Calin Fabri | Entrepreneur | Advisor

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

Business EN ↓ 129 episodes

personal conversations with the entrepreneurs and investors creating a future worth getting excited about

Author

Calin Fabri | Entrepreneur | Advisor

Episodes

Mark Kugel - Winning contracts with NASA, Creating biotech assets in space, The CDTM effect, Germany's PR problem 24.10.2023 35:36

Mark Kugel - co-founder and co-CEO of Yuri. (brought to you by ⁠⁠Seedrs⁠⁠ ) At Yuri they are sending payloads to space to take advantage of micro-gravity so they can build higher quality molecules and other useful biotech assets. Did you know that it is easier to print a heart in space as it has no gravity? During this episode we discuss how the CDTM (Center for Digital Technology and Management)...

Francesco Sciortino - Making fusion a reality, The promise of the Stellarator, The competitive advantage of Europe 17.10.2023 39:00

Ciao ragazzi e ragazze, I am here with Francesco Sciortino - co-founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion (brought to you by ⁠Seedrs⁠ ) Originally from Italy, his passion for physics and plasma, took him across the world from Imperial College London for undergrad, to EPFL in Switzerland for his masters, before moving to MIT in Boston for his PhD. Beginning of 2023, Francesco raised a 7.5M Euro pre-seed ro...

Mikkel Skarnager - ~50m Eur exit to Trulioo, Building the next company, Advice for first time entrepreneurs, Normalizing the ups and downs 11.10.2023 45:45

Mikkel Skarnager - co-founder and CEO of the stealth startup Spektr. (brought to you by Brevo and Seedrs ) Mikkel is a second-time founder, prior to Spektr he was the founder and CEO of HelloFlow , an innovative no-code, drag-and-drop builder for client onboarding, monitoring, and digital workflow solutions --> orchestration layer for business identity. In February 2022 only 2 years after found...

Fredrik Cassel - Creandum's culture, Investing in several iconic companies, The new mega trends, Finding user love 03.10.2023 35:32

Fredrik Cassel - General Partner at Creandum . Creandum is a venture capital advisory firm with offices in Stockholm, San Francisco, London, and Berlin funding early stage entrepreneurs from a 450m euro fund. Fredrik has an exceptional track record having previously invested in several multibillion euro companies like Spotify, Kahoot!, Depop and Kry just to name a few. He doesn’t like to take the...

Jevan Nagarajah - Precision fermentation, Dealing with co-founder break-up, Raising > 20m Eur for deep tech startup, Learning to take risks 26.09.2023 32:57

Brought to you by Zoom and Brevo . If you like the show please check out the sponsors as they are the ones making it possible. Thank you! 🙏 Jevan Nagarajah - is the founder and CEO of Better Dairy . At Better Dairy they are using precision fermentation to produce the cheeses, yoghurts, ice creams, the type of products consumed and loved across the world but without having to use animals produc...

Mars Geuze - From building racing cars to winning SpaceX Hyperloop contest, The challenges in building infrastructure, The importance of enjoying the journey 10.09.2023 35:05

Brought to you by Zoom and Brevo . If you like the show please check out the sponsors as they are the ones making it possible. Thank you! 🙏 Mars Geuze is one of the co-founders of Hardt Hyperloop . Hardt Hyperloop is one of the leading teams in the world working to bring the concept of Hyperloop to life. The Hardt Hyperloop team is a talented and ambitious team coming from Delft University. They...

Antoine Moyroud - Commitment to Europe, The Eur 105M seed investment in Mistral AI, From failing Class Preparatoire to becoming a partner at Lightspeed 29.08.2023 38:41

Antoine Moyroud - Partner at Lightspeed . Lightspeed is a venture capital firm focusing on multi-stage investments in the enterprise, consumer, and health sectors. Lightspeed invests in seed, early and growth-stage companies. 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 Snapchat, Carta and BetterUp among...

Andre Retterath - Data-driven VC, Tracking 10M talents, From analyst to partner, Eagle-eye platform, Building sustainable defensibility 15.08.2023 32:39

Andre Retterath - Partner at Earlybird Capital , Lead of the EagleEye platform used for data driven sourcing and writing the popular newsletter Data-driven VC . With over 2 billion Euro under management, nine IPOs and 31 trade sales, Earlybird is one of the most established and active venture capital firms in Europe, having made investments in formidable companies like UiPath and N26 among others....

