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Interested in working at one of our early-stage portfolio as they build their founding team? Join an exclusive talent pool and access incredible job opportunities in the Seedcamp Nation.
In a new episode of This Much I Know, Carlos’s guest is Chris Tottman, Founding Partner at Notion VC, one of Europe’s top-tier VC firms and Founder of Included VC.
Chris shares insights on:
– his journey as an entrepreneur and Venture Capital investor
– the evolution of venture capital in Europe
– how founders can become successful in company building
– the role of mentorship in the VC industry.
He also highlights the significance of founder-led sales, strategic pricing, understanding customer needs, fundraising challenges, and more.
Tune in on your favourite podcasting platform or watch here.
Show Notes:
Chris Tottman – linkedin.com/in/chris-tottman
Carlos Espinal – linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal
Notion VC – www.notion.vc/
Included – included.vc/
Seedcamp – seedcamp.com
Chris’s Book ‘THE GO TO MARKET HANDBOOK FOR B2B SaaS LEADERS’ – www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CJ45462M?re…WJN41F41CBK033SA
In a new Seedcamp Deep Dive, Carlos’s guest is Di Cooke, AI Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), research affiliate at the Center of the Study for Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, and a doctoral candidate in war studies at King’s College in London. Her research interests lie at the intersection of defense, intelligence, and AI.
Their conversation revolves around the societal and security implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI), from the existential risks that AI could create, to the role of AI in national and international security. They also explore how AI technologies, and especially synthetic media, are augmenting and exacerbating societal and ethical issues and discuss potential initiatives and policies that can help to address these issues.
They also examine the risks, potential misuses, and opportunities presented by AI, especially in the field of open-source intelligence (OSINT).
Last but not least, they delve into different stakeholder’s roles in re-establishing societal trust.
Show Notes:
Di Cooke – linkedin.com/in/dcooke34/
Carlos Espinal – linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal
Centre for Strategic and International Studies – csis.org
Seedcamp – seedcamp.com
In the latest Seedcamp Deep Dive, Carlos is joined by Kyran Schmidt, co-founder of Outverse, a community-first solutions platform; Jonathan Reimer, co-founder of crowd.dev, a developer data platform; and our Partner Sia Houchangnia.
They discuss:
– the importance of community-building for tech startups;
– why intentionality and fostering a sense of belonging in community development are essential;
– types of communities namely product and practitioner communities;
– challenges, and strategies in creating and managing communities ;
– the community tech stack and specific tools (e.g., Discord, WhatsApp);
– key success metrics and budget management considerations;
– and more.
Tune in on your favourite platform!
Overview:
00:38 – Introduction to the Power of Communities
06:47 The Role of Community in Product-Led Growth
18:02 Defining Community and Its Importance
26:28 Managing Community Dynamics: Heroes vs Nutters
28:50 The Importance of Community Culture
29:43 Building, Designing and Scaling Community
33:49 Community Segmentation and Success Metrics
37:49 The Role of Founders in Community Building
57:47 Community Building: Tool Stack and Budgeting
1:05:31 Concluding Thoughts on Community Building
Show Notes:
Jonathan Reimer – linkedin.com/in/jonathimer
Kyran Schmidt – linkedin.com/in/kyran-schmidt
Sia Houchangnia – linkedin.com/in/siahouchangnia
Carlos Espinal – linkedin.com/in/carloseduardoespinal
crowd.dev – crowd.dev
Outverse – outverse.com
Seedcamp – seedcamp.com
Resources:
From the launch of Fund VI in May to welcoming 39 new companies to the Seedcamp Nation, and introducing new products designed specifically for our founders – 2023 has been the year the Seedcamp Nation reached new heights.
Our networked approach reached new heights in May when we launched Seedcamp VI, our largest and most ambitious fund to date. With $180M in capital commitments and backed by over 200 investors, we are doubling down on our 15+ year track record of investing in Europe’s brightest entrepreneurial talent from Angel to Seed rounds.
To better serve the needs of our founders and their teams, we launched two exciting new products centered around the network and the flywheel effects of the Seedcamp Nation:
(1) The Seedcamp Talent Network – A growing community of pre-vetted entrepreneurial talent looking to join the founding teams of our portfolio that our founders can access at the click of a button. Find out more and join here.
(2) The Seedcamp Expert Collective – A community of 100 top-quality operators who have scaled some of the world’s most successful businesses including the likes of Uber, Stripe, Cloudflare, Revolut, Deliveroo, NextDoor, Skyscanner, and Wise. They provide support to our community of founders and their teams in navigating the critical first steps in building a business.
