Podcasts about frontline ventures

Kota, the insurance benefits platform and API, has announced it has raised $14.5m in Series A funding bringing total funding to $22.9 million. The round was led by Eurazeo, along with existing investors EQT Ventures, Northzone, Frontline Ventures and new investors in 9Yards and Plug and Play. The investment will power Kota's mission to make employee benefits globally accessible and frictionless for employees - delivered through its intuitive platform and flexible API. Alongside their Series A, they are also announcing that they've obtained their Central Bank of Ireland Authorisation, making it one of the few technology platforms to be regulated . Kota is rebuilding employee benefits from the ground up. Millions miss out on essentials like pensions and healthcare - not because employers don't care, but because the system is broken. Legacy providers, PDFs, and manual processes make benefits inaccessible and unmanageable. Kota fixes this. Like Revolut did for banking, Kota delivers a modern, user-first experience for employee benefits. It integrates directly with insurers and pension providers, giving employees real-time access and control, and HR teams a single, reliable platform to manage everything. By combining their regulation, infrastructure, and user friendly platform and app, they make benefits effortless for HR & Finance, and engaging for employees. The funding will be used to expand the Kota team, increase the variety of insurance carrier partners in its products, and accelerate customer acquisition. Luke Mackey Founder and CEO said "Employee benefits, which can make up 25% of total compensation, are systematically undervalued and expensive. I experienced this as a founder and a GM -- managing benefits in email, between brokers and insurance companies, completely disconnected and alien from anything else in the business. It's entirely out of date. Ultimately, no one on the team connected or engaged with them, no matter how much we invested. It's not surprising. Insurance benefits are delivered in clunky portals or in PDFs, which is so un engaging compared to the financial experiences employees are used to.Kota integrates directly with insurance companies so we can control that experience and make it easy to roll out and run benefits, no matter who you are or where your team is. This means that employees can quickly understand, enrol, access coverage, retirement plans, or other benefits, and actually value them." Elise Stern from Eurazeo said "Kota really stood out to us. With a tech-first approach, they've built a robust technical and financial infrastructure: deep integrations with insurers across dozens of countries, visibility across the benefits stack, and a seamless API that allows partners - from HRIS to payroll - to embed benefits natively." Since launching in 2023, Kota has helped hundreds of small and medium sized companies seamlessly access, easily manage, along with tens of thousands of employees understand and value their cover. Kota integrates with and offers some of Europe's leading insurance providers, like Vitality in the UK, ONVZ in the Netherlands, Sanitas in Spain, Irish Life Health in Ireland, Allianz Global Care internationally, and many more. Kota powers benefits for Remote.com, and has become the benefits platform of choice for leading scale-ups across Europe such as Zoe Health, Poolside, Carwow, Tines, &Open and Protex AI. Last year, they launched Kota Embed, their embedded insurance offering for HR platforms to make insurance benefits available to their customers without leaving their HRIS or Payroll tool, with customers like Remote, Helios and insurance companies like Irish Life Health as customers. Historically employee benefits have lived offline outside the stack that HR and employees have come accustomed to and are difficult to manage and understand. Employee benefits, while growing into a $70bn market, are still completely unfit for lean, forward-thinking start-ups and scale-ups - parti...

In this episode of the EUVC podcast, Andreas discusses with Will Prendergast, Partner at Frontline Ventures.With ~€435M in assets under management, Frontline Ventures is a venture investment firm that operates two distinct funds:Frontline Seed: A €100M fund targeting pre-seed and seed-stage European companies with clear U.S. expansion intentions.Frontline Growth: A €100M fund focusing on Series B up to D in U.S. companies planning to expand to Europe within 12-18 months.Frontline Ventures, headquartered in Ireland, specializes in B2B SaaS and Deeptech sectors. The firm's position allows it to bridge the gap between European and U.S. markets, providing valuable support for companies looking to expand across the Atlantic in either direction.As a Partner at Frontline Ventures, Will Prendergast offers us a distinctive perspective on European and U.S. venture landscapes. His insights on early-stage investing in Europe and growth-stage opportunities for U.S. companies expanding to Europe are sure to be valuable for anyone interested in transatlantic venture capital's current state and future.Notable investments: Workvivo (acquired by Zoom), SignalAI, Finbourne, Lattice, MosaicML (acquired by Databricks), Navan.Go to eu.vc for our core learnings and the full video interview

In der Rubrik “Investments & Exits” begrüßen wir heute Otto Birnbaum, General Partner von Revent. Otto bespricht die Finanzierungsrunden von Kota, Galeneo Health und Abridge.EQT Ventures hat eine Seed-Finanzierungsrunde von 5 Millionen Euro für das irische Startup-Unternehmen Kota geleitet, das sich auf Arbeitnehmerversicherungen und Altersvorsorge spezialisiert hat. An der Runde beteiligten sich auch bestehende Investoren wie Northzone und Frontline Ventures sowie weitere Einzelpersonen, darunter Job Van Der Voort, Romain Huet, David Clarke und andere. Kota bietet eine Plattform für Sozialleistungen, die Unternehmen jeder Größe anspricht, und stellt ein eingebettetes Krankenversicherungsprodukt zur Verfügung, das es anderen Plattformen und Entwicklern ermöglicht, Finanzvorsorgeprodukte in ihre Dienste zu integrieren. Das in Madrid ansässige Unternehmen Galeneo Health hat kürzlich eine Finanzierungsrunde in Höhe von 1 Million Euro abgeschlossen, angeführt von der Impact-Management-Gesellschaft Ship2B Ventures über den BSocial Impact Fund. An der Runde beteiligten sich auch andere frühere Partner des Unternehmens. Diese Mittel sollen dazu dienen, den landesweiten Vertrieb zu skalieren, die Technologieplattform zu verbessern und das B2B-Modell für Kliniken und Krankenhäuser zu konsolidieren. Darüber hinaus plant Galeneo die Zusammenarbeit mit dem öffentlichen Sektor und der Pharmaindustrie auszubauen und die Patientenerfahrungen zu verbessern. Das Startup Abridge, das generative KI-Assistenten für das Gesundheitswesen entwickelt, hat in einer Series-A-Finanzierungsrunde unter der Leitung von Spark Capital 30 Millionen US-Dollar erhalten. Abridge ist für seine KI-Plattform bekannt, die Echtzeit-Gespräche zwischen medizinischem Fachpersonal und Patienten transkribiert und in nützliche Notizen umwandelt. Die Investition wird dazu genutzt, die Integration der Abridge-Plattform in das Echtzeit-Dokumentationssystem von Epic und die Expansion zu anderen großen Anbietern im Gesundheitswesen voranzutreiben. 