Michel Elings - Selling the company to Apple, Moving to Cupertino, Building products used by millions, Cultural differences, Surround yourself with people that believe in you 25.07.2023 23:49

Michel Elings is the founder of Vev . Michel, has a history of delivering successful products with over 100 million users and with Vev they plan to empower millions of freelancers and SMBs by providing the basic tech tools they need so they can smoothly run their business. Prior to Vev he founded and sold his first startup, Prss, to Apple and moved to Cupertino to help build Apple News. After retu...

Jakob Sons - Cannabis startup in the highly regulated German market, Raising $15m round from Snoopp Dogg's Casa Verde Capital, Reaching 20m Euro run rate and Building a European category leader 18.07.2023 34:46

Jakob Sons is the co-founder of Cansativa . Cansativa is building the largest cannabis platform in Europe and are offering the most desirable products and brands. Yummi! In 2022 they’ve raised a 15m dollar round from Snoopp Dogg's, Casa Verde VC firm and currently they have a 20m euro run rate. Well done guys! During this episode we discuss Jakobs transition from being a lawyer to founding a m...

Andreas Helbig - Extreme product market fit, Investment criteria at Atomico, The journey from junior analyst to partner, The importance of culture and a healthy hustle 23.06.2023 35:46

Our guest today is Andreas Helbig - Partner at Atomico . Atomico is the venture capital firm founded by the Niklas Zennstrom, one of the founders of Skype, and investing in disruptive technology companies from Series A onwards. They have an exceptional track record having previously invested in Supercell, Wolt, Sorare and Lilium just to name a few. During this episode we discuss about his journey...

Kajetan von Armansperg - Founding story of Leapsome, Tackling culture, Bootstrapping to 10M ARR then raising 60M Series A, Opening an office in the U.S., Money as a taboo topic 09.06.2023 34:53

Our guest today is Kajetan von Armansperg, Co-CEO of Leapsome . Leapsome is an all-in-one platform for people enablement. They combine the tools for goals and OKRs management, performance reviews and 360s, and compensation and surveys among other features. More than 1500 companies including Spotify, Northvolt and Unity use Leapsome platform to build high-performing teams. After bootstrapping for 5...

Nathan Benaich - The State of AI, Transformer models across data sets, What does an AI startup look like, Obama's cloned voice, AI as the magic editing wand, The AI brain drain 23.05.2023 34:47

Nathan Benaich is a General Partner at Air Street capital a investment firm investing in AI startups. When asking around in the European ecosystem his name came across several times as a thought leader in the AI space. I highly recommend you read the State of AI report which he co-authors. It’s an in depth report of about 100 pages long across Research, Industry, Politics and Safety. Prior to foun...

Alex MacCaw - From 50M ARR B2B SaaS to 20k MRR B2C, Hacking the first sales, The beauty of mom-and-pop tech shops, Stepping down as a CEO, Relationship with money 11.05.2023 36:26

Alex MacCaw is the founder and CEO of Reflect app . The note-taking tool that allows you to take notes the same way you think — by associating notes through backlinks. Prior to Reflect he built and ran Clearbit a venture-backed 50M Eur annual recurring revenue B2B saas company. During this episode we discuss about his journey with Clearbit from hacking the first sales to using the SaaS sales playb...

David Friedberg - The founding story of The Climate Corporation and the exit to Monsanto for $1.1B, High bias to action, The Production Board and reimagining earth, The coming era of abundance 01.05.2023 43:17

David is the founder and CEO of The Production Board , a holding company that builds and invests in businesses that solve the most fundamental problems that affect our planet, by reimagining global systems of production; across food, agriculture, biomanufacturing, human health, and the broader life sciences. Prior to The Production Board, he was the founder and CEO of The Climate Corporation which...

Lina Chong - Leaving U.S. for Europe, Berlin calling, Studying philosophy, Surrounding yourself with excellent people, Assessing startups, Overcoming challenging periods 20.04.2023 36:22

Lina Chong is a Partner at Target Global . Target Global is one of the leading European venture capital investors with more than 3bn EUR in AuM and offices across Berlin, London, Tel Aviv and Barcelona. They have backed more than 15 unicorns including household names such as Delivery Hero, Revolut, Wefox, Flink, TravelPerk and many others. Lina was named Partner at Target earlier this year after w...

Koen Thijssen - Raising $16M Series A, Rocket Internet Mafia, Going from 0 to 1 in the insurance industry, Stick to the plan regardless of market volatility, Why you hardly overpay for the best people 14.04.2023 27:23

Koen Thijssen , founder and CEO of Insify . At Insify they modernize the insurance market for Europe’s small and medium companies. Prior to founding Insify, Koen was the founder and CFO of Bloomon , a subscription based flower business disrupting the $60B flower industry, in 2021 Bloomon was acquired by Bloom & Wild . 12 months ago they’ve raised with Insify $17m round led by Accel with partic...

