The Seedcamp internship has become a renowned opportunity for people wanting to gain exposure to everything that goes into identifying, supporting and building early-stage companies. We’ve had people go on to launch their own businesses, such as CityMapper, work in portfolio companies, join our core team and develop careers in venture.

We’ve been incredibly lucky over the past ten months to have Georg Vooglaid supporting our investment and operations team. We are delighted that he will now be joining portfolio company, Passbase, to lead business development.

Here Georg shares his experiences and lessons learned. From all of us, we thank you for the hard work and are thrilled to have you as part of the Seedcamp Nation. Over to you…

“Three weeks ago, I wrapped up my role at Seedcamp, where for the past 10 months I’ve been seeking for and supporting the next generation of unicorns. Seedcamp is one of Europe’s leading early-stage venture capital firms, operating at the forefront of innovation and often supporting entrepreneurs when all they have is a vision, drive and a track record of executing. Venture capital has always been high up on my professional roadmap, although I was not expecting to enter the sector in such early phases of my career. One of the reasons perhaps is that there is not really a clear path into the industry (although many funds are trying to shift their internal talent pipeline closer to universities), but there was also a level of internal prejudice towards entering the sector without proper founder experience. Nevertheless, when I found out about the opening, something clicked and I jumped towards the opportunity. A year later – hands down the best decision I’ve ever made.

Reflecting back on my time with the fund, what’s made it so special are the people. The Estonian in me might not always show it, but on a daily basis I’d learn something from or get inspired by the core team, venture partners, mentors and of course the founders. That being said, that is sort of what you’d expect when joining one of the most experienced names in the industry – proper training of the sector’s underlying principles. Hence, with this blog-post, I’ll try to cover some of the lessons learned, that I see more as positive externalities of the day-to-day, rather than the fundamentals.

1. Browsing mode & career capital

I recently listened to a commencement speech from a Harvard graduate, which focused on a characteristic tendency of my generation to be constantly in “browsing mode”. Not drawing parallels with procrastination, he vividly illustrates the term through Netflix, where many of us spend huge chunks of time on selecting a movie, not being able to commit to a single one. When entering university one has so many doors to open and options to choose from that it can become overwhelming and create a loop of a constant search for something better.

Now although I agree with the general premise that you should be able to commit without feeling anxious about all the other options, I’d argue that in your early 20s, the best thing you can do for your future is to be in “browsing mode”. Jess Butcher, the Co-Founder of Blippar and Tick (Seedcamp company) has written a great article on the benefits of a diverse CV for the FT, where she notes that: “Trying new things, and even failing occasionally, has given me a diverse and rich store of micro-careers.”

For example, my journey to Seedcamp was not strategic by any measurable criteria, but looking back, the way I got there, now makes a lot of sense. When I first came to London, I reached out to Norris Koppel, the founder of Monese. Back at the time, it was just 6 or 7 of them in a tiny office in Moorgate and I ended up helping them on business development for 3 months. In turn, this led to a summer placement at TransferWise, where I worked in the EU Product Team. Fast-forward another year and my future colleague Kyran was part of a panel held at King’s College. As both TransferWise and Monese are part of Seedcamp’s portfolio, there was a connection point, so we got to talking about opportunities in the industry and when there was an opening at the fund, he reached out.

There is a flipside to this however. Cal Newport, author of “So good they can’t ignore you” disagrees with the notion that pursuing your passion will lead to happiness and instead puts forward an alternative formula for accomplishing your goals – career capital. “Career capital are the skills you have that are both rare and valuable and that can be used as leverage in defining your career”. The main reason for his argument is that people have a hard time defining their passion and often confuse it for a hobby. For instance, he draws examples of marketeers turned yoga-instructors, who have failed drastically and contrasts such examples with marketeers changing to TV or PR, where the overlap is much larger. Therefore, having succumbed to browsing mode can be a unique strength for a candidate, but only if they take time to analyse which transferable skills they’ve gained from the experience. Understanding one’s unique set of capabilities and connections will help them leverage patterns and adapt quicker.

2. Reading fiction helps facilitate relationships and improves communication skills

As a person, I’m quite calculative and quiet, seeking for depth of conversation rather than enjoying a series of small conversations (chit-chat). However, “small talk” is an important skill in the venture capital industry and something I’ve knowingly had to adapt to. So when I had an opportunity to sit down with my manager, I asked for advice on how to improve my communication skills with people I barely know.