20Angel is a series profiling European angel investors with the best Founder NPS. Episode 14 features Finn Murphy, angel investor & previously a Partner at Frontline Ventures, where he made 24 fund investments and 8 angel investments in his 4 and half year tenure. In that time, he has seen 3 companies through to exit with Workvivo selling to Zoom, Overwatch to Benchling and Modulz to WorkOS. He's also backed companies including Localyze, Conduktor, Unleash, Thursday and Qualio. Today's episode is a special one as Finn announces what he's been working on over the past year, exclusively for 20Angel. The format for 20Angel is consistent across show, with questions including: What are some of the non-obvious things they look for when investing in a company? How they work with their Founders? How Founders should approach them? What they think makes a great angel investor?

We had a in person event with Luke CEO and C0-Founder of Yonder, The all-in-one platform to automate health insurance and retirement benefits, globally, today announced it has raised a €2.6 million funding round led by Northzone and Frontline Ventures, to build accessible and affordable global financial benefits for an underserved generation of workers.Luke will be talking about being a founder and the fun and heartache this brings.Sound Quality not the best will work on it for the next in person podcast I record

Heute: Finanzierungsrunde von Solvo.ai und neuer Fonds von Third Nature In der Rubrik “Investments & Exits” begrüßen wir heute Markus Lang, Partner bei Speedinvest. Markus hat die Runde von Solvo.ai und die Bekanntgabe eines neuen Fonds kommentiert: Mit der Vision, einige der "größten globalen Herausforderungen" zu bewältigen, will Third Nature Ventures 35 Millionen US-Dollar für seinen ersten VC-Fonds aufbringen. Third Nature, gegründet von Jason Ingle, hat bisher mindestens 2,8 Millionen US-Dollar eingeworben, wie aus einem behördlichen Dokument hervorgeht. Das Unternehmen beteiligte sich neben dem Fast-Fashion-Riesen H&M und dem Collaborative Fund an der 13-Millionen-US-Dollar-Series A von AlgiKnit Anfang dieses Jahres. Solvo.ai, ein Londoner Startup, das die Lieferketten der Zukunft durch maschinelle Lerntechnologie effizienter machen will, konnte in einer Seed-Runde 4 Millionen US-Dollar einsammeln. Die Runde wurde von Speedinvest und Frontline Ventures angeführt. Das frische Kapital soll dem Startup helfen, die Kommerzialisierung seines ersten Produkts, einer KI-gestützten dynamischen Preisgestaltungsmaschine für Unternehmen, voranzutreiben.

Leore Avidar is now on his fourth startup. He currently runs two fast-growing companies, and he has raised $100M or more for each. His venture, Lob has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Indicator Ventures, Y Combinator Continuity Fund, Frontline Ventures, and Quiet Capital.

In der Rubrik “Investments & Exits” begrüßen wir heute Jenny Dreier, Investment Manager bei EQT Ventures. Jenny hat die Runde von Varjo, Localyze und Tozero kommentiert: Das Software-Startup Localyze hat gestern bekanntgegeben, dass es in einer Series B unter der Führung von General Catalyst 35 Millionen US-Dollar eingesammelt hat. Zudem beteiligten sich u.a. auch der Visionaries Club, der Web Summit Fund, Frontline Ventures sowie Business Angel und CEO von Remote namens Job van der Voort an der Series B. Das Global #Mobility Unternehmen möchte bis Ende des Jahres in die USA und Kanada expandieren und im Jahr 2023 die ersten Länder in Asien erschließen. Localyze hat eine Softwarelösung entwickelt, die alle Aspekte der Mobilität von Mitarbeitenden vereinfachen soll. Ihr wollt mehr über die frische Runde erfahren? Gestern war Hanna Marie Asmussen, CEO und Co-Founder von Localyze, bei uns zu Gast und hat über die Finanzierungs gesprochen: lnk.to/localyze Varjo hat außerdem eine 40 Millionen US-Dollar Investition für High-End-VR und Cloud-Streaming erhalten. Für den finnischen Hersteller ist es die vierte große Finanzierungsrunde. Laut Crunchbase hat Varjo bisher rund 162 Millionen US-Dollar erhalten. Zu den Geldgebern gehören EQT Ventures, Atomico, Volvo Car Tech Fund, Lifeline Ventures und neue strategische Investoren wie die Schweizer Privatbank Mirabaud und der Elektronikhersteller Foxconn. Tozero, ein neues Startup aus Deutschland, das nach eigenen Angaben ein neuartiges Verfahren zur Rückgewinnung wichtiger Materialien wie Lithium, Nickel und Kobalt aus Lithium-Ionen-Batterien anbietet, konnte 3,5 Millionen Euro einsammeln. Die Pre-Seed-Finanzierungsrunde wurde unter der Leitung von Atlantic Labs aus Berlin geführt. Verve Ventures, Possible Ventures, Angels und andere Gründer haben sich an der Runde beteiligt, darunter das ehemalige VW-Vorstandsmitglied Jochem Heizmann sowie die Mitbegründer von Personio und FINN.

