 Trying to get back to the basics of great products power comes from sharing information. I try to convince people to slow down Before we go to the episode here's a quick word from our sponsor cap chase Imagine that you could get access to the revenues you will generate in the next 12 months already today. What would it mean for you? Cap chase helps fast-growing recurring revenue companies finance growth without taking on debt or dilution Whether you want to invest in growth or R&D cap chase turns your predictable revenue into growth capital today Cap chase has helped founders unlock hundreds of millions in financing to fuel their growth and on average extend their runway by 8 months and Spared upwards of 16% dilution So go see how insanely easy it is by clicking the link in the show notes or go to cap chase comm slash slush to learn more Thanks, let's go to the episode Hello, hello listeners and viewers welcome back to the soak by slash podcast My name is William from the pollen next to me is a crowd. Yeah, I'm here and we're at the event So if you are tuning in on audio and you want to see some event wipes not that many event wipes Actually, we're in a cube at the moment, but it's a pretty cool cube. It's pretty nice cube It's very draggy and it's also pretty crazy like this is the slush podcast And we just do the slush podcast year-round and now we're finally at slush exactly kind of what this culminates in feels much better I'm here that you're doing it actually on the ground. No a second time actually we did one year Two years ago before use the corona break. Yeah, but then this setup is much better That was like very noisy and super hard to concentrate But hey, we'll introduce the third voice voice you already here. So today our guest is Robert. Welcome Thanks so much for having me great to be here guys great to have you As usual we tend to give the floor to our guests. So in your own words, who are you and and what what do you do? Yeah, thanks for having me. So I'm Rob founder of visionaries club and visionaries club is a Basically the venture capital fund that we would have always left there when we were still founders So we are all former founders that basically work with visionaries club And it's a 200 million Berlin based VC fund focusing on all the stage investments across Europe Pretty much structured as any other VC funds I think the main difference compared to other funds is that we only have very successful entrepreneurs as our investors So we have that unicorn founders like the founders of UI path skype hello fresh flicks bus So people have built great digital companies in the short time But also on the other side 20 family business entrepreneurs So people who are deeply rooted in the old economy and the reason why we've built the fund that way is that we've All been former entrepreneurs ourselves before and we think that Network and access is actually the most important maybe Ingredient that you can provide to start up companies to help them get their companies to the next stage And that's why we just built the whole ecosystem of visionaries club around these this this this idea and Also, we are in our heart if you look at Sebastian and myself who found a visionaries club We are founders that we get joy from working with entrepreneurs So we don't really see us that much as investors But more love being co entrepreneurs with founders at the early stage that we back So that's a little bit the idea of visionaries and I mean my my background long-term I don't want to bore you with please go story So I studied engineering and business first in Germany, which was very deep tech focused And I figured out I was more interested in technology and innovation management in general So I spent a lot of time in the UK and the US during university, which was a pleasure then Spent one and a half years with BCG which was interesting because the person talking me into BCG was you're on the founder of Flix bus, so he basically said hey don't start a company first join BCG And then you can still do it and then after six months they say okay. Goodbye. I'm doing flix bus now But he became a very close friend and is also part of visionaries and then I was again the mentor of Max fistman was a typical European family business entrepreneur So totally other side of entrepreneurship he narrated a hundred year old company with 12,000 employees But that was the trigger point basically when we figured out look There's no connect between old and new economy entrepreneurs in Europe And there is so much potential especially for B2B maybe to build something around this and we did it later But in the meantime, I left BCG started my own small company in the mobile space in 2014 Which I saw to Zalando the kind of asos of the rest of Europe and yeah, here we are now now turned VC Background story. There's a lot there. You said something very interesting. You said the idea behind a visionaries club There's this to be the perfect VC for founders different kind of VC that you would have wanted yourself and Then some people could say that the most important thing you can give to an entrepreneur as a VC is money But do you do you say do you disagree with this or do you say? What else is there now like there's more capital now than maybe ever out there? So that's maybe not the thing you can separate yourself with Exactly. I think you know this has Incredibly changed in the last two years because there has been a lot of money going into the ecosystem All the US funds come to Europe now Which is great for founders because suddenly you have more availability of capital a lot