Over the past 12 months, we welcomed 87 new founders to the Seedcamp Nation, representing 39 new portfolio companies. They are building across a wide array of industries and verticals, ranging from an AI governance platform to techbio.
With a vibrant and expanding Seedcamp Nation, our founder community continues to grow from strength to strength despite a challenging macroenvironment. We are excited to see new collaborations among portfolio companies, such as Thriva and Habitual partnering with Lindus Health to deliver clinical trials, Liveblocks powering the collaborative platforms of Rayon and Fullview, and a number of companies using Outverse as their community solution.
Synthesia officially hit unicorn status with their $90M Series C announced in June. They are the 10th company in our portfolio to achieve this milestone! When we first backed Victor Riparbelli, Steffen Tjerrild, Dr. Lourdes Agapito, and Dr. Matthias Niessner in early 2019 (well ahead of the GenAI hype of today), we sensed they were onto something big with their use of AI for video generation. We’re hugely impressed by the team’s ability to deliver a best-in-class product to a whopping 47% of Fortune 100 companies.
Last but not least, our co-founder and Managing Partner Reshma Sohoni made the Forbes’ The Midas Seed List (#8) and for the second time consecutively The Midas List: Top Tech Investors (#97); and our Managing Partner Carlos Espinal represents our team on Forbes’ The Midas List Europe (#18) for our investment in Synthesia.
Our team is already excited to partner and support Europe’s most promising founders in 2024.
Looking for funding? Our team would love to see what you’re building!
AskUI: a startup that aims to build the next era of process automation by leveraging the power of AI
Cakewalk: a SaaS Identity and Access Management for SMBs solution that helps fast-growing companies to regain control over the software applications they use
Doorfeed: an end-to-end acquisition platform for real estate buyers
Dust: an AI startup aiming to improve team productivity by breaking down internal silos, surfacing important knowledge, and providing tools to build custom internal apps
Enzai: AI governance platform that allows organisations to adopt best-in-class AI governance policies and measure against them
Faks: an all-in-one sales platform connecting labs and pharmacies
Fifth Dimension AI: an AI Co-Pilot for real estate deals, data, and documents
Flagcat: a webtoon studio, producing original series designed for worldwide distribution
Integration.app: an AI-powered integration stack for SaaS products that aims to be the catalyst for deeper connectivity across the SaaS ecosystem
Kern AI: a platform designed for developers who want to implement data-centric NLP solutions
Koios: a voice-driven AI platform set to drastically reduce cost and friction in the personality and management insights market
Kubeark: an enterprise-grade container and application management
Plumery: a digital engagement platform that helps banks implement digital programs
Trezy: a fintech that provides an AI-driven suite of real-time financial forecasting tools for SMEs
Twig: a techbio company that produces sustainable molecules through engineered biology
Verisian: a startup on a mission to increase the rate at which human health improves by redefining clinical trial analysis and drug approvals
26 companies are still in stealth working on solving a range of problems from using AI to detect autism to drug safety and even a Liquid Brain (you read that right!). Keep an eye out for new announcements in 2024!
Synthesia secures $90M for AI that generates custom avatars
Microsoft co-founder’s venture arm contributes to Curve’s £58M funding boost – Series C now at £133M
Sylvera banks $57M to put carbon offsetting on a path to Net Zero
Superscript, a bespoke insurance provider for SMEs, raises $54 million
Peppy secures a $45M Series B to expand its B2B2C health services platform to the US
Lindus Health, a UK clinical trials startup backed by Peter Thiel, raises $18M
It’s official: Griffin is a bank!