Prior to moving into venture capital, Carlos worked as an engineer, which means that throughout the years, the nature of his work has become increasingly communicative. The advice he gave me was something out of the ordinary — try reading more fiction.

I’ve got to say that initially I was a bit confused: how does reading made-up stories help my problem (besides being a conversation starter of course)? However, the more I think about it, it kind of makes sense. Reading fiction involves interpreting the author’s thought process from an (often) irrelevant story, which is kind of what you are doing in a conversation with someone you don’t know. The topic is often superficial and you are searching for clues into the person’s views and thoughts. Hence, becoming more capable in interpreting fiction could boost one’s confidence in getting to know someone through small talk.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask questions from superiors, but always present suggestions before the “unknown”

In small, flat organisations, such as Seedcamp, it is encouraged to ask for advice, guidance and thoughts from peers. This can however lead to a cycle of convenience, where an individual refrains from taking decisions alone and seeks for reassurance.

When I first joined the company, I did not want to make mistakes and tried to keep my colleagues updated with any problems or questions I might have had. Such behaviour however is time-consuming, as it will most likely not become a number one priority for others and waiting for the response can delay the entire process. Furthermore, it becomes distracting for your colleagues, as they might not be as updated with the situation as you are and their inboxes are full of questions needing answers anyway. Hence, the faster one realises that they were hired to bring solutions rather than problems, the better.

However, if there is a case where agreement from a superior is needed, I’ve learned that the way one formulates their request plays a massive difference in the outcome. Instead of sending long emails explaining the situation, I’ve come to sum up the background in 1–3 bullet points, followed by a recommended course of action, the reason I think this course of action will work and any potential downsides to this. In case the other party raises any questions, I’ll try to grab them for a quick 5 minute discussion where we can go more in depth and come to a mutual understanding on how to proceed.

4. 80% of what you should be doing is getting shit done, 20% is telling others about stuff you’ve delivered

Back in October, I was having a meeting with Seedcamp’s Tech Lead Miguel and I told him about some of the ideas I’d had based on a recent analysis we’d created on our portfolio companies. He liked the suggestions and recommended I’d send an email to our partnership team, describing the work I’d done and the steps ahead. I felt a bit hesitant, as the solution was not yet fully clear and they consume an overwhelming amount of emails on a daily basis. Moreover, to me it sounded a lot like bragging, which definitely was not my intention.

Having expressed my problem to him, he gave me an answer that really stuck with me: “Dude, 80% of what I’m doing here is getting shit done, 20% is telling others about the cool shit I’ve created.”

The percentages might not be correct, but it’s true that even in an organisation with less than 15 people, knowing what everyone’s working on is difficult. At the same time, especially in small, agile organisations, understanding what your colleagues are delivering brings both indirect (individual learning opportunities) and direct (increased efficiency) benefits. Not to mention that on an individual level, employees should want their bosses to know about projects they have delivered and the impact those have brought. Yes, again there is a subtle line before it does indeed become bragging, but if one thinks there can be value-add from others knowing about their recent activity, the mental barrier should not become an obstacle.

5. Before Series A, pretty much all you have to do is secure product market fit and survive as a team

Seedcamp invests in pre-seed and seed rounds, with the option of doing some follow-on investments. I’ve always thought there are a countless number of variables, which can break a early-stage companies, but actually, it turns out most of them fail due to these two reasons:

  1. Lack of product-market fit –

Product-market fit reflects the point where so-called “hypergrowth” kicks in. A lot of companies think they have reached PMF already in their initial traction, but more often than not, it’s not true. There’s a good article written by Tren Griffin from Microsoft, published on the a16z website, explaining what it actually reflects, the process behind achieving it and how to know for sure, whether it’s been accomplished.

2. Issues between cofounders –

Starting a business with someone is a serious commitment and there are going to be ups and downs, as in any relationship. For a business to succeed, the founders have to have each-others back, not only in the initial honeymoon phase, but also when times are complicated. Seedcamp’s Managing Partner Carlos wrote a great piece on different stages of any founder relationship, which is really helpful in understanding the other side of the equation.