of new kids on the block like you know Harry with his 20 VC fund single GP funds like you let go you have guys like us you have I think an Incredible cohort of super angels now whether it's Daniel Ek who just led a hundred million series around in Helsing You have go home. You have tavey that I had on the panel yesterday. So first generation of Super-angels that can lead zeroes a beyonds themselves And I think for founders the question is you know if the money is available anyway I think the next question should be what is the smartest money? I can get all the most valuable money So I think that has really changed that maybe two or four years ago in Europe There wasn't that much capital so founder was happy when she or he had money to start the company I would take a totally different perspective now the money is available for any good founders So as a founder you better make sure you get the smartest money and the most relevant money and I think in the seed stage You know Having a network approach like we do or some other great funds or working with angels gives you Very smart money or gives you a lot more behind the money and I would say the money kind of commoditized If it's in the later stage, it's funny that things change exactly the other way around So a lot of our portfolio companies where there is already a strong fund on board So for example, if you take central, it's a company. I'm on the board with Luciana from Sequoia So the founder said look I got Sequoia. I got visionaries. I just want to have money now I don't need another person talking into my business. So they went for Tiger Global in the last round you all know how they work and Yeah, I think it's a lot of interesting things that have changed in the ecosystem Yeah, has the like the terms access and network have they changed during the years like if you look at well early days of Raising capital especially in Europe. I remember that as you said, they weren't that big rounds pre 2010 even pre 2015 It was not that usual now. You're seeing bigger and bigger rounds, but what is Has there been a similar like path for access and network? It does it kind of go hand-in-hand also with more exits coming out of Europe and more, you know entrepreneurs actually succeeding here Definitely, I think Look there I could give a two-hour answer to this because there are so many things that have changed in the last 12 months in a very positive way I think the one thing that has changed a lot is that there was a huge shift from consumer Internet to be to be founders in Europe if you just take the German ecosystem, it was focused focused a lot around Rocket Internet business school students starting companies that have been successful in the US if you look at now at the deal For more than 80% of deals in Germany I'd be to be founders from tech universities if you look at Salon is prison you or if you take you I path in book arrest So we have a generation of B2B founders that built global category leading companies and then the network becomes interesting because It's really the old economy that is becoming incredibly important for those companies because 90% of our economy are still family businesses And I think 95% are non-digital. So that's where you harvest the money in B2B 90% are not family businesses. No, no more than 80% of the number of companies in Europe are family businesses Okay, right and then I mean more than 95% are not in the digital space in terms of the number of companies So when you know you build a software as a service company, whether it's something like Mio's the loners or whatever Having access to this old economy networks as well early on to make sure you build the right product features you host your product on local servers and then having those Ingredients as well as something that I think should go into the ecosystem and is going more and more into the startup ecosystem on the other side when we look at the Digital founder value at I think having this generation of angels now that have built Successful B2B companies, whether it's you know, Hanoi is an angel investor Not only in our fund but also a lot of our portfolio companies are no renter also served by slash guest exactly of course So, you know, he's just gone through all the ups and downs of scaling such a company across Europe So it's so great for founders, you know when they scale out of Germany fans UK to speak to him or get some advice on how to Build the sales team how to build the customer success team and that's true for any kind of Company that you're building when when you build your RPA company speaking to Daniel from your iPod is amazing And I think Again, do your question the beginning if you have those people as angels and you get the smartness on top You can fasten your learning curve so much as a B2B founder and I think that's that's a huge asset and Overall, and sorry, I'm giving a very long answer about that was a very podcast right intense question and I think the other beauty is having all the US funds now Coming to Europe or like two years ago. No one was interested Europe I recall introducing auto one flicks bus all those companies when they were in the kind of Three-digit million valuations to yes, we season the world like our Europe come on Not interested and now suddenly sick oil but an office light speed founders fun and everyone and this builds an interesting bridge For European founders to move fast onto the US market to get this experience and learnings from those funds Get get the recruiting support on the ground and I think that's again an asset to think more global and think bigger