EU-Startups Podcast

In this episode of the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski is joined by Trevor Neff, Partner at Headline Growth, a global VC firm with offices in San Francisco, Berlin, and Paris. Headline raised $865M for its fourth growth fund, with half of it dedicated to Europe. Headline’s portfolio includes powerhouses like: Sonos, Farfetch, goPuff, Bumble, AppFolio, Creditas, Segment, The RealReal, and S...

How do you turn travel into a cure for loneliness? In this episode of the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski sits down with Erika De Santi, Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer at WeRoad. With over 125 destinations worldwide and $36m in funding, WeRoad is one of the fast-growing travel startups that's redefining what it means to explore the world — with strangers who become friends. They d...

In this episode of the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski sits down with Charlie MacGregor, Founder & CEO of The Social Hub – a bold reimagination of what hospitality, connection, and community can look like in the 21st century. Starting from a personal desire to improve student housing, Charlie went on to build a hospitality powerhouse that blends hotels, coworking, student residences, coliv...

Most AI startups don’t fail because of the tech. They fail because they don't know how to go to market. Enter Carles Reina, the first investor and GTM strategist at ElevenLabs — the voice AI juggernaut redefining what product-market fit sounds like. In this episode of the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin and Carles talk about the real playbook for scaling AI startups. No fluff. Just unfiltered truths f...

In this episode of the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski speaks with Miki Yokoyama, Managing Director and Partner at Aurum Impact – an investment firm working at the intersection of family offices and climate innovation. Miki breaks down the unique role family offices can play in funding a livable future and why we need to rethink how we define impact. From choosing the right fund managers t...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski chats with Niklas Terrahe, the CEO & co-founder of Pick’em — the D2C brand reinventing one of the most unsexy products on the market: the toothpick. It started as a student project. Now it’s chewing gum’s worst nightmare. With millions of views on TikTok, influencer shoutouts from people like Ryan Reynolds, and a toothpick that literally wen...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski interviews Antonia Eneh, CEO of Wave Ventures, the trailblazing Gen Z-led VC fund that just launched Wave III — their boldest fund yet to invest in the world’s most ambitious Gen Z founders backed by the people behind Bolt, Slack, Wolt, and Supercell. We dive deep into what makes this generation of entrepreneurs tick: 🌍 Their hunger for pur...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski interviews Zoltan Vardy, a seasoned B2B sales advisor, author, and speaker with over 30 years of experience in driving revenue growth. Zoltan has generated $2 billion in sales throughout his career, serving as a C-suite executive at major media companies like NBCUniversal International and ProSiebenSat.1 Media. He is the creator of The Launc...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski sits down with Ash Arora, the youngest Partner at LocalGlobe — the #1 early-stage VC fund in EMEA and a backer of legendary companies like Wise, Canva, Twitter, Robinhood, and more. In this episode, Ash shares her journey from Delhi to leading investments in frontier tech across London and beyond. We dive into her days at Polygon Ventures (m...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski interviews Meiran Galis, Founder & CEO of Scytale, a global leader in security compliance automation, helping companies get compliant and stay compliant with security frameworks like SOC 1, SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR and PCI-DSS and more, without breaking a sweat. They serve hundreds of customers around the world and holds a world-class s...