6. When it looks like all the doors are closing, look for a window and find a way in

The general point is quite clear, but I’d like to illustrate with a story, which happened at the end of last year and which demonstrates that determination and focus can really get you far.

My former colleague was seeking for opportunities to gain hands-on sales experience in the FMCG industry, when she came about the Swedish startup Karma. They had an opening, which seemed perfect for her, but it was the final day of the rolling applications. Although she managed to submit hers before the deadline, she became frustrated with the possibility that she just might have been too late. Hence, she plotted a plan to show the company her passion about the problem they were solving and flew to Stockholm for a day, to meet them face-to-face. After arriving in a country she’d never been before, she made her way to Karma’s office, introduced herself and told them her story. Luckily, the person she had piggybacked with to the office, was the founder of the company. The entire managing staff was clearly wow’ed by her passion and took her in for an impromptu recruiting process. 4 hours later, she was back on the bus towards Stockholm airport and roughly a week later, she had the job. Later she also found out that she’d been right and the position was filled, but the company had decided to create a new role just for her.

I’m not saying that the formula for getting an offer is turning up in a potential employer’s office in a different country (kind of a 50–50 situation), but it just goes to show you — there is always a way.

What’s next on the horizon?

My time at Seedcamp has been invaluable and I’ve definitely grown both as a professional and as a person. However, with the vision of being a better venture capitalist one day, I’m jumping back to the other side of the table and am happy to announce that I’ll be joining a portfolio company, Passbase as their Business Development Lead from mid-April onwards. We are on a mission of building a full-stack identity engine and give control over their digital footprint back to the individuals. You can read more about the team and product here:Passbase is building a full-stack identity engine with privacy baked in
Digital identity startup Passbase has bagged $600,000 in pre-seed funding led by a group of business angel investors…techcrunch.com

There were four reasons for my decision:

  1. Ownership

Supporting the progress of some of the smartest people in the world is an exciting and rewarding opportunity. That being said, it’s a comfortable position to be in, as you’ve diversified your life-or-death moments between many different bets. When the guys first approached me, they instantly knew what would drive me – sense of ownership and skin in the game. I’m 22 and with every bone in my body, I feel that now is the time for risk, uncertainty and execution. It’s time to walk the walk.

2. Team

The founding team is incredibly smart, but still on the lookout for a major breakthrough. This means that they are hungry – they remain in the office as long as it takes and are driven by execution rather than hypotheses. I’d say they have almost a bit too much self-belief, but it seems like they keep converting it into milestones. It is going to be a demanding environment, but one where I definitely see myself pushing the limits further.

3. Stage

In my career so far, I’ve failed my own startup (5 people), been an early employee at Monese (<20), seen TransferWise at the heart of their growth phase (500+) and worked with several Seedcamp companies in the 1–50 employees range. However, I’ve never seen a company move from one stage to another. It’s almost like I’ve been looking at snapshots of different scenes, but never seen the entire movie. This time, I plan to stick around through the scaling process.

4. Problem

Identity verification is a massive problem and one that only keeps growing with more and more services moving online. Understanding how to not just drive efficiency in the verification process, but empower people to take control over their digital identity is such an interesting challenge and I couldn’t be more excited to be continuing my journey with the Passbase crew.

It’s been a busy start to the year for us with new investments in companies using technology to solve problems across everything from the global plastics epidemic to support for mental health in the workplace, tax and gaming.

One of the biggest issues facing us right now is around our security and ownership of our online footprint. We’re excited to lead a $600k pre-seed round in Silicon Valley founded Passbase, reimagining identity verification by giving individuals ownership of their most sensitive identity data and the tools they need to control who can access it, alongside Alphabet, Stanford, Kleiner Perkins, EY and Upheaval.

With their first enterprise product, Passbase aims to revolutionize the $10B+ identity verification market by offering developers a simple tool to securely identify their users by combining biometric signatures and verified government IDs. These tools help businesses requiring identity verification to reduce fraud, combat fake accounts, reduce the risk of data breaches, and effortlessly comply with privacy regulations.

With simplicity and ease of integration an integral part of the offering, this can be done in under 3 minutes. Companies can now sign-up to try out the product and receive 1000 free verifications as part of the Passbase Beta Program and join the list of 200 companies already signed up.

