Diana Gaftea, CFA

Europe's tech market has some catching up to do. #eu #techmarket #technology #techcompanies #marketvalue #financing #growthcapital #scaleups #commercialisation

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Sharing a few thoughts from my annual migration for #SuperReturn #SuperVenture in Berlin. 1) This continues to be the best VC/LP/PE event annually. Many are at the conferences, and almost everyone has a representative in town. Any managers or LPs not in attendance should consider it next year. 2) The European emerging manager scene is on fire. I met with almost a dozen, some old friends, some new, all as sophisticated as their US counterparts with thoughtful strategies and impressive growing portfolios. 3) Europe lacks the concentration that SF provides the US. Many startup hubs, some larger, but everyone in Europe is spending way more time on planes than their US counterparts. 4) Nobody knows where the market is going, and fundraising has been tougher in the last 18 months than before, but most agree a lot of money is still being put into the venture ecosystem. That's resulting in a return to deal pace & valuation acceleration -- is FOMO back? TBD 5) In an ironic twist, there seems to be strong interest from US LPs in European managers, and from European LPs in US managers. What did you see? What interested you this year? Welcome thoughts. P.S. the conference logistics were tough this year. To all those that shared the burden, thank you. Let's hope next year is better. cc: Dale Chang Stephan Eberle Patrick Murphy Carmen Alfonso Rico 🍫Jaime Novoa Sebastian Blum Paul Pruijmboom Jasper Masemann Marie Schildt David York Lior Litwak Karey Barker Maximilian Claussen Ameer Awadiyeh Jonathan Heiliger Oana O. Philipp Moehring

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I couldn’t be prouder to be a Venture Partner at Isomer Capital (aka the best European FoF - at least for me) as we just announced the launch of our pioneering £100m secondaries fund. This fund is dedicated to acquiring stakes from LPs in various VC funds, tapping into a massive and largely unexplored market. 🌟 Key Highlights: - Focused Investment: Primarily targeting stakes in VC funds, with selective investments in private companies. - Robust Funding: Already over 20% funded, thanks to strong support from Nordic family offices and a German foundation. - Market Potential: With a growing number of private tech companies and a VC liquidity crunch, Europe's VC secondaries market is poised for rapid growth. - Track Record: This isn’t Isomer’s first foray into the secondaries market. As a firm we’ve done several secondaries deals with portfolio companies and VC firms, including early-stage VC Seedcamp (in 2021) and mobility giant Bolt (in 2023). - Expert Team: Welcoming the amazing Omolade (Rachel) A., formerly of Coller Capital, as a principal to lead this initiative. 💡 Investment Strategy: - 65-75% of the fund will buy "LP interest" stakes in VC funds. - 15-25% will be directed towards stakes in companies. - Up to 15% reserved for flexible investment opportunities. 📈 Looking Ahead: We're targeting returns of 2-3x, with significant distributions expected in the next 4-7 years. As one of the few players in this space, we're not just participating in the market—we're driving it forward. Read all about it here: https://lnkd.in/dc7sbC3G #VentureCapital #SecondariesFund #EuropeanVC

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"Getir: The Rise, Challenges, and Strategic Retreat of a Global Delivery Giant" Getir, founded in 2015 in Istanbul by Nazim Salur, skyrocketed to prominence by promising grocery delivery within 10 minutes. Its valuation soared to $11.8 billion, attracting investments from Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, and Mubadala Investment Co. However, after expanding into Europe and the US, its last known valuation plummeted to $2.5 billion. Despite its rapid growth, Getir faced internal conflicts over strategy, notably between its Turkish leadership and European managers. Disagreements arose over the feasibility of maintaining the 10-minute delivery promise and the profitability of selling bananas at heavily discounted prices, with some markets questioning the sustainability of such tactics. The acquisition of rival Gorillas further strained Getir's finances, leading to a cash burn rate of $50 million per month by summer 2023. This financial strain, coupled with a mass exodus of high-ranking staff, forced Getir to reassess its priorities. In response, Getir decided to exit international markets and focus on its core market of Turkey. Mubadala, alongside investor G Squared, injected up to $200 million in funding, contingent on meeting specific targets. This strategic retreat signifies a shift towards financial discipline and a return to Getir's roots, emphasizing its resilience and adaptability in a fiercely competitive industry.

