This Much I Know - The Seedcamp Podcast

From £25,000 of private savings, and over the course of a year-and-a-half, Zaggora was able to become a multi-million dollar sportswear company selling activewear to women. How did its founders navigate the journey of launching a clothing product in a market where consumers are often fickle and shifting fashion cycles reign? On that topic, Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal is joined by Zaggora co-fo...

What are the critical steps a European startup founder must make when plotting expansion to the United States? On that topic Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal is joined by Dan Glazer, Partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSGR) - the US law firm which has represented the likes of tech titans Apple and Netscape over the course of its illustrious history. Dan recently co-led the WSGR team suppo...

What does the advent of artificial intelligence spell for the future of legal services and lawyers themselves? On that topic Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal is joined by founder and CEO Matt Osman of Legit Patents, the startup building AI-powered applications to automate parts of the R&D process, and Neil Miller, Partner at JAG Shaw Baker and formerly General Counsel at SoundCloud. "The lawyer of...

'The best founders are intentional around product,' says John Lilly, Partner at Greylock and former CEO at Mozilla. ‘It’s about how you understand user needs and be intentional about matching those needs, figuring out what people really truly need, and building the right thing for that.' John joined Greylock as a partner in 2011, leading their investments in Dropbox, Tumblr and Instagram. Prior to...

"Digital transformation is hard for big companies because they have encouraged 'Groupthink' and rewarded the wrong behaviour for years and years," warns digital maven, entrepreneur and business mentor Mary Keane-Dawson. After c-suite roles at WPP, Steak, Reform and Collective, in 2013 Mary co-founded medical technology startup MyHealthPal as well as the women's networking franchise How She Made It...

Robin Klein is one of the true pioneers of Europe’s venture scene: as cofounder of The Accelerator Group (TAG) in 1995, and an early stage investor in the likes of Transferwise, lastminute.com, last.fm, Love Film and Agent Provocateur, he has catalysed the success for some of London’s most impactful private businesses over the past two decades. “We never forget that the company is owned by the fou...

As the founder of Campus London, Google's first physical startup hub, Eze Vidra has a strong claim to being the ‘godfather’ of London’s current tech scene. Eze's journey has taken him from product management and leadership roles in startups across the globe to managing strategic partnerships for Google and founding multiple businesses, including VC Cafe and not-for profit TechBikers, the charitabl...

From virtual assistants to risk analytics, and drug discovery to imaging and diagnostics, artificial intelligence’s scope for transforming the healthcare industry is significant. But just how will the use of AI and Machine Learning techniques reshape how medicine is practised today? Healthcare dominates other industrial applications of AI in terms of money invested and number of deals, with $1.8B...

The attitude of the British mainstream press when covering technology companies is often one of 'risk and scepticism', says TechCrunch Editor at Large Mike Butcher. But what if instead of predicting failure or projecting concern journalists took a more positive view of technology entrepreneurship? Speaking to Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal, Mike explains how TechCrunch’s policy is to ‘bat for the...

“If you don’t have experimentation across the full customer journey, you’re going to have a hard time growing any business,” says Sean Ellis, who coined the term ‘growth hacker’ in 2010 after using such techniques to ignite spectacular, low-cost growth for Dropbox, Eventbrite, LogMeIn and Lookout - each now worth billions of dollars. Sean is an entrepreneur, investor and startup advisor. He founde...

How should we respond to the economic, social and moral consequences of automation driven by advancements in artificial intelligence? We are, argues Calum Chace (author of ‘Pandora’s Brain’, ‘Surviving AI’ and ‘The Economic Singularity’), on the brink of two singularities and accordingly need to plot a path to a future society that is ‘meaningful, sensible and communicable’. The first singularity...

lastminute.com, the online travel company, was founded in early 1998: “a time when, it seems strange now, but there really wasn’t a belief the internet would necessarily survive, yet alone be a tool we used every day,” says cofounder Martha Lane Fox. Two years later, at the peak of the dotcom bubble in March 2000, the company was publicly floated, “representing this brave new world of entrepreneur...