Because that's a huge problem of European founders if you go to Paris or German cities they they think I'm already proud if I'm in the local newspaper or if I built a kind of a country here, but having this kind of NASDAQ IPO Vision like a UI path or like a Saloners or like a mural and the pre IPO is something that those funds bring into Europe So long story short, I think it has been an incredible 12 month for the European ecosystem in terms of smart money going into the ecosystem international money going into it and First generation of zero entrepreneurs that go back to university tell their story and really spark engineers to start companies So I guess the question is why you're up and why now? What's your take on that? And I think why you know why now it's One big thing is that this shift from consumer internet to B2B is happening globally So if you look at Silicon Valley and if you speak to the funds a lot of them say look We're sitting at our Santa road offices and the Stanford students that are pitching each day are getting more and more boring because we're Hearing the same ideas and not that many great B2B new ideas. So I think when you look at B2B ideas It's getting more decentralized where you find those companies So you don't just find them in Stanford Berkeley or in New York or Boston But if you just look at Europe your iPod is coming out of Bucharest then Central is coming out of Augsburg in Germany No one has heard about the city before and Taviat is coming out of you know the Nordics with wise so I think What what is happening is that there's a huge shift from consumer to B2B and that's where Europe can play much more significant role globally because We don't have a Google we don't have a Facebook We don't have an Amazon but we have something that no one else has all those global world market leaders That are family businesses that are basically the DNA of our European economy if you look at the French or German economy It's all those industrial companies that are a hundred or 200 years old and the beauty about this is Together they are kind of our Google in Europe because they are the biggest enablement for those B2B companies like a Salon is like a Presonio to really get the first traction and I think a great ground to Build global category leaders in an authentic way close to the industry and that's why I think my hypothesis is that a lot of US funds are heavily going into B2B because it's just at an inflection point and just starting to get as Exponential as consumer got 15 years ago And that's where maybe the European ecosystem can globally play the most important role compared to China or the US Yeah, I think it's that we've had quite a few of the Europe takes because it seems to be a hot potato at the moment Something that people talk about but I that's the first world like opinion on or The first person who mentions the the family businesses and all businesses as an opportunity and not kind of I say legacy cost or Something to get rid of so I think it's a refreshing Very it does sounds like a very sort of American Silicon Valley type of attitude like we we're coming here and disrupting everything I call of this and not seeing as a cooperative sort of transition Yeah, I think it's both and look if we look back you can always discuss is the glass of water half full or half empty I mean, yes, we've been incredibly slow in adapting technologies. Our industry has been Terrible in getting conviction on implementing new technologies and we you know It has been just 10 years that I went to university in Germany Sitting there with 2,000 engineering students and 1,999 of those students wanted to work for BMW Porsche because we never had a guest speaker They told the story of building a tech company But now 50% of those students immune Igor and want to start a company same here in Helsinki Same here in Helsinki And this is an incredible asset because we have such great tech universities in Europe whether it's Zurich whether it's you know the whole Cambridge Oxford London ecosystem and Or it's if it's a Helsinki the Nordics I mean there are there are such great tech universities and now we have a generation of students that starts companies and That's why I think we should rather take the optimistic perspective now Not always comparing us to Silicon Valley and what we missed in the last 15 years let's be self-confident and see what our strengths and Then I'm getting pretty self-confident because right now all the funds are coming over to Europe We have this great students. We have The enablement with all those family businesses and the beauty and here is the last quick statement on family businesses Why we have them also on board as investors as visionaries their entrepreneurs themselves from their DNA that means they can make fast decisions take risks think long-term and That makes them a much better and fast-moving sparing partner than listed companies where I gave up because they like They don't have the balls to make a decision that maybe pays off in 10 or 15 years But family business can some optimistic in the next two years That a lot of those family businesses are moving faster now A lot of them will continue to move slow, but let's see. Let's make them our Google. Yeah, no for sure I think it's a refreshing take what about the more nitty-gritty stuff say I'm a founder now I'm looking to to raise capital and I have a good idea and you know I I do some early research try to look at some funds have some talks and there's like a strong indication of interest How should I approach like thinking about the VC fit for my company? Yeah, just