Roblox acquires voice moderation startup Speechly
Accel’s Philippe Botteri on His Key Learnings in VC Investment and the Potential of Generative AI [🎙 TMIK]
Pleo’s CTO Meri Williams on Scaling Engineering, Open Source, and Risks and Opportunities of GenAI, featuring Meri Williams, CTO at Pleo [🎙TMIK]
The Impact of AI Innovations and Why We Need to Prioritise Responsible AI, featuring Aaron Rosenberg, Partner at Radical Ventures [🎙️TMIK]
How to Lay the Foundation For Your Startup Brand, featuring Joanna Christie, previously a VP of Brand & Marketing at our portfolio company Gaia Family [🎙️Seedcamp Firsts]
How to Build Your Early Engineering Team: Selecting Engineers & Sourcing Engineering Talent, by David Mytton, Seedcamp Expert in Residence [Seedcamp Firsts]
How to set up a fully remote and distributed team. Lessons from Maze and Gitlab , featuring April Hoffbauer, VP of People at our portfolio company Maze [🎙️Seedcamp Firsts]
How to create and scale an iconic community. Lessons from Sorare, featuring Dan O’Kelly, an early Community Lead at Seedcamp-backed fantasy sports unicorn Sorare [🎙Seedcamp Firsts]
Risk / Reward Framework for AI, by our Managing Partner Carlos Espinal and our Associate Will Bennett
Diving into Culture Across Remote and In-Office Environments, featuring Bretton Putter, CEO of CultureGene
AI, ML, and Seedcamp’s commitments to date, by our Associate Will Bennett
Hiring benchmarks pre-Series A: Data from across the Seedcamp portfolio, by our Associate Will Bennett and our Talent Manager James Wright
Talent is top of mind for founders, especially at the earliest stages of company building. For many years, Talent has been a core pillar of our support to founders and we permanently fine-tune our offering around this.
Our new Talent Manager James Wright joined us in March. Since then he has directly supported 51 companies across the portfolio.
This year, Engineering and Sales talent remains the main topic of conversation and the priority for our founders across the portfolio. Whilst overall demand for hiring has slowed this year, Engineering hiring remains the most challenging to attract the top 1%. If you’re an Engineer or Sales Superstar looking to join a Pre-Seed or Seed stage startup, make sure to apply to our Talent Network to be the first profiles our founders meet with!
We haven’t quite reached the end of the year yet, but thus far our job board has generated an impressive 12,293 candidate applications across our portfolio. For many of our earlier stage companies, gaining visibility with these candidates makes the difference in bringing the best talent to the table. There are over 700 jobs across the portfolio right now and you can take a look here.
Let’s face it: the job application process is broken, especially in the tech startup ecosystem. On the hunt for the ideal role, a candidate has to send tens or even hundreds of personalised applications for individual roles, many of which are not even screened by employers who are flooded with CVs.
Having supported over 470 of our portfolio startups in attracting and retaining high-calibre talent, we know that running a smooth recruitment process is a make-or-break factor in their success. We also know that highly skilled operators, especially in Europe, are in short supply, and their time is precious.
This is why we want to change how talent and fast-growing companies find each other and work together! Over the last few months, our team have been connecting with amazing talent on the job market and are consistently hearing the same story. They’ve applied to an endless number of roles, but they are not hearing back from the vast majority. Not only is this demoralising, it’s also very time consuming.
This was the inspiration behind launching the Seedcamp Talent Network (STN). A way for candidates to turn the tables in their favour, at the same time helping our founding teams identify high quality talent.
The STN is focused on supporting the founders of our earliest stage investments, where the teams are usually below 30 people. These founders are regularly on the lookout for smart, ambitious and hard-working talent to help take their business on the rollercoaster journey towards becoming a unicorn.
The roles within these businesses are usually broad, lack initial clarity, yet offer unparalleled exposure of running the business alongside faster progression than a typical role in tech. There is no better place to deliver tangible and immediate value.
Whether you’re an experienced executive looking to dive back into a start-up, or a graduate keen to explore the entrepreneurial world, we invite you to join the STN. The network is suitable for all levels of seniority, as long as you want to help build something from the very earliest stage.
Applying to the STN takes less than 10 minutes. You will get added to a select collective of talent, all open to work within an early-stage startup. Founders, backed by Seedcamp, get exclusive access to this talent pool and can request introductions to you at the click of a button. You never know, it might help you find your dream job without ever applying! Head over to seedcamp.com/talent for more details.
Interested in working at one of our early-stage portfolio as they build their founding team? Join an exclusive talent pool and access incredible job opportunities in the Seedcamp Nation.
Check out hundreds of live roles across the Seedcamp portfolio. From our early-stage start-ups to the unicorns, there are a wide variety of opportunities that you can apply to right now.
$180M to back the next generation of Europe’s most exceptional entrepreneurs. Listen in as our leadership team shares more about our plans for Seedcamp VI.
It’s been over 15 years since we started Seedcamp. In that time, we’ve seen, well, a lot!
From navigating economic downturns and political crises to surviving a global health pandemic and bank collapses, we are no strangers to living through uncertain times.
While volatility might be the current name of the game, at Seedcamp we are optimists at heart. Over this time, we’ve also seen the European tech ecosystem mature, professionalise, and join forces in times of crisis and experienced so many positive stories for Europe and across our Seedcamp Nation.