You may recognise actor, producer and filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt from blockbusters including The Dark Knight Rises, 500 Days of Summer and Inception. On top of an acting career that spans 30 years, Joseph is also the founder of collaborative production company HitRecord. Out to disrupt the conventional Hollywood model, HitRecord encourages artists on its platform to work collaboratively on pro...

How do you organise a billion people’s life choices? For tech giants like Google, Facebook or Apple that isn’t a flippant question: incremental design choices can have monumental significance when introduced at the scale such companies command. ‘They’re urban planners,’ argues Tristan Harris, ‘designing this invisible city that a billion people live inside, and they don’t know it.’ Called the ‘clo...

Conventional wisdom often encourages startup founders to focus on product and growth, and then figure out monetization later. Yet this can be a backwards step as Patrick Campbell, CEO at Price Intelligently, notes. Businesses should ‘look at the market they want to attack, and then build the thing for them’, by gathering and analysing data on buyer personas. Patrick’s background is one steeped in...

Online transactions occur behind a veil of digital anonymity. As a result it is not always possible to ensure a person is who they claim to be. For many startups the problem of trust is even more pronounced, with early stage companies lacking the credibility or reputation of established competitors. So how do you build trust online? On that topic Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal is joined by two en...

Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal gave a talk at the AIBE Summit 2017 on venture capital investment in Artificial Intelligence. With one of the largest AI portfolios held by an early-stage investor in Europe, including companies like ThirdEye, Reinfer and Viz.ai, Carlos discusses the areas in which Seedcamp has invested to date and why, as well as wider funding trends. Carlos recalls the history of...

“Being a good consultant, being able to problem solve in a room with a whiteboard, is not the same as being able to get things done,” argues Davor Hebel, managing partner for Europe at Eight Roads ventures (and previous consultant). Davor’s area of focus at Eight Roads includes consumer and enterprise technology - with Innogames (bought by MTG), Treatwell (bought by recruit) and Notonthehighstreet...

With ‘fake news’ of increasing concern - and an issue pushed to prominence during the US presidential election - how can we ensure the accuracy of our information sources? Few are better placed to answer than Azeem Azhar, product entrepreneur, writer and founder of PeerIndex, the social media analytics startup acquired by BrandWatch. How to find the best and most reliable information is something...

This week we’re joined by Alex Macpherson, Managing Director of Octopus Ventures. With 53 companies in its portfolio (including successes like Zoopla, Swiftkey and Graze.com), and around $850M in management, Octopus is one of the European ecosystem’s leading players, backing teams across multiple stages and sectors. Alex transitioned into venture after 11 years as a derivatives trader in the City...

Big data, argues Kenneth Cukier, senior editor for data and digital at The Economist, is epoch defining: the ability for humans to store and transmit information at a scale previously inconceivable will transform ‘how we work, live and think’ – much as fire, bronze and the paper press revolutionised earlier societies. But how should we respond to the economic dislocation AI will produce in conjunc...

This week we’re joined by serial entrepreneur and General Partner of LDV Capital, Evan Nisselson. LDV Capital invests in entrepreneurs building early stage Visual Technologies companies in Europe and North America. Evan’s fascinating background includes time as a photographer, photo agent and photo buyer before landing in Sillicon Valley in the mid-90s and becoming one of the first photo editors o...

How can companies promote great technical leadership, and how should startups approach hiring developers? On that topic Seedcamp partner Carlos Espinal is joined by Jackson Gabbard, one of the founding hires in Facebook’s London office and now an Expert in Residence at Seedcamp. Having made the transition from an English degree to a career in software development by teaching himself to code, Jacks...

Union Square Ventures, the New York-based venture capital firm, is famous for investing in ‘large networks of engaged users, differentiated by user experience, and defensible though network effects’, but how does that thesis apply today? In what sectors are there valuable network effects that remain to be unlocked by new and emerging technologies such as blockchain? On that topic Andy Weissman, Pa...

We believe the time is now for the application of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to fuel new innovation, empower a new breed of startup and disrupt industries. That’s why we’ve already made several investments in the space including re:infer, ThirdEye, AI Build and Legit Patents who all participated in our 'AI is Now' event in collaboration with Northzone. If you missed the event, tu...