Venture Europe: Entrepreneurship | Technology | Venture Capital | Eu/Acc

He co-founded a company that hit a $3B valuation, then watched hackers steal $620M from it. That experience changed how Aleksander Larsen thinks about security, and it sent him somewhere almost no crypto founder goes next: defence. In this episode I sit down with Aleksander Larsen, co-founder and CEO of Stendr, the Oslo company building AI-driven interception systems for a sovereign Europe. Before...

Sebastian Mallaby is the author of the instant New York Times bestseller: The Infinity Machine - Demis Hassabis , DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence. He negotiated unprecedented access to DeepMind in November 2022 , a week before ChatGPT launched. He spent 30+ hours in a pub with Demis Hassabis. He interviewed Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Mustafa Suleyman and Geoffrey Hinton among 100 pe...

Chaz Englander is the Co-founder of Model ML an agentic AI platform used by 8 of the top 10 European banks, 3 of the big 4 consultancies, and tier-1 asset managers across Europe and the US. He's previously built and exited two companies: Fat Lama (peer-to-peer rental marketplace) and Fancy (sold to goPuff). Model ML has raised $100M+ from Y Combinator, LocalGlobe and QED and the last round was...

🇮🇹 Dyiala D'Aveni is the CEO of Vento, the fund backing Italian founders worldwide. Vento is fully backed by Exor, the fund behind legendary companies like Ferrari, Juventus and The Economist. They are also the organisers of Wave, the event bringing world class speakers like Dario Amodei, Jeff Bezos, Jensen Huang and Jony Ive to Italy and transforming the Italian and European ecosystems more b...

Thomas Cuvelier is a Partner at RTP Global, the $1B early-stage fund investing globally across Europe, US, and India. RTP Global was built on the back of one outsized bet: Datadog — a few million dollars turned into a fund-defining outcome. Thomas has invested in Lovable (pre-seed), Next Insurance, Creative Fabrica, and Stoic, among others. In this episode we discuss: Why SaaS is not dead — but me...

Paul Murphy - Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. For over twenty years Lightspeed has been the first investor and an early backer of some of the most innovative companies in the world like: Stripe, Anthropic, Neko Health and Mistral among many others. They invest in bold founders with big ideas, from Seed to Series F and beyond. Prior to Lightspeed, Paul was an investor with Northzone, a prod...

Bryan Kim is a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz which is arguably the most influential venture firm in the world right now, and they are practically defining the 'Application Layer' of AI. Based in San Francisco, Bryan invests invest in Consumer and AI where he led the pivotal rounds in category-defining companies like ElevenLabs, Function Health, and Slinghot AI among others. Bryan is known...

In this essay, Dario Amodei characterizes the current state of artificial intelligence as a "technological adolescence," representing a  pivotal rite of passage  that will determine humanity's future survival. He outlines a "country of geniuses" scenario to illustrate how  autonomous, superintelligent systems  could emerge by 2027, bringing both immense benefits and existen...

Sara Rywe is a General Partner at byFounders. byFounders is one of Europe's best performing venture funds and focused on early-stage across the Nordics and Baltics. Based in Stockholm, she's in the heart of "Silicon Valhalla" and she lead the first round in companies like Lovable, Corti, Digitail, Skye and many more. Sara is known for her human and "all-in" approach to...

Today, we step into the quantum frontier with Jan Goetz — co-founder and CEO of IQM Quantum Computers. From quantum physicist to deep-tech founder, Jan has built one of Europe’s most ambitious hardware companies — raising nearly $600 million to turn quantum theory into reality. We talk about what it takes to scale science into business, how IQM is the leading company selling quantum computers, and...

Maximilian Kufner - co-founder and CEO of Again. Bio. At Again they are using a millennia-old bacteria to turn CO2 emissions into clean sustainable products. Last year they’ve raised ~ Eur 40m led by HV Capital and Google Ventures bringing the total raise to ~Eur 100m. They are building bioreactors that capture harmful CO2 emissions at the point source, thus producing carbon negative chemicals in...

Mati Staniszewski, is the co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs. He shares how a pre-seed idea turned into a $6.6B AI company powering the future of voice. We talk about how they cracked adding emotion to speech, real-time dubbing, watermarking for trust, and building one of the most influential startups in AI. He also gives some info on behind the scenes of Lex Fridman’s interview with India’s PM and...