In der Mittagsfolge sprechen wir heute mit Hanna Asmussen, CEO und Co-Founder von Localyze, über die erfolgreich abgeschlossene Series-B-Finanzierungsrunde in Höhe von 35 Millionen US-Dollar. Localyze hat eine Softwarelösung entwickelt, die alle Aspekte der Mobilität von Mitarbeitenden vereinfachen soll. Diese reicht in ihrem Umfang von internationalen Relocations bis hin zu temporären Versetzungen. Die All-in-One Lösung hilft HR-Teams bei den administrativen Herausforderungen, die den steigenden Anforderungen von Mitarbeitenden an die Standort-Flexibilität gerecht werden müssen. Zum Angebotsportfolio gehört somit auch die Automatisierung von Visums- und Anmeldungsprozessen sowie die Unterstützung bei der Einrichtung eines Bankkontos oder dem Abschließen einer Versicherung. Localyze wurde im Jahr 2018 von Hanna Asmussen, Lisa Dahlke und Franzi Löw in Hamburg gegründet. Seit der Series-A-Finanzierungsrunde im Jahr 2021 hat sich der Umsatz des Unternehmens versechsfacht und der Kundenstamm mehr als verdreifacht. Bis 2030 möchte das Unternehmen 100 Millionen Menschen ermöglichen, über Grenzen hinweg zu arbeiten. Nun hat das Software-Startup bekanntgegeben, dass es in einer Series-B-Finanzierungsrunde unter der Führung von General Catalyst 35 Millionen US-Dollar eingesammelt hat. General Catalyst ist eine Risikokapitalgesellschaft, die Frühphasen- und Wachstumsinvestitionen in Unternehmen tätigt, die einen positiven Einfluss auf die Gesellschaft haben. Zum Portfolio gehören u.a. Airbnb, GitLab, Kayak, Deliveroo, Spinny, Snapchat, Qumas, Highfive, Fundbox, Cozy, Big Fish, AiDoc und Stripe. Zudem beteiligten sich u.a. auch der Visionaries Club, der Web Summit Fund, Frontline Ventures sowie Business Angel und CEO von Remote namens Job van der Voort an der Serie B. Das Global Mobility Unternehmen möchte bis Ende des Jahres in die USA und Kanada expandieren und im Jahr 2023 die ersten Länder in Asien erschließen. Neben der Marktexpansion wird Localyze auch stark in die Produktentwicklung investieren, um die Userexperience weiter zu verbessern. Um diese ambitionierten Ziele zu erreichen, initiierte Localyze die Übernahme von Trueplan, welches ein Portfoliounternehmen von Lead Investor General Catalyst ist. Die neu dazugewonnenen Mitarbeitenden aus den Engineering- und Sales-Abteilungen werden das Hamburger Jungunternehmen dabei unterstützen, das Produkt zu verbessern und den US-Markt zu erschließen. One more thing wird präsentiert von OMR Reviews – Finde die richtige Software für Dein Business. Wenn auch Du Dein Lieblingstool bewerten willst, schreibe eine Review auf OMR Reviews unter https://moin.omr.com/insider. Dafür erhältst du einen 20€ Amazon Gutschein.

Sign up for my Daily Fintech or Daily Digital Banking Newsletters here. Check out my latest podcast episode below: This podcast episode is sponsored by YieldX. YieldX is transforming income investing to bring its benefits to all investors. With YieldX, the outcome is income. NEWS HIGHLIGHT Nuri filed for insolvency today, two months after the Berlin-based digital bank announced layoffs as it struggled with the rout in cryptocurrency prices, economic uncertainty, and difficult funding environment FINTECH NEWS #apple Apple Pay is now available in Malaysia with three supporting banks namely Maybank, AmBank Group and Standard Chartered Bank. #moversandshakers ComplyAdvantage named Andrew Davies as Global Head of Regulatory Affairs. Luno has announced the hiring of Thomas Tudehope who come in as Luno's Global Head of Policy #donedeal A new £1 billion fintech fund to accelerate the growth of promising UK scale-ups is to be backed by a group of senior industry figures Capify launched a £40m fund for UK SMEs, to help manage operations through difficult trading conditions. Link here. CreatorDAO raises $20 million, in an ambitious bet on the creator economy. Backers include Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Paris Hilton among others. Link here. Appital secured an additional £1.7 million investment from Frontline Ventures and various angel investors to bring technological innovation and automation to equity markets. Link here. Dezerv has bagged $21 million in a Series A funding round led by Accel Partners. Also participating in the round were existing investors Matrix Partners India and Elevation Capital. Link here.