Stef van Grieken - Moonshots projects at Google, Assessing the risk of starting a start-up, Falling in love with biology, Why we need more definite optimists Europeans 27.03.2023 44:37

Stef van Grieken is the co-founder and CEO of the biotech company Cradle . Based between Delft and Zurich, Cradle ’s machine learning platform helps scientists to design and program ‘cell factories’ faster and more successfully, speeding up the development of a more environmentally friendly method of producing almost anything. They have recently raised a 6 million dollar seed round co-led by Index...

Eric Lagier - Founding byFounders and the Nordic pledge to pay it forward, The journey to San Francisco and the exit with Memolane, and Erics' tattoo - Muditā - the pleasure in seeing others succeed 10.03.2023 26:45

Our guest today is Eric Lagier - founding Partner at byFounders . byFounders is an early-stage venture fund backed by a collective of some of the most accomplished founders from the Nordics. After eight years in Silicon Valley, where he built an extensive network of investors and founders, Eric returned to Copenhagen to found byFounders and support the next generation of globally ambitious founder...

Filip Dames - Founding Cherry Ventures, Learnings from startup to IPO with Zalando, Making the first million and the importance of doing More of what you love 24.02.2023 36:18

Our guest today is Filip Dames - Founding Partner at Cherry Ventures . Cherry Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm led by a team of entrepreneurs with experience in building fast-scaling companies such as Zalando and Spotify. The firm backs Europe's boldest founders, usually as their first institutional investor. They have a great track record having previously invested in the seed stag...

Sabina Wizander - The journey from 20-1000 employees and from 0-150M EUR with the healthcare startup KRY, The pursuit of work life balance, and The excitement for the Energy market 17.02.2023 33:08

Our guest today is Sabina Wizander - Partner at Creandum . Creandum is a venture capital advisory firm with offices in Stockholm, San Francisco, London, and Berlin funding early stage entrepreneurs from a 450m euro fund. They have an exceptional track record having previously invested in Spotify, Klarna, Trade Republic, Kahoot! and Bolt just to name a few. Part of her tenure as an investor at Crea...

Julian Kley - From preparing to become a heart surgeon to COO, Learning to trust your intuition, The importance of continuous and instant feedback, Founding AVI Medical, The future of Healthcare 07.02.2023 33:47

Julian Kley Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of AVI Medical . Avi Medical is a Munich-based health tech company that runs patient-centric, tech-enabled medical practices that provide a convenient, personalized, and holistic digital and physical patient experience. They recently raised a 50m Euros Series B, round led by Balderton with participation from Eurazeo, Heal Capital, and the UiPath f...

Alfonso Peccatiello - The effect of high interest rates on the economy, The probability of a recession, Europe position in the changing world order, Strategies to protect capital 31.01.2023 37:05

In the last 6 months I was trying to wrap my little head around the macro environment and the effects on the economy and to be honest on my pocket. I just didn't know how inflation, interest rate hikes, and debt cycles fit together to be able to create an investment thesis or at least protect my capital.  Our guest today will try to answer some of these questions so please welcome Alfonso Pec...

Francesco Simoneschi - Raising $130m at the top of the market, The banking API revolution, The opportunity in payments, Founding TrueLayer, Learning to unplug 24.01.2023 40:20

Please meet Francesco Simoneschi - Co-Founder and CEO of TrueLayer . In a couple of short years Francesco and his co-Founder Luca, have built TrueLayer into one of the world's leading providers of financial APIs. Their mission is to grow the Open Banking economy by creating a truly global platform for companies to develop new financial services and products. In September 2021 they’ve raised a 130m...

Joel Nordström - Raising €5M Seed in a frozen market for Atlar, The journey with Tink from employee #12 to the sell to Visa for $2.2B, and hustling your way and get your dream job while at uni 10.01.2023 32:18

Happy New Year you lovely humans, I hope you had a relaxing holiday season together with your loved ones and you are ready to rock'n'roll 2023. Our guest today is Joel Nordström , co-founder and CEO of Atlar . At Atlar, they automate and streamline bank payments for companies. Prior to founding Atlar, Joel was employee #12 at Tink – the open banking pioneer acquired by Visa for $2.2 billion –&nbsp...