Florin- Catalin Chici

Three biggest learnings from a fundraising journey. Shared by Rainer Märkle, General Partner at HV Capital at EUVC 1/ Have a time box with a deadline attached. Have a defined horizon & create a clear plan. Have some urgency to get things done at some point. Execute very transparently and reliably. 2/ Stick to your narrative. But don't do it blindly. Tweak it when necessary. Adapt it. Don't let yourself be surprised by major changes. Keep focusing on delivering according to your strategy & plan. 3/ Fundraising is a marathon with many sprints. There are moments when you'll ask yourself - Why do I do this? Is it gonna work out? But don't get too negative during the down phases. Adapting and pivoting is part of our job. As it is for the founder of a company. How about you? What fundraising lessons have you learned? Join the conversation. 🔽 #venturecapital #angelinvesting #startupfunding #europe

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Germany-based venture capital fund Robin Capital closed its Robin Fund One at 13 million euros (about $13.6 million). #venturecapital #veteranventures

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✨ Breaking: Fly Ventures Announces New Fund.- Fly Ventures Fly Ventures Fund III: Closed at €80 million on December 6, 2024. Based in Berlin, this venture capital fund targets seed-stage European startups, focusing on technical founders in deep tech sectors including AI, industrial tech, and developer tools. Typical investments range from €1-4 million. https://fly.vc/ Please share to let other #Founders know For the ❤️ of Startups #Fusion42 #Startups #Venturecapital

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Carbon13 is the Venture Builder for the Climate Emergency. Be one of 80 participants from tech, science and business and find the ideal co-founder among them. We put you in the best starting position for a successful climate tech startup. To do that, we ask you to aim big, to build a solution with the potential to reduce carbon dioxide (or equivalent greenhouse gases) by 10 million tonnes per year, at scale – and all our support is designed to help you reach that figure.🎯 To learn more and ask your questions, check Carbon13’s website and register for one of the upcoming webinars. 📢 📢 📢No doubt, the clock is ticking. Apply now https://lnkd.in/eZ6PTFYS Michael Langguth Carbon13

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🚀 Investment Criteria and Fundraising Success 🚀 🔍 Techstar’s Marting Schilling delved into the success of 58 companies in the Tech Start DeepTech Berlin portfolio (2022-2024), analyzing 17 investment criteria to identify the strongest signals for early-stage fundraising success. 💡 💰 Top Indicators of Success: Monetisation Potential (0.61) Domain Expertise (0.59) Speed of Execution (0.57) Market & Timing (0.55) ❌ Least Correlated with Success: Role Clarity (0.12) Team Co-Location (0.08) Number of Cofounders (0.02) 🌟 To attract investors, founders should emphasize the top 4 categories and spend less time optimizing for less impactful factors like role clarity or co-location. While these might have other benefits, they don’t significantly boost fundraising success. 📈 #Investment #Fundraising #Techstars #DeepTech #StartupSuccess #VC #EarlyStage #Monetisation #DomainExpertise #MarketTiming #ExecutionSpeed

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Excited to share what I learned from Sandro Stark, founding partner at Vanagon Ventures backing FrontierTech from Munich/DACH 🚀 to the World at the YUVC video podcast (links in comments) 💡 Above all, Sandro is a super nice person to get along with and has a great NPS from founders 👋 Here 3 Core Takeaways ✨ 1. Vanagon’s approach to startup evaluation 👀 - Distribution capability is now the key differentiator, not just technical innovation - Customer "stickiness" and deep industry understanding - The solution must demonstrate both climate impact and profit potential 2. Why is Munich's ecosystem strategic? 🇩🇪 - Part of DACH region - third-largest market globally after China and US - Rich concentration of technical talent and corporate headquarters - Untapped potential in Mittelstand venture engagement 3. What's the philosophy behind sustainable success? 😉 - Don't postpone happiness for future achievements - True leadership creates more leaders, not followers - Consistent effort matters more than breakthrough moments Now listen in for more insights! ❤ Kudos to his great co-founders/GPs @Vanagon: Susanne Fromm Axel Roitzsch Shoutout to their amazing portfolios: Senken Particula Renoster youba The Landbanking Group LoopID heartstocks Learn.xyz ExoMatter and more