In der Rubrik “Investments & Exits” begrüßen wir heute Dorothea Gotthardt, Investment Manager bei Capnamic. Dorothea hat die Finanzierungsrunde von Workvivo und Celus kommentiert: Workvivo, eine irische App für Mitarbeitererfahrungen, hat in einer Serie-B-Runde 22 Millionen US-Dollar vom bestehenden Investor Tiger Global erhalten. Das neue Kapital soll dazu verwendet werden, das Angebot des Unternehmens weiterzuentwickeln und eine Reihe neuer Funktionen einzuführen, die darauf abzielen, die Mitarbeiter von Hybridunternehmen zu beschäftigen, zu informieren und wertzuschätzen. Bislang hat das Unternehmen rund 38 Millionen US-Dollar von Tiger Global, Frontline Ventures, Enterprise Ireland und Zoom-Gründer Eric Yuan erhalten. Außerdem konnte das Münchner DeepTech Celus, das KI zur Optimierung der Leiterplattenentwicklung einsetzt, in seiner Serie-A-Runde 25 Millionen Euro einsammeln. Celus, das 2018 von Tobias Pohl, Alexander Pohl und André Alcalde gegründet wurde, setzt auf eine cloud-basierte Software, die Elektronikentwickler mit umfangreichen Komponentendaten von Elektronikherstellern unterstützt und den gesamten Design-Prozess durch Automatisierung beschleunigt. Die Runde wird angeführt von Earlybird Venture Capital mit Beteiligung von Deutsche Invest Capital Partners und den bestehenden Investoren Speedinvest und Plug and Play. Mit dem frischen Kapital will das junge Unternehmen unter anderem die Expansion in die USA weiter voranbringen.

Meet Finn Murphy, newly-named Partner at Frontline Ventures, one of Europe's leading B2B Enterprise VC firms. Finn is a true “Product-&-Growth-Marketing-Person” turned VC - Looking to find and help grow the best new business ideas in Europe & the US. As a teenager, Finn wanted to be a professional ocean racer after which he went on to ace Engineering & Maths at Trinity College, then start a series of startups and finally go into VC with Frontline Ventures.In this episode you'll learn:- Finn's journey and learnings with Frontline drawing key lessons for VCs aspiring to make partner- How Finn and Frontline adapted to the bull market that has been characterising the last few years and extenuated during Covid.- How Finn thinks about collaboration in VC, how to foster it with fellow co-investors and his analysis of why collaboration seems to come and go as markets go up and down- Why being a junior in the industry can actually be a strength and why you should remember that your relationships are yours, not your fund's... until you make partner that is.

In today's episode, listen to an interview with Frontline Ventures' Partner Finn Murphy.We hope you enjoy(ed) the podcast! Please feel free to email us with any questions, suggestions, and opinions to podcast@tech.eu or tweet at us @tech_eu.

Greg Dilger of Renatus chats with Will Prendergast, a founding partner in Dublin-based venture firm Frontline Ventures. Will, who is also qualified as a chef and a chemical engineer, speaks about his career and the evolution of Frontline to date.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

(02:41) Brennan describes Frontline Ventures' mission and his role there(04:17) The mistakes companies typically make when moving into Europe(09:18) How Brennan taught himself to code and found his calling as a builder(11:13) Working at Google in the early days, and getting the opportunity to lead efforts in London and Dublin (15:11) Observations from Google Europe, including why the best companies are always reinventing themselves(21:02) Leading social network Yammer through its acquisition by, and learning from the practices of, Microsoft(26:44) Discovering vulnerability as an essential leadership trait(29:13) Technology innovations that excite Brennan and his team In a recent article for TechCrunch, Frontline Ventures partner Brennan O'Donnell described the burgeoning opportunity that European markets offer to U.S companies, particularly in tech, pointing out that EMEA now represents 38% of the world's GDP and is the world's second-largest B2B software market. But in order to capitalize on the opportunity, CEOs would be wise to learn from thought leaders like Brennan, who have been through the rigor of scaling high-growth companies in Europe and seen the potential pitfalls. In this episode, Brennan talks to Jesse about the most common mistakes he's seen brands make when expanding into Europe, what it was like to lead growth at Google Europe, reflections on guiding Yammer through its acquisition by Microsoft, how he's learned to embrace vulnerability as an essential leadership trait, and the emerging technologies he's most excited about as an investor.Guest BioBased in Silicon Valley, Brennan O'Donnell has over 20 years of experience building technology businesses and scaling global teams. As a partner with Frontline Ventures, he invests in growth stage startups with a focus on helping them expand into Europe. The fund's portfolio includes companies such as TripActions, Lattice, Clearbanc and Attentive.Before moving into venture capital, Brennan spent nearly a decade at Google, where he held multiple go-to-market leadership roles in the US and EMEA, building teams across both the Cloud and Ads businesses. After Google, he went on to hold c-level and executive roles in several early stage and high growth SaaS startups, including Yammer (acquired by Microsoft), SurveyMonkey (IPO), Euclid (acquired by WeWork) and most recently Airtable. He is a graduate of Northwestern University.Helpful LinksFrontline Ventures websiteTechCrunch: Proactive CEOs should prioritize European expansionThe Irish Times: Frontline Ventures targets US tech companies with new $80m fund Brennan on LinkedIn and Twitter

Just had a chance to interview Jon Stross. He's President & Co-Founder of Greenhouse Software, the smart recruiting SaaS platform used by over 4,000 companies including Cisco, Airbnb, and Time Inc. He's also Co-author of the new bestselling book Talent Makers, which reveals how talent-savvy companies find, land, and keep the best talent. Prior, Jon was GM International at BabyCenter (acquired by Johnson & Johnson), the leading destination on the Internet for new & expectant parents. Jon also led Product at enterprise performance management software company Merced Systems (acquired by NICE for $170MM.) Clearly, Greenhouse are onto something big. He's raised over $100M in VC from Frontline Ventures, Riverwood Capital, Benchmark, Lumia Capital, Thrive Capital, Social Capital, Resolute Ventures, Felicis Ventures. In this 20-minute conversation, Jon reveals how a company that helps companies hire hires (very meta!) We also talk thru the Hiring Maturity curve, and how to propel your business to the next phase.

