Giuseppe Lacerenza

Are Dutch and European founders not ambitious enough? 🤔 I just read Techleap's latest report: "AI Scaling Challenges for Dutch Founders." (Okay, I got AI to read it and share the highlights with me. 😜) This quote caught my (& Claude's) eye: "𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘧 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 4% 𝘰𝘧 𝘋𝘶𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘈𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 10𝘔. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯..." Almost every day, I see posts and jokes about European founders thinking too small. As someone who works with Euro-founders everyday, I have a different view. I see: - Massive visions - Global mindsets from day one - Founders ready to take on the world It's not the founders who lack ambition. They're just working within the realms of what's possible in Europe. That's why many of them get funded from and/or move to the US. 💰 The real lack of ambition? That's from investors and governments in Europe. 🇪🇺 I'm still working on an article, "The Case for European Optimism." And I think it will show that European founders are just as ambitious as their US counterparts. The real question we should be asking is: - How can we create an environment that allows founders to dream bigger and reach higher? 🚀 And yes, I know this quotes mentions deep ecosystem issues... --- ↳ What's your take? Are European founders thinking too small, or is it the ecosystem that's holding them back? 👇

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The European VC fundraising scene is showing a clear trend: experience matters. Let's unpack some data on this from The State of European Fundraising Report. 1/ Why track record matters. In a cautious market, LPs (investors) are prioritizing established funds with a proven history of success. Experienced firms captured 54.5% of the capital raised in 2023. 2/ New opportunities for LPs. This market shift presents a golden opportunity for LPs to build relationships with top-tier VC firms. Firms they might not have accessed before. 3/ Focus on creating value. Investors are seeking firms that prioritize building real value, not just hype. This is a great long-term trend for the industry. If you are en emerging fund manager, the time to build a strong reputation and track record is now. Focus on building a compelling value proposition and demonstrating a clear path to success to attract investors. Learn how to navigate the effects of the #TechReset. Get insights from The State of European Fundraising Report. ➡️ buff.ly/4aYglgi Delivered to you by EUVC | Isomer Capital | Floww. #EUVC #fundraising #venturecapital #industryreport

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✨ Breaking: ECFG Growth Ventures Announces New Fund.- ECFG Growth Ventures Netherlands Enterprise Agency invested into ECFG Growth Ventures seed fund focused on high-tech manufacturing and SMEs in B2B sectors. https://ecfg.nl/ Please share to let other #Founders know For the ❤️ of Startups #Fusion42 #Startups#Venturecapital

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I love this article from Ian Hogarth! The US has shown what's possible, but here in Europe (and especially in the UK), we have a tremendous opportunity to follow the American footsteps. That is why, in 20 years, I don't think I've ever seen such a good time to be investing: - the platform shifts we're seeing today operate at an extraordinary scale, and much of the fundamental innovation underpinning this is coming out of Europe - repeat, successful entrepreneurs are building again, at pace - society has become inherently entrerpreneurial ("starting a business" is now the top career choice for undergrads at many UK universities) - there is funding available now at all stages of a company's lifecycle - as was clear at Slush last week, the market is now 'back' - risk is back on, deals are being done, funds are being raised, - but valuations are sensible; good for investors but good for companies too as expectations are in check with reality - and the upside is considerable! 10 years ago, we couldn't have imagined there being even 1 trillion dollar company; now we have 7! A good time to be building, a good time to be investing, a good basis for optimism. AlbionVC, John Thornhill, Matt Clifford, John Taysom, Sherry Coutu CBE Max Bautin, Andy Phillipps, George Coelho, Tom Nugent, Brent Hoberman, Hussein Kanji, Chris Smart, CAIA

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Streamline your fundraising roadshow with edeck by Versible eu🚀 🔗https://lnkd.in/ekQxJZem With Versible's edeck you can create a data-driven, tailored and personalised one pager deck and share it with any one. You can even test it now: https://lnkd.in/eTUsGed8 ✅ Create unlimited links and set permissions for entry ✅ Set Password, 2FA, Invitation only & Expiration date ✅ Your viewers don't need to signup on Versible ✅ Track the movement of every viewer ✅ Track the minutes spent of your deck ✅ Send and receive live messages ✅ Receive Feedback ✅ Add your calendly link ✅ Receive Data room requests ✅ Access the top european VC database ✅ Create unlimited Data rooms ✅ Access fundraising CRM ✅ & so much more