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Thank you, ZyCrypto and Krypto News Deutschland, for including us in your recent list of "10 Fast-Rising Crypto VCs Shaping the World of Web3" together with our esteemed VC colleagues from all around the world. And yes, "it does take a village to raise a startup" but nothing beats working with obsessed founders on a mission! Recall, Trever, River Platform Company, OpenQ, KINO https://lnkd.in/en3SvQ5t #blockchainfounderscapital #zycrypto #venturecapital #blockchain #crypto #startups

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Venture studios have been gaining immense popularity, and for good reason, data shows venture studio start-ups exit 33% faster than conventional startups. Here are some examples: 🛍️ Zalando: Rocket Internet, as a venture studio, was instrumental in the founding and early growth of Zalando. 🐕 BARK: Prehype, a venture development firm, played a crucial role in the formation and success of Bark & Co., the company behind BarkBox. ✍️ Medium: Obvious Corp played a critical incubation role for Medium, nurturing the platform through its early stages and providing the strategic direction needed for its growth. Other examples include HelloFresh and Dollar Shave Club. Venture Studios have what I like to call an unfair advantage: they take on a co-founder role, composed of a team of serial entrepreneurs and top executors, in all startups. Would you build your next startup with a Venture Studio?

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founders: this is a good summary of why VCs reject you, though keep in mind that stellaris isn't an early stage fund. that is, it's just fine if you haven't figured out everything in the early days. but by the time you are raising series A, you need to have clarity on many fronts- Just don't wait for everything to fall in place before you startup.

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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗮 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 – 𝗺𝘆 𝟲 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 As CEO of enua, I believe 2025 will be a decisive year for the European medical cannabis industry. The pace of change is accelerating, and only those who can adapt will thrive. Here are my six predictions for what’s ahead: 1️⃣ Political change in Germany: A double-edged sword The upcoming elections could reshape the cannabis landscape. A CDU/CSU-led government may attempt to roll back recreational cannabis policies, which would be a huge setback for the broader market. However, the medical cannabis sector is likely to remain stable, highlighting its importance for patient care and the health industry. 2️⃣ Putting patients first The industry is moving beyond merely selling products. Patients expect better outcomes, and companies that integrate telemedicine, digital tools, and personalized care will rise to the top. It’s not just about offering cannabis; it’s about improving lives through tailored solutions. 3️⃣ Data and BI: Thriving in oversupply Oversupply will be a first for Germany’s medical cannabis market. Companies must use data and business intelligence to navigate pricing pressures and identify the most promising opportunities. Quick adaptation will be key to staying competitive. 4️⃣ Growth at home and abroad Germany’s market is projected to grow from 70 tons in 2024 to 120 tons in 2025 - a massive leap. Simultaneously, markets in the UK, Poland, and the Czech Republic are expanding rapidly. Companies capable of scaling both domestically and internationally will dominate this next phase of growth. 5️⃣ Market consolidation: Only the strong will survive Fragmentation is ending. In 2025, national mergers and acquisitions by international players will intensify. Smaller companies will face increasing pressure, while professional, resourceful businesses with the ability to expand and scale will stay ahead. 6️⃣ Medical cannabis goes mainstream In 2025, medical cannabis will transition from niche to mainstream in Europe, becoming an integral part of standard care. Companies must focus on educating healthcare providers, delivering proven outcomes, and integrating seamlessly into healthcare systems to succeed. 2025 is the year for bold moves. Companies that innovate and focus on real impact will lead the way. Markus Musiol Lars Möhring Dr. Ingo Wieck Melanie Korthing Eray Aksahin Amir Farsar Christian Paffhausen and our great enua team are prepared! We’re ready to shape the future - with unwavering commitment to patients, growth, and staying ahead of the curve. What do you think? Which trends will shape the industry in 2025?

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Next week, it’s time once again for our Investor Committee Meeting #14 🚀 ______ At COREangels Big Data & AI Europe, we actively scout the best European startups, providing our investors access to top-tier opportunities. Five to six times a year, we present three standout startups at our Investment Committee Meetings, where we recently discovered, for example, Horizon. Horizon is an innovative marketing-tech startup that empowers clients by predicting market success with painted door tests for innovation, product and consumer insight teams tackling the problem of not knowing enough about what customers want and if they really will purchase. Founded in 2021, they’re on a mission to become a leader in their field by providing accurate purchase-intent data from real consumers in a highly automated way. We’re proud to count ourselves among their investors now and can’t wait to explore more promising opportunities at next week’s meeting. ______ If you’re a qualified investor, some seats are left for joining our exclusive network and gaining access to Europe’s top AI and Big Data startups. For more details, reach out to me directly. The angel ticket for the portfolio starts at 75,000 CHF. Want to participate as a guest and potential investor next Wednesday, November 20, at 18:30 CET in Zurich or online? Please send me a PM by Monday evening, November 18. COREangels Big Data & AI Europe COREangels Daniel Putsche Pascal Stämpfli, CFA Samira Courti Sebastian Heinz Daniel Parisi Lutz Nagy Carsten Schäfer Jochen (Josh) Eckert Stephan Rathgeber Florian Haberler Sara Feiz Henry Piney Jakob Kaiser Jana Myers Sophia Burns Hanno Hartmann