Next week, we're starting in on Season Four of Breakthrough Builders. The Theme of Season Four is Product Builders & Storytellers.You'll hear Jesse's conversations with people like Alex Hood at Asana and Brennan O'Donnell at Frontline Ventures - who've driven wildly cool, deeply impactful, and radically inclusive product-led growth and innovation. You'll hear fun dialogues with people who write for a living. Renowned children's author Sean Taylor and trailblazing writer Brad Balukjian, to name a few. And you'll hear from some Builders who are both Product Leaders AND Authors, like Scott Belsky, founder of Behance and 99U, author of two incredible books about the creative process, and now, Head of Product at Adobe.This 8-episode season will take us from mid-July to mid-September. On Wednesday, July 21, we'll drop Episode One of the season, with the aforementioned Scott Belsky.

Episode 45: Vanessa Pham (@vanessatpham) cofounded Omsom, an emerging Asian pantry staple brand that makes cooking favorite dishes with uncompromised flavors and hard-to-find ingredients possible in any home kitchen. A former consumer packaged goods management consultant at Bain & Company, Vanessa and her sister Kim, first-generation Vietnamese-Americans, created Omsom to reclaim the cultural integrity of Asian cuisines that are too often diluted in the grocery aisle. Their sauces span flavors from East Asia to South Asia, including Vietnamese lemongrass barbecue and Korean spicy bulgogi. Kim, a former head of platform at Frontline Ventures in London who was named to 2017's 30 Under 30 Europe list.In this episode, Vanessa shares her origin story, her connection and relationship to her culture through food, and the difficulties faced by growing up as a child of Asian immigrants. Support the show (http://whyyounodoctor.com/podcast)

About William Mcquillan:My next guest on The One Percent Project is William Mcquillan. William is a founding partner at Frontline Ventures. Frontline is an early-stage venture capital fund with €250M under management and over 100 investments across Europe and the US. He was the youngest Partner of a European VC fund when Frontline was founded. In this conversation, he talks about:Why he wears square and circular spectacles? The US Vs European VC industry and how it correlates to the Asian VC landscape.Building a brand: Firm Vs Personal.When should founders reach out to VCs and why timing matters?The learnings from Frontline's gender study report.Key Take-Aways:Why founders are the actual customers of a VC fund?How one should think about building a brand? The importance of self-awareness and how it helps leaders to build big companies.Three ways to support the podcast:#1 Share the episode with family and friends on social media with #OnePercentProj using the share button on the site.#2 Take a few seconds to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts. This helps new folks find us organically. Rate#3 Leave a review if you feel inclined. We read every single message and love feedback. Review

William McQuillan is a founding partner of Frontline Ventures. This is the second part of a two-part episode with William. If you haven't done it yet, we strongly recommend you go back and listen to our previous episode with William on Frontline's investment theses and how they support founders. In this episode we focus on firm building. Specifically how William built Frontline and took it from an Irish focused firm to a firm for globally ambitious B2B companies on both sides of the Atlantic.** In this episode you will learn **• How William perceives the funding environment in Europe, compared to the US.• How Frontline collaborates with its LPs in adding value to their portfolio companies.• The importance of VC firm building from William's perspective and how he believes it contributed to Frontline's success.• Why William believes VCs should be more rigorous in their use of data to find deals

William McQuillan is a founding partner of Frontline Ventures. Prior to starting Frontline, William was a founding employee at Ondra, an award-winning startup investment boutique that went from a 4 person team to 70+ employees across London, New York and Paris in only 18 months. When Frontline was founded, William was 27 years old, making him the youngest VC ever to have raised a fund at that time (2012). Shortly after recording this episode William announced Frontline Fund III. ** In this episode you will learn **•How William has built a truly differentiated investment thesis for Frontline's two funds.•What William looks for in seed stage startups and why he believes integrity is all important and money cannot be the founder's main driver.•How William perceives the effects of Brexit and its implications for their investment strategy and work with startups.•Why William and Frontline are strong supporters of founders taking a small bit of secondaries in each round.LINK https://www.frontline.vc/library/the-usa-playbook/ LINK https://www.frontline.vc/expanding-to-europe/

Myanmar's government extends its internet crackdown; Microsoft's lobbying arm blacklists presidential election objectors; and Dublin's Frontline Ventures raises a new fund

Myanmar’s government extends its internet crackdown; Microsoft’s lobbying arm blacklists presidential election objectors; and Dublin’s Frontline Ventures raises a new fund

We're ending the year- and what a year it has been!- with a bang and a bonus episode. Lois and Petra are joined by a wonderful trio this week; Finn, Annalise and Kamil from Frontline Ventures, Sapphire Ventures and Notion Capital respectively chat through everything from how to progress through the VC ranks to finding your superpower as an investor and beyond. This group doesn't hold back- you definitely don't want to miss this episode! Finn's Twitter Annalise's LinkedIn Kam's LinkedIn

Finn Murphy is the Principal at Frontline Ventures, a VC firm based in Europe. Founded in 2012, with offices in Dublin and London, Frontline has positioned itself as the venture firm for globally ambitious B2B companies on both sides of the Atlantic. Its focus is on B2B SaaS companies with international growth goals, either early-stage startups with sights on the U.S., or at later-stage companies looking to expand into Europe. It has two main programs: Frontline Seed, which speeds up ideas at inception across Europe, and Frontline X, which is a growth-stage fund, for fast and frictionless US-Europe expansion. An entrepreneur at heart, Finn developed a passion for the tech startup and VC world while still while pursuing degrees in Math and Engineering at Dublin's Trinity College. He built his first successful software business – an application to digitize ID cards for students at Trinity – and launched it in 2016. The first product was a success, and the company was spun out as an independent business. He secured funding, won a prime spot at a local accelerator, and built out the company's core engineering team. After 18 months in operation iDly was snapped up by a larger Irish FinTech company. Finn then shifted his attention to developing the B2C growth marketing strategy at Plynk. He built out a specialized team, driving installs to a peak of 1000 per day. This company later flopped but the lessons on the way down were just as valuable as the ones from the way up. In 2018, Finn joined the Frontline Ventures team, where he is now looking to find and help grow the best new business ideas in Europe and the U.S. In addition to his responsibilities as Principal at Frontline, he also serves as a Board Member, Board Observer and Investor at several different tech startups. In this interview, Finn talks about why Frontline Ventures chooses to invest in globally ambitious tech founders, what his criteria are for evaluating a startup's global growth potential, and what Frontline's recently published 2020 Global Ambition Report reveals about the keys to successful international expansion for B2B software companies.   Links: Frontline Ventures website Frontline's 2020 Global Ambition Report Frontline Ventures on LinkedIn Finn on LinkedIn   This episode was sponsored by the Think Global Awards, powered by Vistatec.