Tom Wilson is a Partner at Seedcamp - the legendary seed fund, started in 2007 in Europe that has backed companies like Revolut, UiPath, Wise and wefox to name a few. During this episode we discuss about the common traits of founders that have created multibillion eur in value, his learnings as he matured as an investor over the last 10 years, and the value proposition of Seedcamp to early stage f...

Dan Ariely is the bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and one of the world’s leading behavioral economists. We explore why humans consistently make irrational choices, the hidden forces that shape our decisions, and what entrepreneurs can learn about pricing, perception, and context. From his personal story of resilience after a life-changing accident to powerful experiments like the deco...

Des Traynor, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Intercom, one of the most iconic SaaS companies to come out of Europe. If you've ever messaged a company through a chat widget that actually worked, chances are you've used Intercom. Des co-founded Intercom in 2011 in Dublin, and since then, the company has helped redefine how businesses talk to customers. Today he leads Intercom's...

Our guest today is Maxime Barbier, co-founder and CEO of Timeleft. They are organizing dinners for strangers. Imagine a sort of blind date with 5 other people while eating good food. Spicy! Timeleft is now live in 320+ cities across 65 countries. Every Wednesday, more than 25,000 people gather in restaurants worldwide to share a meal and experience the joy of genuine human connection and they went...

A comprehensive guide to personal cybersecurity, emphasizing the evolving threat landscape from mid-2024 to mid-2025, marked by unprecedented data exposures like the 16-billion credential "GOAT" leak. We highlight the shift in risk from corporate servers to individual user devices, largely due to infostealer malware. The document details major data breaches across various sectors, identi...

Two weeks ago, I was in New York for the Venture Intelligence day (organised by Vestberry) moderating a panel with some pretty savvy VCs — among them Left Lane Capital a spinoff from Insight Partners with $2B AuM, Galaxy Ventures with $1.5B AuM, and Angelini Ventures with $300M AuM. The topic? Platform 2.0 — how VCs are going beyond capital to actually support founders. We talked talent, playbooks...

An in-depth look at the complex and often turbulent relationship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, focusing on its historical context and a significant public dispute in June 2025. We chart the evolution from initial skepticism and pragmatic advisory roles to periods of strong public support and financial contributions, culminating in a dramatic falling out over a legislative bill. We analyze th...

Salar al Khafaji - founder and CEO of Monumental. At Monumental they are developing a suite of autonomous, electric robots which can work around the clock so everyone can afford a high-quality house or apartment in a beautiful city or village. Last year they’ve raise a 23M Eur round from Hummingbird, Northzone, Plural and other investors with the mission to make construction primarily software-def...

We provide an extensive overview of the global construction market, highlighting its significant economic impact and projected growth to over $16 trillion by 2030. We detail the substantial contribution of the construction sector to global GDP and employment, emphasizing its role as a key economic driver. We also focus on the European construction market, outlining its regional importance and grow...

Trends – Artificial Intelligence - compiled by Mary Meeker "queen of the internet", Jay Simons, Daegwon Chae, and Alexander Krey of BOND. This episode reveals a data-driven picture of acceleration across multiple dimensions – technical, financial, social, physical, and geopolitical. You can find the full report here .

Jan-Hendrick Boelens co-founder and CEO of Alpine Eagle. Munich-based and backed by leading investors including General Catalyst and IQ Capital, Alpine Eagle is building the world's first air-to-air counter-drone system. Prior to Alpine Jan-Hendrick was chief engineer at Airbus, and CTO at Volocopter and Quantum Systems. During this episode we discuss how technology can help protect democracie...

An overview of the European defense market, excluding Russia, highlighting a significant and accelerated increase in investment driven by the changed geopolitical landscape, primarily following the conflict in Ukraine. We detail the current size and projected growth of defense spending by EU and key European NATO nations, emphasizing the commitment to and achievement of NATO spending targets as a...

Explore the transformative force of Artificial Intelligence (AI), outlining its historical evolution from foundational concepts to modern advancements like generative AI and large language models. We detail the primary drivers fueling AI's growth, including technological enablers like increased computing power and big data, as well as economic and societal factors. Furthermore, we analyze the...