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We are excited that Finom one of the leading fintech hyperscalers in Europe, decided to tackle bookkeeping and taxes by testing Norman’s embeddable solution. I’ve been wondering why the term hyperscalers is attributed only to large cloud service providers like Azure or AWS. Clearly, there is a cohort of fintech hyperscalers that design IT and business in a way that allows them to scale and grow across geographies, products, and sales channels. In core segments of banking and fintech, it is particularly hard because of regulation and other factors. Operational excellence and a particular mindset are a must-have for this category. The payout is huge, as leading fintech hyperscalers have already turned profitable while maintaining high growth levels or are heading in that direction, driving contribution margin and LTV to new highs. We are learning from the best, so Norman ‘s architecture envisions the build-out of multiple accounting and tax products for different cohorts and types of clients across geographies. If you share our vision and want to discuss our embeddable solutions and plans, please reach out to Peter. We are very excited to explore partnership opportunities as a key element of our GTM strategy. norman.finance https://lnkd.in/d2cF7eTa

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The profitability sanity test for VC-backed unprofitable cos. Ask this question: How much revenue would it take to be breakeven if: - gross margin % is held constant - all opex spend is held constant on a $ basis Is that revenue achievable with no additional cost? In the attached example, the company needs to grow revenues from $50,000,000 to $87,500,000 with no additional expense to be breakeven. That's $37,500,000 of incremental revenue with $0 of added expense. The question for this business is whether that's possible. If the gap seems too large, then to make the gap more attainable there are two levers: - increase gross margin % - reduce operating expense The best means to do that varies by business, but those are the two levers. And this needs to happen while the company is growing revenues. If the gap seems impossible, then you may have a fundamental business model issue that will make profitability a remote possibility. Of course, there are means in which companies can grow to achieve scale which will help with the profitability likelihood over time - but that will require outside capital which should never be treated as categorically attainable.

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The fall of seat based & the the rise of usage based pricing is a major trend in SaaS. Hear more about it from the experts at m3ter at Money20/20.

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As part of a recent #SaaSTalks session, I had the pleasure of speaking to two seasoned #GTM experts, Girish and Charanyan, and we had a very engaging discussion on GTM for SaaS firms focused on SMBs. Our discussion inspired me to put down a few thoughts of my own to guide startup founders venturing into the SMB space. If you’re a SaaS founder looking to get started on GTM, here are some suggestions! Arpit Maheshwari Sayantan Sarkar Naman Jain

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Great insights from Adam Agius on what to consider when raising debt for a search fund buyout. Most relevant to the UK market, but a worthwhile read for all searchers. There's more debt capital keen to support search acquisitions than ever before, but approaching it naively can be very costly...

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The Information broke the news of Ramp getting a 36% increase in valuation for a #fintech supported by Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures, providing a 36% increase from their last financing round. The fact that Keith Rabois led the round from his new firm at Khosla Ventures provides an incredible stamp of approval since I am sure the hurdle was that much higher, internally, to essentially double down on his legacy investment from Founders Fund. What do you think? #management #venturecapital #privateequity #fintech #capitalmarkets

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Time to step up Germany 🇩🇪 🇫🇷 Corporations have pledged to invest €15bn in France at the “Choose France” summit — an annual event held since 2018 to facilitate foreign investments in the country. A large chunk of the money will be dedicated to AI. Microsoft stole the show after announcing its largest investment in France to date, a €4bn cash envelope to build more data centres — and expand existing ones — across the country by the end of 2025. The focus is on increasing the capacity of GPUs, which are needed to run large AI models. Amazon also announced that it’ll invest €1.2bn to further develop its French cloud and AI infrastructure. Quantum computing was also on the agenda. IBM pledged to invest €45m to expand the company’s research efforts in France. Up to 50 quantum researchers and engineers will be recruited in the country in the next year.

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After 13 incredibly exciting years, my final days as the COO of jameda have passed – it was a blast! 🚀 It started with a super small team in a backyard in Munich City when doctor reviews were uncertain to be legal. We've gone through break-even, high margins while growing heavily, transformed to SaaS, underwent two super successful company sales, and merged with Docplanner while hyper-growing to >300 heads. Now, after the challenging merge with Docplanner is completed and the company is in the new setup, it's time for me to move on... So many changes, low- and highlights, so many learnings - way too much to summarize them here in any fancy list! Throughout this crazy journey, the most important aspect for me has always been the team and shareholders, so a big thanks to all the people who joined me on this trip, building a great company where people felt appreciated and valued. There are way too many people to thank for making that happen, but I want to mention a few here briefly: 👉 Dr. Florian Weiß: What should I say, love you, man! F&F forever. 👉 Dr. Philipp Goos: As a friend but also CEO of jameda back then, you convinced me with your passion and drive that jameda would be great for both of us. You were right - thanks for your trust, power, and commitment. 👉 Michael Nowak: Thanks for founding this company and being a friend for 13 years. I don't think either of us expected that we would make such a team. Thanks! 👉 Stefan Winners & Paul-Bernhard Kallen & Hubert Burda Media: Thanks for believing in this company when others had so many doubts, pushing, sparring, and developing. Missed our board meetings a bit! 👉 Mariusz Gralewski & Carlos Fernández Elviro & Docplanner: Thanks for believing in the company and me. I learned a lot in the last 2 years, thanks, guys! Docplanner is a great group with extraorinary, committed people aiming for one of the most important missions we have, no question we will be super successful - worldwide. I will watch closely! Again, thanks also to everyone I haven't mentioned here for making this journey happen 👊 Finally, I will now find some more time for my two sons while creating the future. For the moment: Mic Drop. Cheers