Joe Lennon is the cofounder and Chief Technology Officer of Workvivo, an Irish technology company which helps companies to communicate with employees working remotely. Joe and his cofounder John Goulding have recently been nominated for the 2020 EY Entrepreneur of The Year award. In the past year, Workvivo has experienced over 200% growth in user numbers, with customers operating in over 50 countries. Workvivo have announced plans to create 100 new jobs in the next three years after raising over €16 million in funding. Workvivo's initial investment came from Zoom with its Series A funding led by Tiger Global with participation from Frontline Ventures and Enterprise Ireland. Tiger Global have previously invested in companies such as LinkedIn, Airbnb, Stripe and Uber.Joe and I discussed how Workvivo developed into an employee engagement platform and what the recent investment means for the growth and expansion of Workvivo. Joe provided his thoughts on the bootstrapped start-up model versus early stage seed investment. Lastly, Joe gave his advice for entrepreneurs of all backgrounds starting their own pursuits. Follow Kickoff Sessions on Spotify to keep updated with new sessions!If you enjoyed this episode, please consider dropping a share on Instagram or leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts. Tell everyone I'm a semi-decent guy and it really helps to grow the show!For show notes and more episodes, visit Kickoff Sessions website. Sign up to the Kickoff Sessions email list for regular updates and content.Connect with me on LinkedIn.Support the music artist: FarsiThank you!This episode is sponsored by Sons. Please support the podcast and get 40% off your first order by using the discount code KICKOFFSESSIONS40. Sons IE: sons.ieSons UK: sons.co.ukSons are a men's health care brand that offers clinically proven, licenced hair loss treatments for less than the cost of a cup of coffee per day. - ExpressVPN: ExpressVPN.com/kickoffsessions and get 3 extra months free- Buzzsprout: Buzzsprout.com and receive a $20 Amazon Gift CardSupport the show

----------------- *Episode outline* ----------------- [01:12] Introducing Carolina [03:10] The most common mistakes Carolina sees companies making across the portfolio and advice she gives her clients [06:16] The process for European companies that wish to expand into the United States [07:40] How Carolina prioritizes hiring and hiring patterns in the United States versus Europe [10:00] Lessons from companies Carolina has seen succeed [12:00] How European companies can expand into the US for the first time [13:35] Playbooks that Carolina has seen to be effective over the portfolio [15:44] The importance and benefits of maximizing peer-to-peer learning and networking [18:11] How COVID-19 has changed engagement between Carolina and the founders and CEOs she serves [20:05] What gets Carolina excited about the future ----------------------- *Connect with Carolina* ----------------------- *LinkedIn* ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolina-k%C3%BCng-128a8538?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_contact_details%3BBlbhI7BrT06ATiZDaNZGwQ%3D%3D ) *Twitter* ( https://twitter.com/clkung )

William McQuillan was the youngest Partner of a European VC fund when he co-founded Frontline Ventures in 2012. An early stage venture capital fund with €110m under management, Frontline has made over 40 investments across Europe. We explored: Frontline Ventures “platform” offering - the 1st to be launched by a European VC firm  How the platform enables Frontline to track everything they do to add value to their portfolio  The shocking stats Frontline uncovered on gender & ethnicity in dealflow The specific steps VCs can take to improve their ability to support diverse businesses The criteria Frontline evaluate when investing in companies with no products & no revenues How an entrepreneur tracked William down on AirBnb then rented a room so he could pitch him! For more insights into Frontline Ventures head over to https://www.frontline.vc & for advice on hiring stellar leadership talent for your enterprise software scale-up check out https://alpinasearch.com