step-by-step Well, that's again a very Generic question. I think I'm giving you these two-hour questions We just pay for us. I think the biggest challenge for founders I always figure out also doing mentoring sessions here at slush is an incredible information a synergy between What kind of VCs and angels out there and and who can I get in touch with and also think challenges right now since There are so many people starting a company and you know market is moving so far So that VCs don't react to cold cold outreach emails, but I mean long story short as a founder I think the first thing you should think about is What is really the best partner when for your company and don't be hyped by anything? But try to find the alpha in an investor there can really make a difference at a certain stage So if I would start a company, I would raise the first round from angels that are really Convicted about my space that really convinced about what I'm building and that can give me this little more Tailwind and confidence in what I'm doing Because those people have gone through the entrepreneurial journey They they know your field and and then you can choose, you know Maybe from from a seed fund that you want to work with so if you're a software as a service company There are funds like 0.9 or a local globe or of course us don't want to advertise here that they have done Maybe some 50 60 or more than a hundred investments in that space So I think speaking to those partners is is great because they really know your space I Would be a little careful. It's a very active decision if you want to take a multi-stage fund brand in a seed round so What is happening in the market is of course since what we just discussed so much money is going into the market all the U.S Funds are coming over if your excel index or atomic or a sequer in Europe. It's not as cozy anymore as it was three years ago So since everyone is fighting for series a funds start to say well We need to go in seed because otherwise we lose the company if our competitor seats the company It's basically dips on it gone but that that leads to a tricky situation for founders because Suddenly they're confronted with trim sheets when they're raising a two three million round from an index and excel as a koa or point nine or local globe and and Angels and then making the right choice whether you want to go with a multi-stage fund set up whether you just want to go with angels and To be honest, there's no right or wrong. We love teaming up with both So we just did a deal with index last last week, which was a seat wrong where we teamed up We did another one with like alone So I think as a founder I would I would just make sure that you have a lot of thoughts and sparing with people that you trust Around this and make an active choice and don't rush it Take the time one two three four weeks really to make this decision because VCs in the current market are trying to be incredibly pushy and Pushing you to sign a term sheet and I think the more they push the less good typically they are because then they have Not have the confidence that they are good enough that the founder will even when when they spoke to all the funds choose it Doesn't that make sense or otherwise? Be more specific about something About that and this is about some of the other benefits you can you might get from a venture capitalist How what is the role of network and access these days and how does this play out? How should you think about that in terms of what VC you choose or yeah? I think as a you know also having been a former founder myself When you're a founder you have to solve an incredible amount of complexity because you're building a Company that is not there yet with a product that is not there yet Sometimes with a market that is not there yet and the team is also not there yet So you need to build everything from scratch and maybe do a hundred important decisions a day and the more Good input you get from connecting dots around you that are as smart as possible I think the better Decisions you can make it doesn't mean that people tell you what to do but if you do an AB testing And you take set up a where you have 110 out of 10 smart people with different backgrounds that you can ask for advice And in set up B You don't have those people then I think in set up a you have a better ground to make your decisions as a founder with All those complex decisions that can all be game-changing. That's why I think Having an investor that can provide network and access very focused on those challenges that you need to solve It's the best ingredient that you can get as a seed founder What this is very much depends on your company So if you're need advice on entrepreneurship in general, it's good to speak to people who've gone from seed series a Even to IPO if it's like a topic-based thing if you're in crypto or you need a certain Or if it's biotech and you need a certain vertical experience, it's great to have a person who can navigate you a little bit through this space so that's why That's why we've both visionaries just around this kind of diversity of very different entrepreneurs and we are more like matchmakers We don't have all the intelligence ourselves as partners And it's good that we don't have it because we just try to connect those people at the right point in time And and that's what I would opt for as a founder Switching things around as a VC we're also not just you know boy scouts and Just trying to wake the world better, but the reason why we have all those Angels from those different clusters on board as investors in