The Passbase team combines experience from Alphabet’s ambitious R&D division GoogleX, biometric authentication company UnifyID, and German growth machine Rocket Internet. Combining the latest advances in public-key cryptography, biometric authentication, and machine intelligence, Passbase aims to improve the state of privacy and security online by building the world’s first full-stack identity solution and giving the identity outcome back to people.

Co-founder, Dave McGibbon comments, “Identity verification is where online payments were 20 years ago. What we’re doing for identity documents is what PayPal did for credit card numbers.”

On why we decided to invest, our Partner, Sia Houchangnia, adds: “The digital world we live in is crying out for a better identity system. Passbase isn’t the first company to go after this massive opportunity but we believe with all the recent privacy-related scandals, the timing is right for a decentralized approach to the problem which puts people in control of their most sensitive data. To go after such a huge problem, it requires a stellar team that works 10x harder than the rest and we are confident we have found just that with Dave, Mathias, and Felix.”

The team plans to launch their consumer product within the next few weeks which will allow people to track their digital footprint and take back control over the data they have shared with businesses and websites. “We believe this is the first step towards giving people back control over their personal information online. Businesses will always need to identify their users, but with Passbase they can do that in a seamless, privacy-preserving way, ” Mathias Klenk, Co-Founder.

We lead $750,000 pre-seed investment in AI-based voice technology startup, Whispr, out to transform life for frontline workers

Developments in voice technology and its application across sectors is one of the most exciting areas we’re seeing right now. We’re happy to lead investment in Whispr, the Irish/Danish startup using AI based voice guidance technology to help frontline workers to do their jobs more effectively.

Co-founders: Keith Saft & Hugh O’Flanagan

Founded in 2018, Whispr is a voice guidance application for businesses and their workers. It enables workers to be eyes up and hands free – better able to do their jobs than ever before. Built on Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence, it genuinely whispers instructions and on-demand expertise into workers’ ears ensuring the right work – be it aircraft inspections, hotel room housekeeping or office cleaning – always gets done and processes are adhered to. Users can also interact verbally with the app to ask questions or seek additional information as and when needed.

Frontline workers make up 80% of the world’s total workforce and play vital roles within sectors such as transport, hospitality, healthcare, construction, retail and manufacturing. However,  while 78% of business leaders acknowledge that connecting and empowering frontline workers is critical, just one percent of all venture funding goes towards technology serving these employees with the majority invested in tools for desk workers.

Subsequently, the way in which frontline personnel do their jobs, particularly those working on their feet, has changed little if at all in half a century. Excessive employee on-boarding periods resulting in lower productivity, an over reliance on paper checklists for consistency and unnecessarily long feedback times are core problems that have never been solved.

“For 50 years, there has been virtually no improvement in bringing technology to frontline employees. We still haven’t figured out to help them do their jobs better. Whispr is changing that and bringing voice technology to empower the billions of underserved workers,” explained Hugh O’Flanagan, co-founder and CEO, Whispr, who spent over a decade working in frontline businesses. “Our technology adapts to humans, not the other way around. We are returning to the original and most natural ‘user interface’, which is voice.”

Our Partner, Sia Houchangnia, comments: “Seedcamp is delighted to be investing in the Whispr team. We love their vision and believe they have the potential to transform and enhance the delivery of frontline services. We are more connected today than ever before yet frontline businesses are still relying on unchanged methods from 50 years ago which are no longer fit for purpose. Frontline workers need and deserve far better tools and access to information and we see a real opportunity here for Whispr’s voice technology.”

Whispr will use the funding to double its headcount in Copenhagen and Dublin and to focus on business development. The global speech and voice recognition market is estimated to reach $31.82bn by 2025*3 indicating considerable headroom for growth among startups looking to target the relatively untapped frontline services sector. Whispr has already attracted interest from aviation, facilities management and hospitality businesses and next month will launch a pilot with one of the world’s leading facilities services companies.

Other investors in the round include Denmark’s PreSeed Ventures, Futuristic VC, and Bose Ventures, the venture capital arm of Bose launched in conjunction with Bose AR, marking the fund’s first investment outside of the US.

We’re thrilled to invest in Spill, the London-based startup that offers a message-based therapy app to help improve workplace wellbeing as part of their £650,000 seed round alongside Passion Capital and a number of angel investors, including Made.com founder Julian Callede and Urban co-founder Jack Tang.