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Let me tell you a great story of the perseverance and skills, of a younger Dutch founder with an AI company, whom I am helping to broker capital... To keep it vague, he was looking for an amount between 500k and 1 million eur. We met in the last days of October and started to work together at the beginning of November. He had a broker already, who had done some amazing work but things were taking longer than anticipated and they needed to move. The problem was: 🟣 Speed needed to move 🟣 Current investors were out, not investing further 🟣 Fractured cap table 🟣 End of runway was December 31st. 🟣 Buyout of all shareholders needed 🟣 A significant debt stack 🟣 Being a young, 1st time founder When he went by many VCs by himself, he noticed that was a problem, alltogether but the fractured cap table and buyout was the first hurdle. Now here's where the great story begins and I have seen this founder respond in a very remarkable and mentionable way. With such a fractured cap table, VCs but in general, all investors, found it uninvestable. He knew he needed to model a consolidation. He then rallied the investors who wanted out, to agree to a conversion to a loan instead of paying them out directly, which could then be paid off, over time. More so he convinced these investors to be bought out in cash but then to reinvest this amount as a straight loan. The creativity is simply brilliant. Because a buyout meant the money of new investors, wouldn't end up going for 50% to secondaries, which is money from one investor to the other, to buy up EXISTING shares, vs NEW shares (primaries). Investors often don't like that they want their investment to fund the business and growth, not a buyout. Noticed that still wasn't enough, because the second hurdle was the general debt stack of this venture. He then got to work by: 🟣 Talked to all creditors (all) and managed to agree they would drop the debt. 🟣 Got current investors to drop the extended loans and accept a discount on their shares when being bought out. 🟣 Discussed with the bank and they dropped their loan and related debt in full. 🟣 Team agreed to - with mutual consent - terminate some members so the company can continue within its current revenue structure. "It's a young founder," some told me. Honestly, this is some of the most elegant and brilliant things I've ever seen in my career so far - wow. I congratulated and applauded him for his coldbloodedness and resourcefulness, going so towards and beyond the end of the runway... And still being able to bring this home, by literally rallying EVERYONE behind him. All of this now means they need less than half of the original capital needed, which means they're fine with a couple of lower tickets (relative) to form that amount. We ended up with multiple of our capital partners being interested and meeting the founder. Where one party has committed to matching whatever is raised. This is why I broker. What a story. What a guy.

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𝐍𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞'𝐬 𝐒𝐌𝐄 𝐕𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐚𝐚𝐒 𝟓𝟎 (Technology Companies)   A few weeks ago we announced āltitude with our friends at Eight Roads were on the hunt for 50 of Europe's most promising SME Vertical SaaS companies.   European Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are versatile and we have received some fantastic submissions so far from tech start-ups and scale-ups creating solutions in a wide range of industry verticals (a selection shown below).   If you know a tech company building a Vertical SaaS in the below categories (or any other industries with a high concentration of small businesses e.g. construction, manufacturing, and so on) feel free to:   (i) Tag the company or founders in the comments. (ii) Nominate them via the "Nominate a Startup" button on the website here: www.smeverticalsaas50.com. (iii) Nominate directly here: https://lnkd.in/eTFea2VB.   With a week and a half to go don't miss the opportunity to nominate founders and teams that you feel are worthy of recognition for their hard work and the fantastic solutions they are building.   Deadline: 18th October 2024 cc: Filip, Lucile, Virginia, Peter, George, Felix, Julie, Itxaso, Johannis, Miguel, Ines, Michiel, Louis, Alexandre, Jack, Carlos, Reshma, Jeannette, Mickaël, Dr. Gesa, Sarah, Frederik, Lorenzo, Jesse, Timo, Dr. Tanja, Carmen, Laurens, Ander, Liz, Jag, Brian, Sarah, Mish, Suzanne, Felix W., Laura, Gülsah #SMEtech #B2B #nominations #operators #founders #verticalsaas #saas

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Which problems should founders NOT try to solve? How to decide if you should join an accelerator? These are some topics in the podcast I did with Florian Hoornaar. Thanks for having me. https://lnkd.in/emC3jRYt

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TL;DR: LLMs are for marketing chatbots, but when the cost of being wrong is meaningful "classic" ML is preferred to compute-heavy non-deterministic transformers. Thanks for keeping it sane, Andreu Mora & Adyen. #AI #LLM #transformer #ML

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Gorilla Capital fund 2. Fast growing #camelstartup Serviceform rises €2.45m round. Serviceform was among Deloitte Fastest 50 in Finland and among fastest growing Nordic companies

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At Movens Capital, we are committed to providing tech companies with essential knowledge and resources for success (#MovensAcademy). We recently conducted a comprehensive workshop on Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), led by Stefan from Samira Advisors (thanks a lot!), to prepare companies from our close network for future growth and acquisition opportunities. Key Highlights: 📚 Introduction to M&A: The workshop began with an overview of the M&A process, emphasizing the importance of early preparation and strategic positioning for a successful merger or acquisition. ⏱ Timing and Valuation: Discussions included the optimal timing for selling a company and how to navigate the valuation differences between the venture capital and M&A markets. 🤝 Strategic Partnerships: The significance of establishing strong strategic partnerships was highlighted as a key factor in increasing a company's attractiveness for acquisition. 💼 Financial and Legal Preparedness: The workshop stressed the need for financial stability and thorough legal documentation, underscoring these as critical elements in the M&A process. 🔄 Shareholder Alignment: The importance of aligning the interests of all shareholders to avoid potential conflicts during an acquisition was explored in detail. 🎉 Post-Acquisition Considerations: The session concluded with insights into the post-acquisition phase, focusing on cultural adjustments and the challenges of integration. This workshop is part of Movens VC's ongoing effort to support our portfolio companies and ecosystem through their growth and development stages, ensuring they are well-prepared for the challenges and opportunities of M&A activities.