our fund is that Europe is incredibly decentralized in terms of deal-sourcing in Silicon Valley Every founder just goes to Sanderoad and and done in Europe. You have the you have Helsinki or the Nordics Then you have Bucharest, then you have Berlin, then you have London So companies come out of everywhere and it's impossible if I don't speak like 15 languages and if I don't have 20 twins at least how should I source in those clusters? So the best thing for us is having a Daniel Dines in Bucharest who's having he's a role model there in the cluster He's a magnet for entrepreneurs We just did a deal together with Andre from Muro was scouted an incredible founder in Russia Where we would have never had the chance to get access and seated him together Then we we did a deal in the Nordics that the space maker guys introduced to us till it that we Seated last year with the sequelae and local globe and then we were doing the same in London So for us having those local angels is an incredible Saucing ground to get access and bridge this information in symmetry of who's actually there and and who do we want to back? But still I would say unfortunately we likely miss 95 percent or more of great founders because there's no way to To to get in touch right? Yeah, that's part of the game. I guess unfortunately Yeah, what about the personal relationship with with your VC? Say you raise a seed round or you have your maybe intro round and then then you do a seed round with one company How important it is to find? Well, it should be obviously quite important also to find and a good match within that fun to actually sink and and you can Somewhere you can work together with them and get along with I Think that's that's maybe the most important question that you're asking because if you're a founder The investor you choose it's it's even more important than a wedding because you can't get divorced say this Yeah, I think they're saying it because a lot of people have bad experience and It's worse than a wedding because you just can't get divorced that easy, right? And that's why I think it's the most important you might even talk to your Investor more than you talk to your partner. I hope that's But it happens I mean Someone said that too. That's not me. That's not me saying No, but very fair enough. I mean, it's if you're if you're so into it as a founder. I mean, that's You're so fascinated about it. But but look it's It is something where I think it's one of the most important choices in your life because it's the chance of your life the idea of your life and that's why I would never never never never compromise on this decision and really Take a lot of time to do it and the first thing to do is to do a lot of references on the investor that you want to work with So really try to speak to founders that have worked with as an investor before and really try to get a feel for the Alpha that this investor can bring and I think the most important thing is Really as simple as it sounds trust and integrity because as within a wedding if you trust each other And if there's a ten out of ten integrity between Founder and an investor relationship Then you can navigate through any ups and downs that you will have and you will have a lot of them And so that's why we always take this kind of Co-entrepreneur perspective. It doesn't mean we always have to be the best friends and drinking beer with our founders I mean we were doing it a lot luckily But I mean as a VC you should also be there to be controversy to pick a very direct feedback But if you have this trustful relationship, then you can do this and that's why I think as a as a founder I would select my investor a lot based on the personal Fit and feeling that you have do you want to work with such a person and that's even more important Maybe than track record or brand of an investor and maybe to warn all the founders About us as VCs as a cohort because we were terrible in a way that we're always advertising We are always having the best track record on earth the best network on earth We are always the greatest people and then Every VC tells the story But then it's a huge difference once the deal is signed who really works hard with the founder and Who just drops the pen and says look let's see how it goes And that's why I would do this references as a founder and having worked with a lot of other VCs I have an incredible respect for a lot of VC partners that I'm working on what level was that really work Day and night very very hard with their founders and only do very few investments But they're also a lot. I know that might have a really good brand, but just you know until the the deal is signed Founders speaks to all the amazing light our senior partners, and then they just put an associate in the board and then See how it goes Do those references then you can't do anything wrong because then you get the whole truth about a partner Yeah doing the due diligence in in reverse as well. It's probably a good idea I'm not just admiring admiring the brand It's like I remember I was in London once and then we met several investment banks and every bank had in their presentation That they're the number one investment bank in London everyone Yeah, but everyone had a different like way of looking at some survey from there some something there something there So it's about perspective. I guess but it's also a funny Correlation it's something super not public, but if you look at the Performance of venture capital funds and sometimes as a founder, maybe you get some access via references I think it correlates a lot with the quality