This Week in Rec Tech is Sponsored by Rejobify.com Competitive Wedge, the video interviewing solution that helps recruiters make authentic connections with candidates, today announced details of its funding. The company completed the final tranche of its seed funding, bringing its total funding to $1 million raised to date. With social distancing now the norm, recruiters and candidates are unlikely to have in-person interviews anytime soon. The use of video has been ranked as one of the top work communications tools that are helping businesses thrive during the pandemic. Since resumes were never adequate to convey a job candidate’s true capabilities – especially in the hourly workforce – Competitive Wedge enables them to share their enthusiasm, skills and know-how through its one-way video interviewing platform. Wedge CEO, Matt Baxter, commented, “Wedge was designed with both the recruiter and candidate at the core. For recruiters, we streamline processes and reduce screening times. For candidates, they gain an anytime, any device job interviewing platform that enables them to use the communications medium they’re already familiar with – video – to express their interest in the open requisition and company.” Founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneur Matt Baxter, Competitive Wedge’s primary solution is Wedge, the one-way recorded video assessment that enables candidates to show their true selves. For more information, visit https://competitivewedge.com/   https://hrtechfeed.com/video-interviewing-solution-raises-1-million/ NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ –JumpCrew, the leading B2B outsourced sales and marketing solutions provider has launched salesabroad.com. This initiative will provide jobs for sales professionals who want to embrace the remote lifestyle. JumpCrew has become the leading outsourced sales partner for venture-backed B2B startups and established brands. Their Satellite Sales offering is a turnkey, outsourced sales solution. Their clients get a dedicated team of sales reps, marketers, client success specialists, and operations support; focused on quickly generating revenue at scale. “Building a platform to support a global remote workforce, of extremely talented salespeople, who suddenly have no job is a no brainer. JumpCrew is still agile enough to see this opportunity and launch a vehicle to leverage it,” says Lavall Chichester, CMO of JumpCrew. “Salesabroad.com supports the increased global demand for outsourcing sales and allows us to help salespeople support their families.” https://hrtechfeed.com/jumpcrew-launches-salesabroad-com-to-build-a-global-remote-workforce/ INDIANAPOLIS, IN, (July 13, 2020) – Jobvite, the leading end-to-end talent acquisition suite, today announced that it has acquired the artificial intelligence (AI) and data science team at Predictive Partner. Morgan Llewellyn, CEO of Predictive Partner, will serve as Jobvite’s Chief Data Scientist and oversee a team leveraging AI through automation, predictive analytics, data science, machine learning, natural language processing, and optical character recognition. “As the first provider to introduce both machine vision to generate ‘Magic Resumes’ and candidate de-identification technology to reduce screening bias in chat transcripts, we understand the potential AI holds for talent acquisition professionals,” said Aman Brar, CEO of Jobvite. “The addition of Morgan and the Predictive Partner team to our ranks will help our customers derive even more value from the Jobvite Talent Acquisition Suite. By weaving native AI into all aspects of our software, we will deliver more than mere features—we will deliver the future of smart automation, intelligent messaging, candidate matching, and data-driven hiring decisions for talent organizations of all sizes.” Coinciding with the acquisition, Jobvite has also announced the launch of enhanced candidate engagement scoring and intelligent candidate matching capabilities. Enhanced candidate engagement scoring will help talent acquisition teams better gauge candidate interest through at-a-glance engagement metrics for every candidate. Intelligent candidate matching will enable recruiters to scale their efforts by reducing the time it takes to identify a qualified candidate from a large volume of candidates. https://hrtechfeed.com/jobvite-acquires-predictive-partner-team-to-accelerate-ai-innovation/ SAN FRANCISCO, July 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Lattice, the leading people management platform for businesses with people-first cultures, today announced that it has raised a $45 million Series D growth round of funding led by Tiger Global with participation from Frontline Ventures, Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Thrive Capital Partners, Fuel Capital, and Y Combinator. The new round of funding will accelerate Lattice’s focus on expanding offerings to better serve its global clients and continuing to scale its team to meet ambitious product goals. Lattice launched in 2016 to enable people leaders to unlock insight into company culture through goal and OKR management. Since then, the company has built a suite of performance management products and engagement solutions that offer customers powerful, real-time analytics leading to actionable insights.  “2020 has been a year that’s proven how important it is to invest in your culture,” said Jack Altman, co-founder and CEO of Lattice. “We’re building Lattice to be a holistic people management platform that helps keep your employees engaged, growing, and highly effective. Company culture is forged during difficult times and we’ve seen an increase in companies turning to solutions to sustain and increase the employee experience in our new remote world.” https://hrtechfeed.com/lattice-raises-45m-in-series-d-round/   ########## Dont just reject candidates, Rejobify them. The Rejobify rejection email service will help those you cant hire. Give back to the candidates who take the time to apply with your company….book a demo today at rejobify.com

Join your host Emma and her Clown Barbara talking all things Technology.  What does technology do for us in our current lives?  How has technology evolved during our life time?  How can technology help Barbra sell more bacon sandwiches?  What does the future hold for business and technology and much more more Follow Steve LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevec64/ Twitter: @stevec64 About Steve Steve is Chief Technology Officer at King, a leading interactive entertainment company in the mobile world creating games like Candy Crush. Previously Steve was a partner with Frontline Ventures, a venture capital fund investing in pre-seed and seed stage software companies. Prior to this, Steve co-founded and led 3 startup companies as CTO including Havok, the leading physics and animation middleware company for console game development and Swrve, a mobile marketing automation platform. Steve started his career developing Commodore 64 games but then pursued an academic career as a lecturer in computer science in Trinity College Dublin where he founded the computer graphics research group and a new masters degree program in computer game technology. Steve holds a PhD in computer graphics. Steve is also a creator of very odd electronic music on his beloved modular synthesiser!

Stephen McIntyre, Partner at Frontline Ventures is this week's guest on The SaaS Revolution Show. Currently Partner at Frontline Ventures, Stephen was previously at Twitter and Google, before moving into VC. He was one of Twitter's first employees outside of the US, and joined Google during a period of hypergrowth. He brings his experience as an operator and now as an investor to The SaaS Revolution Show, to talk about what US SaaS and tech startups need to consider when expanding into Europe.

Jay Bregman is a serial entrepreneur and currently the cofounder and CEO of Thimble which is an insurance producer enabling small businesses to succeed on their own terms. The company has raised $30 million from Slow Ventures, LocalGlobe, Frontline Ventures, AXA Venture Partners, OpenOcean, Novel TMT Ventures, ValueStream Ventures, and IAC to name a few. Prior to this, he cofounded Hailo (acquired by Daimler Mercedes-Benz) and eCourier (acquired by Royal Mail).

Jay Bregman is a serial entrepreneur and currently the cofounder and CEO of Thimble which is an insurance producer enabling small businesses to succeed on their own terms. The company has raised $30 million from Slow Ventures, LocalGlobe, Frontline Ventures, AXA Venture Partners, OpenOcean, Novel TMT Ventures, ValueStream Ventures, and IAC to name a few. Prior to this, he cofounded Hailo (acquired by Daimler Mercedes-Benz) and eCourier (acquired by Royal Mail).