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Great to see what Jan Thomas and his team at Startup Insider did with the new Investors Report 2024 for the DACH region! Anyone who wants to learn more about the German #venturecapital ecosystem and its investors, go get the report: https://lnkd.in/ehiVqmX6

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***Update on Version One Ventures's thesis*** We back mission-driven founders who are early in new areas. As you know, Boris Wertz and I never stop challenging ourselves to be better VCs - it’s one of our core values! An important part of that work is developing a strong investment thesis, and evolving it as technology improves and markets change. Our current investment thesis, “backing mission-driven founders at the earliest stages,” was introduced back in 2020. It encapsulates our focus on backing a certain type of deeply passionate entrepreneur at an early stage when few people might believe in them.    Those words still hold true but they don’t explicitly spell out something we look for when evaluating an investment opportunity: timing. Investors always talk about “Why now”, and we do too, but the more interesting question for us is “Why not?”   Another way to ask it is “What’s possible?” We’re interested in those rare opportunities where a founder is creating a brand new category. These opportunities are fringy and emerging (some might call them crazy, weird, whacky or wild). There’s nothing obvious or inevitable about it. They’re building something the market hasn’t yet imagined and doesn’t fit neatly into an existing market category. But if they’re right, then the fringe picks up momentum and ultimately becomes a wave. So, going forward, we’re evolving our thesis to be even more explicit about the why now and why not: We back mission-driven founders who are early in new areas. Looking back, we predicted a few waves right and invested early into them: Vertical SaaS in 2012-2014 (e.g. Jobber) Crypto in 2016-2020 (e.g. Uniswap Labs) Climate in 2020-2021 (e.g. Patch) These days, the areas on our radar are a combination of “why now” and “why not”. AI – with a focus on AI-native products (e.g. Ada) VR/AR – especially with the recent launch of Apple Vision Pro (e.g REMIO) Crypto – yes, we’ve been investing in crypto since 2016, but it still feels early given that design space has recently opened with new L2 scaling, and the acceleration of mainstream use cases like payments or tokenization of real-world assets Climate/energy – we are looking outside of software and just invested in a materials company replacing lithium ion with sodium ion (as the world is moving towards electrification) Hardtech/biotech – we recently backed a company building the next illumina for proteins Building a startup is hard enough as it is, but pioneering founders need to build on brand new technology, find new markets, and convince everyone of the market need. BUT this is exactly who we, as venture capitalists, want to back. We look forward to meeting more of these courageous and bold founders creating transformational change!

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2 days ago, I collected 52 answers about how startup studios attract founders. The top 4 problems mentioned while answering an open question: 1. Hard to find the “true founder material” 2. Studio culture & values fit 3. Hard to engage full-time with founders – lack of founder’s focus 4. Small network to attract founders – either the need to hire outside your industry/niche or inside it I think the answer to the first 3 problems lies in these statistics: – Only 10% of studios (5 answers) work exclusively with second-time founders, those who have tried to build their own companies but failed. 90% are ready to work with first-time founders. It’s usually hard to expect (or at least) test grit, perseverance, high level of commitment & risk tolerance in first-time founders. There are two ways: 1. Either you find ways to attract experienced entrepreneurs despite adverse selection (founders will be inclined to launch their own companies independently if a studio can’t provide a no-brainer deal) or 2. You turn the weakness (first-time founders) into your strength, allowing current full-time employees to test new business ideas with your support without the risk of losing jobs and becoming full-time co-founders only after validation and substantial revenue. DQventures is a good example. Suppose you’ve decided to focus on second-time founders. How will you seek them? Grant Morgan suggested one interesting idea for our (potential) future marketplace of venture studios & founders: “To target founders of companies that shut down or got acqui-hired recently. Founders that haven't been successful, but who have lived the startup lifecycle are great in our opinion, and there are / will be more of them than ever over the next couple of years following ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) environment where many companies raised too much and/or at valuations that their companies will never grow into, but the experience these founders have is very valuable, and they're often hungrier having tasted some level of success already.” – 73% of studios consider partnering remotely with candidates from their country. 52% consider co-founders in other countries as well. Yesterday, while discussing with my partner ideas around the marketplace, we thought that as our first MVP, there could be a job fair online conference where some studios will pitch to potential co-founders. 1. Do you think it’s a good idea? 2. Would you pitch to attract candidates (for free or for the success fee? Let me know in the comments, and if we decide to organize the event, I will invite you.