how partners work and there's a quite a district between How some funds brand themselves and they are perceived and how really the performance is so some funds. I mean I don't want to Like push it around with names, but they're quite a lot of podcasty and super funds that are all over the place But they're just basically doing a lot of checks But don't have the capacity to really spend time with the founders and don't have such an amazing performance and some other funds Maybe that people don't know that well that have incredible Performance, but partners are more humble and really spend time with the founders So I think all things that I would try to consider as a founder It's not always the loudest one. That's the best one What one thing about the more sort of human relationship between the founder investor like is it is it? What do you think I know this can't be generalized because human relationships are very complex and they always They're as unique as there is every single separate relationship in the world But do you think? Is there a risk to be too close like when you involve professionalism in a friendly relationship and your risk of getting those things intertwined in a way in which When it's if hopefully not, but if it breaks it breaks hard. Do you think that's a risk? Or do you think in general of course you always have this risk if you get into a conflict of interest because you're a buddy and you're At the same time an investor, especially when you need to make hard decisions Personally, I think as long as you're Pretty clear and fact-based in the relationship with your founder I don't see this risk because you can make tough decisions and I mean I can just speak for myself having now invested in 60 B2B companies and I would say I have a great friendly relationship with a lot of founders Just take Hanon that you interviewed. We're investors in prison. You know, who couldn't be friends But he's also an investor in visionaries again, and we're having beers together. We're also great friends so we go skiing together, but Does that mean that if shit hits the fan or if tough decisions need to be made that We wouldn't make those decisions. I think that's what we put both respect in both directions So if there's a follow-on round and he tells me look It is just the setup that I can't take your full provider or there's like, please understand this I will look at it fact-based and I won't be personally. I won't take it personal and also the other way around and for me, this is the best most trustful relationship I can have with founders because they see me as a Co-entrepreneur that they can share everything with and where we solve the problems together But where I also make clear that I'll always be 100% honest with my feedback and they can take it But as long as the feedback is not personal but fact-based I think and I give a lot of very bad feedback like when I when I when I think it's right But founders normally really really like it because that's what they need or what triggers them to to make tough decisions And we're a little bit in a more easy situation with visionary since we're Typically not leading or preempting follow-on rounds. So we don't have a conflict of interest that we kind of need to Discuss valuations that much with founders. So we are more sitting in the same boat with founders which which means for example, if we Founder raises a series B series C round We are often the spreading partner doing the introductions to the other funds because they are we are more independent But I think that's the best relationship that we can Have with founders and I think it's the best that the founders can get from us but here's the one one little thing on top on VCs in general and Also our perspective being a seed investor or even an early growth investor for us. It's just about the upside It's really really not about the downside if we invest in 30 companies and we write off 29 It really really really doesn't matter if the one company is a personia or a deal or a Foto or whatever and that's that's something on the one-hand side incredibly opportunistic as a VC because It means you're not really there for the founders if really shit hits the fan I mean, of course, we're always supporting them, but but on the positive side. It means our key target is just to give any positive impact into the company that helps them and unlocking any positive development and That puts it into a different direction than private equity or of course also if you're a growth investor you invest 150 million and the company tanks you're a little more stressful situation to go through tough situations with the founder Visionary so and I think like on flip side that also makes it a bit easier maybe for the entrepreneur also mentally that okay I'm part of a cohort of companies and the fund is independent on me because most suck Most companies will fail like through the statistics and I think it's like a good thing to keep in mind that okay Even though you fail no one's gonna be like super mad at you or disappointed There's always a new chance to do something along the road I think in Finland we might have also a bit of this mindset that you can't fail That's why also a lot of people don't try the really big things that's changing now Obviously with with a lot of good companies coming out, but in general that mindset is quite prevalent here. You can't but it's really embarrassing Yes, yeah, which is not good. No, it's not good. You should be okay to fail That's an incredible terrible mindset, and it's something very European very Finland German kind of Mindset that