Finn Murphy from Frontline Ventures joins the show to talk about a people-centric view to investing in early stage startups, what it takes to scale Irish startups to nine-figure revenue levels, what typically lures Irish startups to the UK, US or Continental Europe, and how his own competitive drive works well in venture capital.

Ariel Cohen is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of TripActions which is a corporate travel management company. The business has raised so far close to $1 billion in equity and debt. Some of its top tier investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs, Silicon Valley Bank, Frontline Ventures, Comerica Incorporated, Group 11, and Zeev Ventures to name a few. 

Ariel Cohen is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of TripActions which is a corporate travel management company. The business has raised so far close to $1 billion in equity and debt. Some of its top tier investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs, Silicon Valley Bank, Frontline Ventures, Comerica Incorporated, Group 11, and Zeev Ventures to name a few. 

"Pete Townsend goes solo" would have been a better headline in the '70's, but our Pete takes the mic in this episode to unpack the realities and economics of funding pre-seed and seed-stage startups through the lens of Finn Murphy from Frontline Ventures in Dublin.

Kim and I discuss how the acronym VIPER plays a huge role in how she navigates relationship building, her experiences diving into the startup world at just 16 and how she’s teaming up with her sister to build Oxtale Co., a food company centered around authentic Asian cuisine. About Kim: From delivering talks at conferences to serving as an advisor to portfolio communities and purpose-driven startups around the world,  Oxtale (https://oxtale.co/) . Show Notes: [2:00] What it was like growing up in an immigrant family as a first generational Vietnamese American. [4:00] The playbook on how she got into the startup world at 16 years old. [6:22] How Kim joined Frontline Ventures right after college, starting with a move to Dublin, Ireland. [13:18] The story behind how Kim and her sister Vanessa decided to team up and start Oxtale Co. [20:12] 1st and 2nd generational immigrants discover their heritage and identity through food. [31:00] How Kim defines her “North Star” and how she uses this concept to navigate her non-negotiables in career, dating, and personal life. Support this podcast

Kim Pham NYU ’14, RA in Carlyle Court, is a longtime human-in-technology, having worked in VC and startups in New York and Boston since she was 16. She graduated from NYU Stern, where she was the first female president of Tech@NYU and founding partner of Dorm Room Fund NYC. After graduating, Kim moved to Dublin and London to join Frontline Ventures as Head of Platform. Her work there led to her being named one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Europe in 2017. Kim now runs her own venture capital consultancy and is a co-founder at Oxtale.

Steve Collins is a Partner at Frontline Ventures - a VC fund investing in early stage B2B software ventures across Europe. Prior to becoming a VC, Steve founded Havok, an animation middleware company for console game development, Kore, developer of the Kore Virtual Machine, and most recently Swrve, the mobile marketing automation platform used by some of the world's leading brands including Disney, Conde Nast and Ryanair.  Steve discusses: How and why he switched from the life an entrepreneur to being a VC  The importance of instinct and gut feel when VCs evaluate early stage investment opportunities The lessons he's learned from founding in Europe then - within just a few months of launching - rapidly scaling 3 successful software ventures in The States The challenges of replacing - or being replaced as - a Company Founder by a "Scale-Up" CEO Steve's enduring passion for designing and coding computer games – and the impact of online gaming innovations & technologies on other industries   Head over to http://frontline.vc for more details on Frontline Ventures and check out www.alpinasearch.com for more advice on globally scaling your enterprise software venture.

Kim Pham is the Head of Platform at Frontline Ventures, Europe's first community-focused fund. Kim has always had a passion for entrepreneurship and startups, landing her first job within a startup at the age of 16. Kim joins us to share her story, how she got involved in startups & hustled her way into various opportunities with companies like Onswipe, Blue Apron and more, how she helped launch Dorm Room Fund in NYC, how she got into VC, what she does as Head of Platform at Frontline Ventures in Dublin, and much more!

This lady is amazing! GeekGirl sat down with Kim Pham of Frontline Ventures, an early-stage VC based in Dublin. Listen to find out more about her role as Head of Platform, why she made the move from New York to Ireland and more about the Dublin startup scene. Bio and key links, below. Kim is currently the Head of Platform at Frontline Ventures. She graduated from New York University’s Stern School of Business, where she majored in Marketing and Computer Science. She has been working at early-stage startups in New York and Boston since she was 16, at companies like Blue Apron, Onswipe, and HowAboutWe. She led Tech@NYU, NYC’s largest developer and designer organization. Kim was also founding partner of Dorm Room Fund, a $.5M student-run venture fund investing in student startups throughout NYC. When she’s not supporting the Frontline portfolio, you can find Kim cooking without recipes or attempting to befriend strangers' dogs. She enthusiastically claims she is “made of the Internet.” Key Links: Twitter: http://twitter.com/kim617 Website: http://kimpham.org/ EU Internal Ecosystem Builders: http://euieb.com/ Frontline Ventures: http://www.frontline.vc/

Panel discussion explores how startups, multinationals and other stakeholders can make Ireland a leading hub for “IoT” innovation and they also gave away some great tips for startups on bringing hardware products to market. The panel was chaired by Paddy Cosgrave (CEO at Web Summit) and featured key industry leaders: Liam Casey – CEO at PCH International, Philip Moynagh –VP IoT at Intel Corporation, Will Prendergast - CEO at Frontline Ventures and Ben Harris - CEO at Drop. If you are involved in the tech startup community, you will find this talk on on the "Internet of Things" insightful and inspirational