Now with a portfolio of over 460 companies – including 9 unicorns and two publicly listed companies – we believe we’re just scratching the surface when it comes to the talent and game-changing ideas to be found across the Continent.
This is why we are incredibly excited to reach our latest milestone and launch our $180M Fund VI. Backed by 200+ of the world’s most impactful investors, this is by far our most ambitious fund to date. While the fund size may be larger (almost double that of Fund V), the entrepreneurial spirit of Seedcamp and the energy we bring around the teams we back remains very much the same. We believe now really is the moment to invest in the next decade of entrepreneurship.
Community is at our core at Seedcamp which is why we are thrilled to have the trust of many of our own founders as investors in Fund VI, including the likes of Jeppe Rindom (Pleo), Johnny Boufarhat (Hopin), Taavet Hinrikus (Wise), Daniel Dines (UIPath), Mridula Pore (Peppy Health), Eldad Fuks (Appwrite), and many more.
We’re in the business of building long-standing relationships across the Seedcamp Nation, and that’s as true for our founders as it is for our LPs. We are delighted to have the support of over 200 institutions, Angels, and members of the Seedcamp Network as investors in Fund VI. These include the likes of Vintage IP, TIFF, Ref Cap, Harbourvest, LGT, Legal & General, Arcano Partners, Sofina Group, EU VC, Michael Pennington (Gumtree), Will Neale (Grabyo), Paul Forster (Indeed), Ilkka Paananen (Supercell), Shakil Khan (Prima Materia) and Kärt Siilats (GoBeyondCapital).
With Fund VI, we can lead investment and write first cheques of up to $1M in Angel to Seed rounds. We remain sector-agnostic in our approach and are looking to back companies building foundational technologies spanning sectors, including the likes of Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, open source software, healthtech, fintech, and more.
We pride ourselves on being an organisation that pairs the agility and ethos of an Angel with the capital, operational excellence, and network of an experienced VC. And we’ve got the track record to prove it. Having worked with thousands of founders, we understand that at the ‘real’ earliest stage, our job is to be in your corner when you need us and to get out of your way when you don’t. We like to think of it as angel agility with some added VC Va-Va-voom.
We talk a lot about the Seedcamp Network economy. Our size is now such that we see the true power of the Seedcamp flywheel effect in full motion. Whether it’s companies acquiring one another (UiPath & Re:infer), selling to one another, or learning from and investing in each other, we truly believe the Seedcamp Nation is any early-stage founder’s unfair advantage. Our speed of decision-making, vast network, and close collaboration with angels make us the ideal partner.
Don’t just take our word for it. Our founders go on to achieve great things and continue to support our ever-growing Seedcamp Nation as peers and experts, LPs, and even co-investors. We’ve known Taavet – co-founder of a company you may well have heard of, Wise, for well over a decade, and he had the following to say:
“Seedcamp has been an incredible partner in building Wise from the earliest days to becoming a public company. I’m excited to back Seedcamp Fund VI as a repeat LP, continue to be part of the strong and ever-growing Seedcamp Nation, and co-invest in the next generation of world-class entrepreneurs building in Europe.”
For Fund VI, we are proud to have alongside us one of Europe’s largest Angel and Expert Networks, specifically curated to support our founders to operationalise and scale faster. Our new Seedcamp Expert Collective (SxC), a community of 100+ top-quality operators who have scaled some of the world’s most successful businesses, including the likes of Uber, Stripe, Cloudflare, Revolut, Deliveroo, NextDoor, Skyscanner and Wise, and will provide support to founders and their teams through one-to-one sessions, workshops, content, micro-communities, and in some instances, angel investment.
We were one of the first funds to go public with our deck when we launched Fund IV. In a continued spirit of transparency, we reveal what’s underneath the hood by publishing the deck we used to raise our oversubscribed Fund VI. We hope it helps all emerging fund managers and demonstrates to our founders that you truly will be in great company when joining the Seedcamp Nation.
Seedcamp Fund VI Fundraising Deck
We’ve said it before, but it merits repeating. Seedcamp is the sum of its people. To everyone who’s put their trust in us over the past 15+ years and supports us and our founders, we thank you deeply. And to all the founders we are yet to meet, we cannot wait to learn what you’re building and partner together for this next chapter.
If you want to join the Seedcamp Nation, tell us what you’re building here.
Listen in as our leadership team shares more about our plans for Seedcamp VI.
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