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Are you interested to #invest in #fungi #startups? Get in touch! We are working on two startup cases now and will coordinate an investment syndicate. So if you are an angel investor or family office, reach out if interest to hear more. #fungi #biotechnology #microbiology #futurefit #startups

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👀 "Further use of organizational theory could help explain the unique structural aspects of the VS model. Concepts such as organizational design, resource allocation, and decision-making processes (Daft, 2020) are particularly relevant. The VS model challenges traditional organizational boundaries, creating a hybrid structure that combines elements of both startups and established firms (Rathgeber et al., 2017). The Resource-Based View suggests that a firm's competitive advantage is attributable to its “unique bundle of resources and capabilities” (Barney, 1991). This framework is particularly applicable to VSs, because they leverage shared resources across multiple ventures. The ability of VSs to efficiently allocate and redeploy resources could explain differences in performance and/or outcomes compared with traditional startup models. Given the collaborative nature of venture studios, network theory may provide insights into how these VSs leverage relationships and information flows across the VS ecosystem. For example, application of network theory could examine the “weak ties” (Granovetter, 1977) created within and around VSs and whether these relationships contribute significantly to their success in launching and scaling startups. Finally, knowledge management theory could be applied to understand how venture studios accumulate, share, and apply knowledge (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) across multiple ventures. Transferring learnings and best practices efficiently could be a key success factor for VSs."

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Fintech mittelstand I became an entrepreneur in 2015 when I fell in love with blockchain and broke the shackles forever impeding my creativity. My calling was to democratise finance. I have failed to make any dent, but the game is not over yet. One thing I wanted to replicate was a mittelstand, the family-owned backbone of Germany’s manufacturing prowess and much of its GDP: the best quality possible known from devoted aficionados. Picture meeting for a coffee and whilst talking, your fingers run spontaneously appreciating the grain of that tabletop. You look under it and spot a brand you have never heard of; an online search finds it is behind the best coffee tables in the world…You are hooked and have become an ambassador. It’s a story of unbending, uncompromising quality, and care in everything you do: you aim to provide the best service and build the best product ever. In that quest, you have to be forever disappointed because it is an antidote to complacency.   Whilst the term “mittelstand” describes SMEs under 500 employees, I take the following attributes in everything I want to build (in no particular order): ✅ Quality – Respect the vision, the brand…treat everything you do as an opportunity to show your craft, as an opportunity to excel. Be proud of your output as good work done, not to build your ego. ✅ People – Without your team, you can’t build anything let alone get clients. Whilst you may not be able to pay market rate at the beginning, pay over it once you can because your teammates are your soul, your sales, your brand. ✅ Clients – Be of service with unparalleled customer service. There is always a human at the end of your tech stack so not only build your products for them but also with them (in mind but critically in flesh through user testing). Solve a customer’s problem without creating any in the process. ✅ Pride – Whilst you treat everyone with respect, you have a mindset where your product is the best in class, the Hermes of your aspirations which means you can say no to anyone that doesn't share your vision...prospect, client, or investor. ✅ Cashflow mission control – Easier said than done. Setting up a business is stressful enough hence having the right focus on the right numbers is important: low operating costs, decent margins, recurring revenues and therefore positive cashflow. ✅ Independence – it’s key to have control of your future to be free to research and develop new products, let alone pivot when the headwinds are too strong. Innovativeness is priceless. ✅ Strong connections – Size matters when it comes to making meaningful connections, knowing each other, and driving towards a shared goal. Your brand is an ambassador of the place it emanates from. It represents the best of the people building it. Be proud, be you...keep building! #motivation #leadership #learning #entrepreneurship #fintech #mindset #success #brand #startuplife #growth #mentalhealth #bankingindustry

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