Venture Skipper by Karoly Szanto

Thierry Heles, founder and editor of "The Next Leap", joins Károly Szántó and Thijmen Meijer for a conversation on the state of university venture capital globally. Thierry Heles has spent 12 years tracking spinouts, university funds, and the professionals who move between them. In this episode, he shares what that research produces: around 108 university-backed funds active in Europe, a...

The Diagnostic Is Well Known. The System Is Still Incomplete European tech transfer has been debated for over two decades. The bottlenecks are identified. The system is still incomplete. Christophe Haunold has been inside that system for 30 years. He built and led one of France's regional tech transfer companies, served as president of ASTP, and created the central tech transfer office at the...

University of Pannonia Chancellor Zsolt Csillag and researcher Dr Gabor Jarvas join Karoly Szanto to discuss the IP licensing model the university developed to make its spinouts investable for institutional capital. The model separates property rights from operational ownership. The university retains the intellectual property and receives a royalty on net revenue. The researchers own and manage t...

University venture capital, or UVC, is gaining visibility across global innovation ecosystems. More universities are launching funds, and more capital is entering the space. Yet performance remains uneven and difficult to evaluate from an institutional perspective. In this episode, Karoly Szanto explores why the core challenge is not a lack of activity, but a lack of coherence. He breaks down the...

University Venture Capital is no longer experimental. Funds are being launched. Spinouts are increasing. Ecosystems are forming. But if you look closer, something is missing. Not activity. Structure. In this episode, we explore the questions that still don’t have clear answers in UVC: How should these funds actually be structured? What does performance mean in this context? How do IP, ownership, a...

In this conversation with Thijmen Meijer, we unpack a key challenge in university venture capital. Why is it still difficult to attract LP capital, despite strong research and innovation coming from universities? We go into: Why are fragmented fundraising limits a scale What LPs actually look for when allocating capital How coordinated efforts between universities could change the game Why structu...

In this episode of Venture Skipper, Karoly Szanto and Thijmen Meijer discuss the structural challenges around university venture capital and why the ecosystem remains fragmented. This conversation explores a new initiative to build a coalition around university venture capital. The goal is to gather structured data, connect practitioners, and create a platform where universities and investors can...

Universities generate extraordinary innovation. Yet most university spinouts struggle to reach venture scale. In this conversation, Karoly Szanto explores a problem inside the global innovation ecosystem. Thousands of universities operate technology transfer offices, but only a small fraction run venture capital funds. Even fewer share structured data or best practices. The result is fragmentation...

In this episode, I speak with Peter M. Kovacs and Thijmen Meijer about co-investors in early-stage MedTech and BioTech. We cut through labels and focus on what actually matters: skin in the game, trust, and execution. What we cover: Why investor type matters less than incentives, capability, and character Two co-investor profiles that create the strongest execution synergies Peter’s view on family...

In this episode, I break down what investors often miss when they fund science without systems in place. Great science is not enough. A venture needs an operating rhythm, communication discipline, vendor control, and accountability that holds under pressure. We talk about: Why science ventures fail even when the tech is real The four systems that de-risk execution How to evaluate a team beyond cha...

In this episode, Karoly Szanto speaks with Peter M Kovacs and Thijmen Meijer about the real reasons European university spin-offs struggle to become venture fundable. Topics we cover: Europe’s commercialization gap and why it is biggest in Central and Eastern Europe Why only a minority of spin-offs ever become investable The mindset issue: waiting for somebody else to make things happen How to bui...

In this episode of Venture Skipper, I talk with Thijmen Meijer about how UniPrisma actually started. Not as a theory, but as a response to real gaps in early-stage venture building. We discuss the inefficiencies we both saw when working with founders. The pressure of fundraising. The lack of hands-on support. The mistakes founders make when they are pushed to focus more on investors than on custom...

In this episode of Venture Skipper, I explore why early-stage ventures feel chaotic and why this is not a problem but a signal. I talk about my own story, from navigating family crisis as a teenager to crossing the Atlantic as a sailor, and how these moments shaped my approach to innovation. We dive into why founders need to obsess over customer pain, not product features. Why limited resources ar...

In this episode of Venture Skipper, I break down how I evaluate founders long before any investment is on the table. This is not about pitch decks, market slides, or polished storytelling. It is about presence, truth, and the ability to build a shared narrative under pressure. I explain: How I read founders in the first meeting. Why I begin with trust, not skepticism. How I deep research process t...

In this episode of Venture Skipper I go back to the beginning. No pitch, no slides. Just the real story behind how a boy from Budapest, shaped by Libya, family collapse, and national league sailing, became a venture builder and fund architect working with founders, universities, and investors across the globe. I share: How moving to North Africa at seven broke my bubble and trained me to think bey...