Deal Makers (& Fakers) Podcast

In this exclusive episode, we reveal why a $400M New York fund is passing on standard software loops to invest heavily in the physical industries building the future. A few days ago, Niclas Schlöpsna sat down with Denis, the visionary lead behind 2BF Global Ventures, a premier New York-based venture capital firm commanding over $400 million in assets under management. Drawing from his fifth consec...

In this episode of Deal Makers, Niclas Schlopsna sits down with Vlad Sarca, General Partner at Sparking Capital, to unlock the raw, behind-the-scenes mechanics of early-stage venture capital. What actually goes through a venture capitalist's mind when they review your pitch deck? Vlad breaks down the exact framework he uses to evaluate founders, moving past the superficial "AI" buzzwords that ofte...

The wellness industry is growing rapidly, with unique sensory innovations now leading the way in sleep health. In this episode, Niclas Schlöpsna, Managing Partner at spectup, sits down with Dr. Emanuela Maggioni, CEO of Hynt Labs , to discuss how a sophisticated lab project secured €4.5M in total capital. Thanks for reading Deal Makers (& Fakers)! This post is public so feel free to share it. Eman...

In this exclusive trailer for Episode 10 of Deal Makers (& Fakers), Niclas Schlöpsna, Managing Partner at spectup, sits down with Dr. Emanuela Maggioni, the founder of Hynt Labs. Dr. Emanuela Maggioni reveals how she is transforming wearable data from devices like Oura, Samsung Watch, and WHOOP into real-time sensory interventions to improve sleep performance. This perspective highlights the bridg...

Raising millions at record speed is often portrayed as luck, but for serial founders, it’s a calculated play of leverage, unit economics, and deep-tech infrastructure. In this episode of Deal Makers (& Fakers), Niclas Schlopsna sits down with Kirk to break down the transition from corporate leadership at Mastercard to navigating the Death Valley of fintech startups. Kirk shares his journey of leve...

🚀 Episode 8 of Deal Makers (& Fakers) - with Armon Sharei, Founder of Portal Bio and SQZ Biotech. Biotech startup IPO success and raising $400M in venture capital is a dream for many founders, but what happens after you go public? In this episode of Deal Makers (& Fakers), Niclas Schlopsna sits down with Armon Sharei, former founder of SQZ Biotech and current founder of Portal Bio, to discuss sca...

€75 MRR, 3 paying customers and 15,000 signups going nowhere. Then a startup pivot changed everything. I sat down with Florian, co-founder of Weavely, on the latest episode of Deal Makers (& Fakers) . He walked me through the exact mechanics of raising €900K as a four-person team from Brussels and then going on to raise €1.2M total. He had no warm Silicon Valley network or unicorn hype. Instead, h...

He had just 3 paying customers. It looked like a product that wasn’t working. Then one startup pivot flipped everything. Full startup fundraising story of raising capital drops soon. This is honestly the startup advice that every entrepreneur needs. * 15,000 people signed up * Only 400 showed up * 3 actually paid. Most founders would keep pushing. Florian killed it. Then something unexpected happe...

Aquablu Aquablu CEO Marnix Stokvis reveals his startup fundraising journey of raising capital without venture capital firms. Startup advice every entrepreneur needs. One cold message. To Frans van Houten, former CEO of a $20B company. Most founders wouldn't dare, but Marnix took the risk, and it changed his whole startup valuation. Aquablu CEO Marnix Stokvis shares his startup fundraising playbook...

He spent 7 years at AWS and then left to build a cloud computing startup. This week I sat with James Marks, and he shared his startup fundraising journey, and the playbook was quite the opposite of everything I had seen so far. James is a cloud and IT infrastructure broker helping companies cut 20-40% off their cloud spend. He became the youngest senior manager in AWS history, then sold his house,...

€2M raised at €70K ARR. Only 25 customers. And he never pitched a single investor. Juanjo Mestre, CEO & Co-Founder of Dcycle, built one of Europe's fastest-growing ESG platforms, now serving 2,000+ companies across Madrid, London, and Munich with 65+ employees and ~€10M in total funding raised. His fundraising approach? The opposite of every playbook out there. No cold emails. No 100-deck...

He raised millions for deeptech hardware in the middle of a Greek financial crisis. Greece’s 10-year bonds were above 18%, investors wanted software-only, and everyone told him to leave and build in the US instead. In this episode of Deal Makers (& Fakers) , Niclas talks with Dr. Nick Kanopoulos, founder & CEO of Brite Solar , about how he still built a solar factory in Patras and closed a...

🚀 Episode 2 of Deal Makers (& Fakers) — with Lars Eickhoff, Co-Founder of DeepImmo, a Munich-based PropTech startup that took a radically different route to funding. Instead of chasing VCs, Lars raised from a family office aligned with his vision, unlocking ongoing capital and growth without the classic VC drama. In this raw, honest conversation, Lars shares: Why he turned away from the class...

🚀 Episode 1 of Deal Makers (& Fakers) — with Jessica Liew (Berlin-based founder of Intriq), the AI platform helping consultants move faster by automating up to 87% of manual consulting work. In this episode, we go deep on what it really takes to raise a pre-seed round (Jessica raised >$1M ), how to approach investor outreach without burning your network, and the real differences between fu...