This week on the EU Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski sat down with Christian Noske, Partner at NGP Capital. NGP is a global VC investing in technology companies across Europe and the US. For two decades, NGP has invested in more than 120 companies, of which 19 became unicorns and 11 went on to IPO. Some of the companies NGP has backed include Lime, GetYourGuide, The Exploration Company, and AN...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski sits down with Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve, Co-Founder and CEO of Alan. Alan is your one stop health partner giving everyone access to a healthy & productive life, empowering the body and the mind. Alan's services include the most intuitive health insurance offering, Alan Clinic to navigate the healthcare system and Alan Mind, a mental well...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski sits down with David Nothacker, Co-Founder & CEO of Sennder, the leading digital freight-forwarder platform in Europe. Sennder recently made a game-changing deal and signed an agreement to acquire C.H. Robinson’s European Surface Transportation operations. With this move, their combined business is estimated to hit 1.4bn euros in revenue, un...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski interviews Claudia de la Riva, CEO of Apolo Kids. Claudia is a mother of two and a serial entrepreneur. Apolo for our kids means a new way of learning following their own paths and interests. Apolo for parents means tool to conciliate while better preparing their kids for the future. Apolo is the perfect complement to motivate children throu...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski sits down with Yaron Valler, Founder & Partner at Target Global. Yaron is responsible for Target Global's growth stage investment practice where he led the investments in well-known companies including Wefox, DocPlanner, Delivery Hero, Bird, and numerous others. In this episode, Marcin and Yaron discuss the current state and future of Europe...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski sits down with Tim Draper, a legendary billionaire venture capitalist. Tim founded Draper Associates, DFJ and the Draper Venture Network, a global network of venture capital funds. He funded Baidu, Tesla, Skype, SpaceX, Twitch, Hotmail, Focus Media, Robinhood, Athenahealth, Box, Cruise Automation, Carta, Planet, PTC and 15 other unicorns at...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast our host Marcin Lewandowski sits down with the amazing Anna Alex, entrepreneur & investor in sustainability and nature. Anna's a Co-Founder of companies such as Nala Earth, Planetly, Outfittery and a SPIEGEL Bestselling Author. Her latest venture, NALA Earth, is at the forefront of measuring biodiversity and nature for companies. Before co-founding NALA Earth,...

This week on EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski hosts Nicole Buttner, Founder & CEO Merantix Momentum, Founding Partner at Merantix Capital and WEF Digital Leader for Europe. Nicole is an entrepreneur, economist and tech optimist. She believes artificial intelligence will create deep positive impact on individuals, businesses and society as a whole. In this engaging conversation, Marcin and N...

This week on EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski hosts Yoram Wijngaarde, Founder & CEO of Dealroom, to talk about "Startups backed by the EU's Framework Programmes" report. A first-of-its-kind report compiled by Dealroom, with Dealflow.eu and EU-Startups, reveals that a €12 billion investment made up of EU grants and Framework Programmes such as Horizon, has helped generate €520 billion in tot...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski hosts Hannah Leach, Partner at Antler. Antler is known for investing in founders on day zero and is now the most active private early-stage investor in the world. In Europe, Antler has backed more than 500 tech startups in the last five years. In 2024, Antler was more selective than ever before, with only the top 2.5% of founders being accep...

This week on the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski hosts Filip Kozera, Founder and CEO of Wordware, a startup that enables anyone to build complex AI Agents and applications. Wordware recently raised $30M seed round, which was one of the biggest rounds in the Y Combinator history, before graduating the program. In this episode, Filip talks about his journey from academia to entrepreneurship,...

In this episode of the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski hosts Bianca Zwart, the Chief Strategy Officer at bunq. bunq has raised a total funding of $373M and is valued at $1.85B and is making mobile banking that makes life easy. They call themselves the bank of THE FREE and are know for their extreme attention to users. Bianca shares her unconventional career journey, starting from answering...

In this episode of the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski interviews Robert Gaal, Founder of Vesper, a growing library of unique narrative games made by your favorite creators. They discuss Robert's entrepreneurial journey, the challenges of finding product market fit, entrepreneurship as a lifestyle, and the opportunity behind ethical AI. Robert shares insights on empowering creators through...

In this episode of the EU-Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski catches up with Michael Hurnaus, CEO of Tractive, a leading GPS tracker for pets that recently achieved $100 million ARR. They discuss the journey of building Tractive, the challenges of bootstrapping, the importance of company culture, and the innovative health monitoring features of their products. Michael shares insights on market e...

In this episode of the EU Startups Podcast, Marcin Lewandowski interviews Paulina Jansch, one of the youngest Founding Partners in Europe at Leanox Impact Capital. Paulina is a mentor at various startup organizations, NGOs, and universities. She is a voice for female empowerment and is known for her inclusive and empathic leadership style. She has been named among the TOP100 most influential women...