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In a recent Sifted article, I share thoughts on emerging managers esp. Solo-GPs, here's what I think 👇🏽 https://lnkd.in/eYx7h5Qv I’m a solo-GP building OpenseedVC, here’s what some think this means; 🔻That there is key-person risk 🔻That there is little accountability or governance 🔻That it is a one-person show Here’s what it ACTUALLY often means; 👇🏽 ✅ We've set up governance that foster accountability, not bureaucracy ✅ As a fund, we have a dizzying depth of complementary skillsets ✅ We build conviction and move quickly; critical for early stage ✅ We are process geniuses, automations and efficiency is in our DNA ✅ We have a lean, mean team optimised for high for efficiency There is no "founder-like fund" quite like a Solo-GP emerging manager. For us at OpenseedVC, we invest up to $150k at the angel stage, and are flexible. We can lead your angel round. We can follow if the terms work for us. We don't take board seats. Whatever it is, we are first investors in ambitious and experienced operators just as they start their technology companies! We are founders ourselves, and have parallel experiences to the most ambitious and resilient founders, and this is ultimately superpower 💥 Solo-GPs are outliers, and in the business of #VC #venturecapital, outliers signal potential for outsized opportunity. #operators #openseedvc #europe #africa #soloGPs

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📣 Focal powered by HSBC Innovation Banking, is back!   🚨 Applications for Focal’s S24 demo day are open to startups raising in the next 6 months.    It takes 7 minutes to apply at gofocal.vc, and even those who don’t make it to demo day can get introductions to over 250 leading VC fund partners, including Techstart Ventures LLP.   Last demo day alone, applicants received over 1600 introductions from investors🤘   #focal #startup #fundraising #vc #demoday

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Next stop – the US . Super week across Europe ! Sharing practices and strategies with my #Operatingpartner peers across other European #VC’s to add value to our portfolio . #RevenueAcceleration (TM) still the way to go . Planned the year ahread with some of our European based investments as well as the #EMEA leads of our portfolio companies to take advantage of the growth in greater #Europe and #MidEast market . Finding new #channelpartners for our portfolio to sell to more customers and topped off by portfolio presentations to customers as well as a fantastic #ciso leadership roundtable with Telstra Purple EMEA and our investments.  Why do I love #vc ?- joy in helping our #founders succeed and it also gave me a chance to spend a weekend with my UK family ❤️ after such a long time . #venturecapital #entrepreneurs #foundersupport #revenueacceleration #planestrainsandautombiles

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The latest update from the research team at Primal Capital explains the importance of wallets in the Web3 ecosystem and highlights the evolution of solutions in the market today. These solutions provide greater utility compared to the original Web3 wallets, which was simply to safeguard assets from centralized platforms.

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The #CrossBorder e-commerce surge in the UK is undeniable. I recently came across a study by Juniper Research predicting that by 2028, over $3.3 trillion in cross-border transactions are expected globally, a 107% increase from 2023. In fact cross-border transactions made up 17% of the UK's B2C e-commerce revenue in 2022 (Statista). And the number has only gone higher since. Brands and logistics players must gear up now to support this growth, especially with the upcoming peak sales season later this year. It's the right time to optimise logistics and cross border operations in terms of Cost and Delivery SLAs. In my view, when it comes to streamlining cross-border operations, the focus should be on: 1. Assessing the shipping network efficiency be it at lane, country, carrier, retailer or brand level 2. Uncovering operational bottlenecks 3. Identifying critical patterns in cross-border shipping From order and channel management to inventory and shipment tracking, what is required is an integrative system that helps resolve critical issues on time, bringing crystal clear visibility of performance in cross-border shipping. What are your thoughts on the growth of cross-border e-commerce in the UK? I’d love to know. #CrossBorder #UK #Ecommerce #Logistics #Retailers #Brands #SaaS #BusinessExpansion #AnchantoUK Anchanto Ali A. Mathilde Nyembo

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Interesting new surrvey about the VC industry by PitchBook: 13% of VC firms are not planning to raise a new fund and 27% of VC firms have been pushed further thier plans to raise a new fund. That means a 40% decline. No wonder that startups are haveing tough time to raise funds. See article below. https://lnkd.in/exYYyCPu

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