This is Capital Call, a weekly newsletter highlighting what investors in European startups are thinking—in their own words. We are Willy Braun, Nicolas Colin, and Vincent Touati-Tomas, and you can find out more about the newsletter and why we launched it here: About Capital Call.
This is the second edition, and so we’re still early in the process. Each iteration comes with some refining, and in that spirit here are three questions that we’d like to discuss as an introduction:
Who are we featuring? We have a rather large definition of ‘investor’: it can be about angel investing on the side, being part of a large VC firm, or conducting market research for investment purposes. The main criteria is that the investor needs to have some exposure to European tech and to have their main base in Europe. It’s all about skin in the game!
What are we featuring? Thoughts can be expressed in any form—written, audio, video. It has to be in English, the lingua franca of the tech world. It has to be interesting (we’ll get more selective on that one as time goes by and the competition heats up). And it has to be personal: we’ll only publish content authored by named individuals.
Where are the women? Everybody knows venture capital has a diversity problem, and so we expected female investors to be the minority. What we didn’t expect was just how few options we’ve seen coming from those female investors, despite their being insightful and talented (we know because we work with them). So far we have found hardly any female-authored content!
Any ideas as to how we can improve the situation on that front? Any suggestions as to who should be featured in the coming editions? Send us a message either here or through Twitter!
Alexandra Baranowski 🇬🇧, an analyst with Playfair Capital, shares tips for female founders from four investors on both sides of the Atlantic: Female Founder Office Hours: Meet the Investors Part V (ft. Beringea, Frontline Ventures and Playfair).
Mark Bivens 🇺🇸 of Truffle Capital writes about an industry that’s radically transformed by the current pandemic: Real estate in a post-coronavirus world.
Robin Dechant 🇩🇪 of Point Nine Capital reflects on what makes great founders and what they have in common with athletes: Athletes and founders — same, same but different?
Ha Duong 🇩🇪 of Cambrial Capital explains traditional VC portfolio modelization and the specificities with a crypto VC portfolio in his article Crypto VC Portfolio Construction: The LP’s Perspective.
Benedict Evans 🇬🇧, who recently relocated to London (from San Francisco) and joined Entrepreneur First as a Venture Partner, wrote about Solving online events.
Imran Ghory 🇬🇧 of Blossom Capital, compares open source business models in his article The Secrets of Successful Open Source Business Models.
Yannick Oswald 🇱🇺 shares the investor’s perspective on a metric that says a lot about a startup’s business: Why are investors obsessed with churn?
Anna Ottosson 🇸🇪 of the FoodTech specialist Trellis Road 🇸🇪 explains the reason why she started her new fund in this article: New Chapter: Starting with The Why.
Younès Rharbaoui 🇫🇷 of The Family, who writes for his fellow CFOs in the tech space, has a new piece about Community as an Asset.
Gonz Sanchez 🇦🇷, an angel investor and publisher of Seedtable, dedicated his latest issue to discussing Silicon Valley as a bundle that we can unbundle: Unbundling Silicon Valley.
Partech’s Romain Lavault 🇫🇷 talks about his firm’s strategy, including being an early player in emerging geographies (Africa), providing a platform, and building software for a VC firm. It’s part of Rina Onur’s podcast CC: Partech: Being Early in Ecosystems that Don’t Matter to Others.
Gonz Sanchez hosted Marcin Szeląg 🇵🇱 in his newly launched Seedtable podcast to discuss finding your edge, the value of networks in early-stage investing, and the future of venture capital and secondary tech hubs: Marcin Szeląg from Innovation Nest – Networks in Venture Capital.
Oussama Ammar 🇫🇷 of The Family recently explained why you need to push hard on marketing and sales even during the pandemic: Don't give in to the guilt.
Alice Bentinck 🇬🇧 and Matt Clifford 🇬🇧 of Entrepreneur First sat down with Village Global’s Erik Torenberg in a podcast dedicated to Cultivating More Entrepreneurs For Social Impact.
Matthias Hilpert 🇩🇪, Johannes von Borries 🇩🇪 and Christian Meermann 🇩🇪 conducted a quantitative analysis of innovation activities by the German DAX30 companies and their US & China peers. It highlights interesting opportunities for the startup scene in Germany: Future Made in Germany.
Saul Klein 🇿🇦🇬🇧 of LocalGlobe shared his views on investing through the pandemic in this comprehensive interview: “There will be a lot of investment activity in the coming months”.
Oussama Ammar 🇫🇷, Co-Founder & Director, The Family, London 🇬🇧 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
Alexandra Baranowski 🇬🇧 Off-Cycle VC analyst, Playfair Capital, London 🇬🇧 LinkedIn | Twitter
Alice Bentinck 🇬🇧Co-Founder, Entrepreneur First, London 🇬🇧 LinkedIn | Twitter
Mark Bivens 🇺🇸 Venture Partner, Truffle Capital, Paris 🇫🇷 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
Johannes von Borries 🇩🇪 Managing Partner, Unternehmertum Venture Capital Partners, Munich 🇩🇪 LinkedIn | Twitter
Matt Clifford 🇬🇧Co-Founder & CEO, Entrepreneur First, London 🇬🇧 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
Robin Dechant 🇩🇪 Associate, Point Nine Capital, Berlin 🇩🇪 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
Ha Duong 🇩🇪Principal, Cambrial Capital, Berlin 🇩🇪 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
Benedict Evans 🇬🇧Venture Partner, Entrepreneur First, London 🇬🇧 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
Imran Ghory 🇬🇧Partner, Blossom Capital, London 🇬🇧 LinkedIn | Twitter
Matthias Hilpert 🇩🇪 CEO, MH2 Capital, Berlin 🇩🇪 LinkedIn | Twitter
Saul Klein 🇿🇦🇬🇧Co-Founder, LocalGlobe, London 🇬🇧 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
Romain Lavault 🇫🇷 General Partner, Partech, Paris 🇫🇷 LinkedIn | Twitter
Christian Meermann 🇩🇪 Founding Partner, Cherry Ventures, Berlin 🇩🇪 LinkedIn | Twitter
Yannick Oswald 🇱🇺 Principal, Mangrove Capital Partners, Paris 🇫🇷 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
Anna Ottosson 🇸🇪 Co-Founder, Trellis Road, Stockholm 🇸🇪 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
Younès Rharbaoui 🇫🇷 CFO, The Family, Paris 🇫🇷 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
Gonz Sanchez 🇦🇷 Angel investor, Barcelona 🇪🇸 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
Ferdinando Sigona 🇮🇹 Associate, LocalGlobe, London 🇬🇧 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
Marcin Szeląg 🇵🇱 Partner, Innovation Nest, Krakow 🇵🇱 LinkedIn | Twitter | Blog
We are Willy Braun 🇫🇷, Nicolas Colin 🇫🇷 and Vincent Touati-Tomas 🇫🇷. We work as investors and operators in the European VC industry. We welcome your feedback and suggestions as we fine-tune our approach. Just reply to this email with your thoughts!