.In this episode, we sit down with Martin Scherrer, Partner & Head of Managed Funds at Redstone, alongside our own CVC lead Jeppe Høier, to unpack what really happens when corporates leave venture — and how to do it without destroying value or reputation.Redstone runs a dual model: classic VC funds + “VC-as-a-Service” for corporates and family offices. Martin himself has lived three lives:Inside Swiss Re's CVC (later shut down)As a founder of an insurtech in SwitzerlandNow as VC & fund manager at Redstone across multiple corporate mandates.

Welcome back to another EUVC Podcast, where we explore the lessons, frameworks, and insights shaping Europe's venture ecosystem.Today, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Jan Lozek, Co-Founder and Managing Director and Founder of Future Energy Ventures (FEV), the Berlin-based climate-tech investor born from the carve-out of E.ON's corporate venture arm.With a 50-company track record and a new €235M fund, Jan shares what it takes to spin out from a corporate, how to invest across the energy transition with venture discipline, and why Europe's renewable leadership is creating both opportunity and complexity.

Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where ⁠Dan Bowyer⁠,⁠ Mads Jensen⁠ of ⁠SuperSeed⁠, ⁠Lomax Ward⁠ of ⁠Outsized Ventures⁠⁠⁠ dissect the stories reshaping European venture, from Helsinki's Slush takeover to China's rising leverage, TPU vs GPU battles, the UK's AI money wave, and why immigrants found half the unicorns in the Western world.This week's episode ranges from Germany's €35B space ambitions to Meta's TPU dealmaking, from cookie law rollbacks to Lithuania's secondhand unicorn, all culminating in one conclusion: Europe's window for action is open, but narrowing.

Welcome back to the EUVC Podcast — and today, a special Venture Beyond edition.Joining Mike Reiner of 432 Legacy and Andreas is Dave Bailey — one of Europe's most in-demand founder coaches, the brain behind FounderCoach.com, and a voice shaping how CEOs grow into their role.Dave's journey has been anything but linear: from co-founding startups like Delivery Hero, to a stint in venture capital, to now coaching Europe's most ambitious CEOs. Along the way, he's built a results-driven coaching methodology that balances competence, curiosity, and conviction.If you're a founder, VC, or operator wrestling with scaling leadership, navigating founder psychology, or turning board meetings into actual strategic levers — this episode is for you.Here's what's covered:01:10 | From Delivery Hero to VC to founder coach: Dave's unorthodox path05:00 | Why competence always comes before confidence09:15 | The five pillars of Dave's coaching methodology13:40 | Founder Mode: planning and executing with quarterly rhythm18:25 | Why visual clarity often beats verbal reflection22:10 | The hidden link between trauma, ego, and founder drive27:45 | Product launches as a culture-shaping mechanism32:30 | How to transform board meetings into true strategic accelerators38:50 | The founder's mindset: obsessive curiosity + conviction

Welcome to a new episode of the EUVC Podcast, where we bring you the people and perspectives shaping European venture.Today, we're joined by Adrian Locher, co-founder and GP at Merantix Capital, the Berlin-based AI venture capital firm and venture studio that's just planted its flag in London. Known for building and investing in AI-first companies from the ground up, Mirantix operates at the intersection of venture creation, community, and applied AI consulting — a model Adrian argues is especially well-suited to the AI age.In this conversation, we dive into the reality of the studio model, what makes it work (and not), and why Adrian believes validation with paying customers before a single line of code is written is the ultimate early-stage filter.

A billion-euro bet on Europe's most uncertain frontiers: climate, deep tech, and industrial transformation. Can government-backed funds catalyze global champions—or do they risk crowding out private capital?Dr. Elisabeth Schrey leads the Deep Tech & Climate Fonds (DTCF), a €1B investment vehicle co-financed by Germany's Future Fund and ERP Special Fund. From Munich to Berlin to Brussels, she's navigating the hardest question in European venture: how to deploy government capital without distorting markets.Together, we explore how DTCF is shaping Europe's growth-stage landscape, what it takes to invest in policy-fragile verticals like hydrogen and climate tech, and why Europe's future industrial champions may depend on funds like this.Here's what's covered:01:47 Why Elisabeth Took the Helm at DTCF (and What Gap It Fills)03:32 The Co-Investment Model: Benefits, Limits, and Founder Experience05:38 Crowding Out or Catalyzing? Steelmanning the Public Capital Debate07:21 When DTCF Steps Aside—and When It Competes for Deals09:54 Walking the Tightrope: Returns, Ecosystem Support, and Incentives14:36 Thinking Ahead: Could DTCF's Next Fund Be Purely Financial?15:42 The Scale Up Europe Fund vs. DTCF: Complement or Competition?17:18 Investing in Policy-Fragile Sectors Without Betting on Subsidies20:38 Defining “Readiness to Scale” in Uncertain Markets22:28 Avoiding the Subsidy Trap: Building Models That Work Without Support25:03 Climate & Hydrogen: Placing Bets Before the Hype27:36 Tech Waiting for the Market vs. Market Waiting for Tech29:06 Expanding the Portfolio: Semiconductors, Robotics, Cybersecurity31:27 Munich vs. Berlin: Why Munich Has Emerged as a Hardware Hub32:53 Corporates in Venture: Buffer, Booster, or Bottleneck?34:38 What Founders Need: Senior Hires & Serious Cashflow Models36:04 What Investors Get: Policy Links, Due Diligence, Deep Tech Edge38:22 Advice for Emerging VCs & Policymakers: Where the Next Gap Lies