you don't want to fail and we have to break it. We have to Also be more open about how do VCs invest how that it's just about the upside That's totally fine to fail and that also founders sharing more of their failures I think David from Zenda yesterday spoke a lot about yeah fairs because you always so to guest Yeah, you always talk about the incredible upsides area from from the outside. It always looks perfect, right? But from the inside, you don't want to know how many Companies failed and that that's why I had this discussion with Niklas, you know from atomico a year ago where we spoke about board seats and also about Companies failing and how we would deal with it and we came to the conclusion that we are there's no difference like if founders in our portfolio fail I love them as much as if they succeed because for me, it's just part of the game and is As long as the founder is an integrity person. Yes, and yes, I mean we're doing this together, right? And then let's let's let's attack the next company and and that's why we want to be Best friends if companies fail, but also if they go well But I think the worst thing to do is if company fails, they're not going to find a moral. Come on That sucks and that really stresses me. I think From if I look at my personal life Every failure was a source of even a so much better next decision. I'm so happy for every failure I had I didn't know that when I had the failure I was frustrated But each fail I had in life was a source of something so much better. We're looking back I'm happy that those failures happened and I think That should be the case for for any founder a lot of founders we back that failed just so much more resilient and Hungry to build the next company last question if you have time How far should you go with curating the VC setup? Say you then go to a stage where you you do an a round that's hard Probably maybe to raise from one company or at least be around you need at some point You're probably gonna have more than one investor in your company How much do you need to try to think about the curation between those investors? Is it typical for VCs to not get along and have like a very Conflicting interests and then then ending up to actually like hurting the founder. I Don't think so. So I think any good VC will take the ego out of the equation on the Founder bot left. Maybe not behind the scenes. I mean between funds. There's a Competition like like with soccer clubs, right? But if you take Barcelona in Madrid Of course if you take excelsic where all those kind of funds Yeah, they'll get the hug after the game or a stuff like a respect to each other, but exactly you'll do, of course Of course until winning the deal there There's a competition which is great for founders because it gives you a choice and then the funds need to work hard to build their brand But I've never seen and really never in our 60 investments on a board level or other investments that I heard of that those funds when they are in the board kind of take the ego into the board and That's also because it's not the VCs that make any decisions It's the founder that's in the driver seat and pretty often I also have the majority on the board and That's why I think it's healthy to have this competition in terms of the rounds indication look It's again. I think very much a question of the stage I think in the seed stage make an active decision as a founder whether you want to Go with the seed fund angel setup or whether you want to take a multi stage fund in the cap table So having a multi-stage fund means there might be some signalling risk for the series a That other funds say look if that fund is not preempting it then it can't be that great But it can also work incredibly well at other funds say oh this fund is already in so maybe you want to do it Other founders say look I want to be clean at series a and choose what big fund I want to have on board with a really big check and then I think the syndication angle is something It's it's a trade-off between on the one hand side I mean any dollar you have anyway if you get more smartness for the dollar then why not take more smart investors on board So having sometimes two funds can be great or having a little more location for angels because You exchange a dollar for more smartness So let's say you already have visionaries why should you get visionaries in the next round another extra allocation because they already have me as an investor So why not take another angel instead of my money? But that's trade-off between don't fragment your cap table with too many voices and people that make it difficult So I think that's again no right or wrong the the last thing is I would make sure that those funds that you work with do Conviction investment that it is a meaningful investment for their fund because otherwise it triggers opportunistic behavior For a partner if you take on board one of those large funds or whoever and they just have 5% ownership They will say look if it's going well. I'm spending time with you if not then it doesn't really mean anything to our fund But if it's a 15% ownership or a significant check They have to justify with the other partners why why it's going wrong or good and they have to bloody hard work with you So that's what I would make sure as well Thanks so much for this super enjoyable super good insights. Thanks for for joining the podcast Thank you so much for the questions and what's my pleasure Thank you, and thank you to the viewers and listeners. See you in the next episode again and take care Bye bye. Take care guys. Bye. Bye. Stay safe