Founded just over a year ago, Spill was borne out of the co-founders’ frustrations with barriers to both public- and private-sector mental well-being offers. For anyone going through a tricky time, or simply looking for support and coaching, the only historical choices have been either a months’ long NHS waiting list to see a counsellor or paying upwards of £60 per session in order to see a private therapist. Both come with the baggage of a significant and inflexible time commitment as well as social stigma.

Spill enables users to connect with BACP [British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy] – registered or equivalent counsellors and psychotherapists using anonymous written therapeutic communication – offering private, discreet, convenient, accessible and flexible wellbeing support for individuals. Spill works with employers, workplaces or universities to make its app available to employees, individuals and students for free and as a workplace or student benefit.

“Spill is the resource that we wished we had during our own challenging times”, co-founder Calvin Benton explains. “It’s designed to be used more like a consumer app rather than a medical one so that individuals won’t be embarrassed to have it on their home screens helping to reduce any stigma.”

84% of existing Spill users had not previously accessed any mental health guidance or counselling before, thereby demonstrating the benefit and potential reach of an easy-to-use, convenient and non-intimidating service. The app has already been incorporated into progressive organisations of all sizes, from small startups with as few as only ten employees to larger fast-growth companies such as Monzo and Rightmove, as well as corporations including Hargreaves Lansdown. The company’s vision is to make therapy and counselling a default workplace benefit.

On the investment, Seedcamp Venture Partner, Devin Hunt, comments, “We’re incredibly excited to invest in the team at Spill who are creating the modern approach to mental wellbeing at work and at home. Modern businesses know that mental health is as important as physical health and Spill is the perfect solution to support different people’s mental health; wherever they are and on their own terms.”

For more information on Spill and how they can support your team visit spill.chat

We are delighted for Berlin-based wefox Group who today announce their record-breaking $125m Series B, catapulting the company into pole position as Europe’s leading Insurtech business and one of Europe’s fastest growing Fintech companies.

We first invested in Julian and the team back in 2015 and have been constantly impressed by the determination, drive and execution from that point on. We are delighted to follow-on in this round led by Mubadala Investment Company through its newly created European Ventures fund.

Following their $28m Series A in 2016, the largest of its kind in the Insurtech space at the time, wefox has continued to innovate across the entire insurance space and this $125m Series B investment is further proof of the teams outstanding ability to execute and provide services people actually need. The investment also comes on the back of wefox Group’s announcement that it is launching into the Asian market following a partnership with SBI (formerly SoftBank Investment).

The company, which was founded in 2014, has grown its revenues to around $40million, while serving more than 1500 brokers and over 400,000 customers, making it Europe’s number one insurtech platform.

The investment, which is the first tranche in the series B round, will help spearhead the company’s expansion into the European broker market. It also paves the way for wefox Group to accelerate growth and create the world’s most innovative product and engineering team, applying advanced data analytics to create an all-in-one insurance platform in which all interactions are personalised.

wefox Group founder and CEO, Julian Teicke, said: “Insurance is up for the most radical change, which presents a huge opportunity for us to connect all insurers globally through our platform and become the largest insurance company in the world.”

On the investment our Managing Partner, Reshma Sohoni, comments:

“We backed wefox from the earliest days because we saw an incredibly passionate and high performing team led by Julian and Fabian. We hold a strong thesis that technology has the ability to radically improve the lives of the 7bn people living on this planet and are passionate about investing in the companies who serve them. Insurance is an absolutely critical part of what people need and wefox relentlessly deliver on that mission.

Their growth and product speaks to why consumers agree and their future vision ambitiously builds on these tenets.”

Among the new investors in wefox Group is Creditease, signalling wefox Group’s intention to expand into China. Goldman-Sachs International is advising wefox Group on the investment. Other investors in previous rounds include Target Global, idinvest, Horizons Ventures, Speedinvest, Mountain Partners and Sound Ventures, the VC fund of Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher.

In December 2018, wefox Group announced that it is forming a partnership with Marsh, a global leader in insurance broking and innovative risk management solutions, to expand the offering beyond personal lines insurance and deliver expanded services to micro and medium-sized businesses across Europe.

For more information on wefox visit wefoxgroup.com