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✨ VERY SMALL PARTICLES ✨ That's what the three co-founders of VSPARTICLE – Aaike van Vugt, Tobias Pfeiffer, and Tobias Coppejans – have dedicated their last 10 years to. VSP is a once-in-a-generation Dutch company which has developed a unique nanoparticle printing technology to bring us high-performance materials for clean energy transformation. That's why together with my colleague Taiga Ueta, we at NordicNinja VC and in partnership with Sten Tamkivi and Plural Platform, are thrilled to fund this world-class founding team. In particular, VSP’s technology is enabling the mass production of catalyst-coated Porous Transport Layers (PTLs), which are the key components in electrolyzers and are essential to the production of green hydrogen. Green hydrogen is essential to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and power a more sustainable future for industries such as shipping, transport, heating, and aviation, yet the process currently relies on using scarce resources including platinum and iridium. Combined with AI-powered material discovery and computational chemistry, VSParticle and their network of partners are able to create the most complete database of materials in the world, which can serve as an input for building an economically scalable and a sustainable clean energy future. VSParticle's technology is material agnostic and comes with high precision nanoparticle control (at nm level), requires no wet chemistry, and allows for quick experiments & production. Looking forward to working with the whole team at VSP to bring this new technology to the world!

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Enjoyed your article Ian Hogarth. A couple of points to add: 1/ We need the IPO market to return as a financing event for younger companies. The valuation thresholds and regulatory burdens in the U.S. are just too high. Fixing this issue leads to a higher probability these young companies can stay independent and not fall into the hands of an acquirer. 2/ The fund cycle expiration for VC firms should extend beyond 10 years. This was always an arbitrary length of time for partnerships to achieve full liquidity. But to build a trillion dollar company will take time and patience and relieving the pressure for institutional venture firms to return capital to limited partners will help.

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Talking about selecting the right Founders: That's a great essential start, and I agree, it is a prerequisite for any venture or investment to grow. (but, you are still a long way to scale and succeed, but we will come to that question of 'end-to-end having a repeatable process' to build great companies another day. Or, like, I prefer to say -How can I "Industrialize Innovation") For today, let me share one quick point - YES, that a founding team ought to be passionate but having a lot of passion - that hand waving - we will change the world - is NOT enough! IMHO, "Oh - I invest in a passionate team" - is such flawed investment model. Its good to have raw energy but not good enough to succeed. You could be simply running in wrong direction. Therefore, "passion combined with deep-domain-expertise" is ESSENTIAL. Where Founders know that despite them knowing so many nuances - it may be a long run - could be a marathon - a roller coaster ride - challenging - that you may still fail - and hence you would always be open to learning new things - from others - all the time - and still stay positive and energetic. That is the hallmark of a resilient Founder's DNA - makings of a successful foundation. And then, secondly, and equally importantly - is that the Co-founders you choose - must come together for VALUES and not for mere complimentary skills. You know Power Point and I know Excel is not what you need - Are your deep core values and purpose aligned? https://lnkd.in/eSB9bqdE Best, Suresh

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As Dutch speakers, it’s unfortunate to see our language often overlooked in the development of open Large Language Models (LLMs).    To change this, Matthieu and I built ChocoLlama, a family of 6 Dutch LLMs based on Meta’s Llama. We’re excited to release all models on Hugging Face (https://lnkd.in/ePSzc6Yy), along with our paper (https://lnkd.in/espCMSfu).   Technical TL;DR: - We train Llama-2 on all Dutch data we could find (32B tokens). We find that LoRA scales well for language adaptation and modifying the tokenizer boosts performance.  - In the meantime, the new Llama-3 turned out to be better in Dutch than our Llama-2 adaptations– showing how hard it is to keep up in this field! - Repeating our method on Llama-3 yields limited returns, suggesting that more multilingual models may benefit more from posttraining than pretraining.    Big thanks to our co-authors (François REMY, Pieter Delobelle, Jens-Joris Decorte, Thomas Demeester) advisors (Els Lefever, Veronique Hoste, @Cédric Goemaere, Karel D'Oosterlinck, @Loic De Langhe, Pranaydeep Singh and Bram Vanroy) and industry partners who helped us expand our Dutch data (TechWolf, Jeroen Van Hautte 🐺, Bizzy, Hendrik Keeris and ML6 | Your partner in AI, Michiel De Koninck). And a special thanks to the VSC | Vlaams Supercomputer Centrum for extending us the grant making this project possible. It's amazing to see initiatives like this being supported in Flanders.

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Interesting post about the difference between the big upstarts in the US versus the EU. I think regulation is indeed one of the killers. I have been setting up some new startups in the Netherlands recently. Even before we set up an entity, I got nausea from the way the tax system works. Trying to tax 'value growth' of an early stage startup, making it practically impossible to transfer shares without paying taxes is not a great incentive. Another problem besides the regulations is the mindset of Europeans. I think we're simply lazier and more risk averse than the US. https://lnkd.in/gUjkrwPm

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