 Oh my God, so good to see so many people again in person. And I'm incredibly excited to look a little bit behind the scenes of Europe's Angel Mafia with you. And David Letterman would say, my next guest needs no introduction, but I'd still would love to do a very quick one. So big welcome, Sofia. You've been one of Europe's most active angels, but you have also started your career at Spotify being global marketing lead and then switched sides, basically working for Atomico as a partner. And very interesting, she built the Angel program at Atomico. So there's a lot of intersection between VCs and Angels working together. So great to have you here. And David, amazing to have you here as well. So you're number one at Skype, right? So the person who joined Skype first, and then founder of Wise, which has been one of Europe's greatest success stories, an incredible IPO this year. So big congrats. And you've gone through the whole journey as a founder. But now I think you're changing next year. So you're becoming a full-time Angel, so excited to learn more about this. So let's rock and roll and go into the discussion. And why is it so exciting to speak about Angels exactly at this time now? Because I think for the first time in 30 or 40 years, it's really the European VC ecosystem that is getting disrupted upside down. So we see a lot of US funds coming over. But I think one interesting thing is that we have the first cohort of super angels that can basically lead Series A or neurons themselves. So we've seen Daniel backing Helsing in 100 million Series A. And I was a little like, wow, OK, it's a single person. And so let's get into the discussion and maybe Sophia to start with. We spoke a little bit about the roles that Angels play in the VC ecosystem. Maybe you can elaborate a little bit how they fit into the VC ecosystem and what roles Angels actually play there. Yeah, no, sure. I mean, I think an Angel can play an incredibly important role in a company's journey. I think in the early days as a founder, when you're before backing from anyone, I think also just emotionally, having someone like a tablet who believes in you or us, I think that communicates something super important to them. So I think that's the kind of first thing. Someone is actually with you on this journey. Maybe that makes you realize that I actually need to build this company now. It's just an idea. And then of course, the sort of experience that other Angels have that they can share. So when I joined Spotify, I had no prior experience to doing something similar. And I think for me, it would have been extremely beneficial to talk to someone who had been on a growth journey like that. So sharing the insights, the lessons learned, and sort of the roller coaster it is to build a company. I think sometimes you maybe think that it's just you and that your company that is so crazy, but having then someone or a couple of people that can tell you, you know, this is normal, it's a bit of a roller coaster and it's a lot about sort of shutting down fires and surviving more or less and navigating the landscape. So I think Angels mostly, you know, play an important role as sort of a sounding board and a mentor, but then also of course, coaching when it comes to how to prepare for, you know, a seed round and also open doors and network. So I think access to data stage capital is so much easier if you have a well round of experienced Angels on board. What role does saucing play there because compared to the US or China, Europe is incredibly decentralized. So we're in Helsinki now, but then there are companies in Berlin, Eastern Europe, London, Paris, so many clusters that are so different, different languages. Is it that Angels also kind of do the groundwork early on and kind of give more transparency into what deals are interesting for VCs or? Sorry, repeat that question. If there are more local hubs within, Gels, what's that? Yeah, just on the, if I look at the saucing, if I'm a venture capital fund, it's so difficult to cover entire Europe because it's so decentralized. Okay, yeah, got it. Do Angels play like an important role, bringing up the deals that are maybe interesting into the VC ecosystem to just show them? Yes, I think definitely so. So normally when you see VCs covering a region, when they come into that region, they want to meet with interesting founders, but they normally also take time to drink coffee with prominent Angels in that area. And that is because they want to get a grip of what's going on and what are these people looking at. And I think if you have worked with someone and back the company and that person later on bets on a few companies, that's the perfect sort of source, deal source mechanism that you want to see. So I think Angels play a big role in that as well. They are kind of the bridge between the young generation founders and the later stage capital, I would say. Cool, thanks so much. David, I mean, you've been a founder yourself the last 12 years and I think you did a quote recently where you said, I completed my entrepreneurial dream and now you want to change being a full-time Angel next year, you already did 100 Angel investments, which is super impressive. What excites you to be an Angel full-time now and what will be your strategy to invest going forward? So I mean, for me, it took 10 years to build one iconic company in Europe. 2010, when me and Christopher were getting started, we just literally had a dream of doing something better. And now it's taken us 10, 11 years from launching the company, not knowing what we're doing, to scaling it really quickly realizing that it's ours to win and this year we took the company public and it's been an amazing 10-year journey and literally say entrepreneurial journey full circle and kind of fulfilled the dream in that sense. But it's 10 years for one company. So now in the next 10 years, I'd love to see how can I help 100 or 1000 companies. And I think there's like to me, there's so many ways you can kind of cut being an Angel. Is it check size? Is it experience? So most important thing for me is actually bringing your own experience. You want people supporting you who have real scar tissue. Scar tissue comes from being a founder and there is stuff happening all the time. Or scar tissue comes if you're an early operator in a business, if you are there within the first few dozens of people and you end up building up one significant part of the company, you have lots of scar tissue. And so if you're a founder who is raising money, so who do you want the money from? Somebody who's got serious scar tissue or someone who spends their life looking at spreadsheets. That's something I would be super excited to touch down on. You spoke a little bit about personal experience as a founder where you've gone, I guess, through so many ups and downs, highs and lows that you can now basically give experience to founders. What lesson did you have to learn the hardware in the last 10 years? Like what was the lesson where you thought, oh my God, that was something I really had to learn the hardware myself. I mean, I think what is the old saying is that the smart person learns from other people mistakes and the less smart one doesn't learn from their own mistakes. And I think when it comes to founders, they're usually pretty smart, but also pretty stubborn. So many times you do need to make lots of mistakes. But I think the question is a little bit about kind of, it's about training your kind of, your getting your body to act without thinking. And for that you need to bump against the wall a few times. And only then your body is trained to do these things right. I think everyone needs to go through a few of these cycles. Like you hire the wrong person. It's a question is how quickly do you fire them. It's really, it's not about the mistakes, it's about how quickly can you learn from these mistakes and how quickly can you correct it. You know, even at a later stage in a business, you still need to make mistakes. Because mistakes oftentimes correlate to risk. You don't need to make the stupid ones, like you still need to take risks. And the question is the speed of the cycle. That's what makes all the difference in the end. And if you look into backing new founders, what things are important for you. So when you speak to a new founder and given all the learnings that you've done in the last 10 years, what one, two, three things are most important for you that you want to see in a founder to say, hey, I'm backing you and I'm believing in you. So first thing was actually really important is why someone's starting a company. You know, what's ours that they want to spend the next 10 years of their life fixing this particular thing in the world? You know, I think, you know, unfortunately too often it's about the wrong reasons. And I'm not saying that me or anyone is really good at figuring out the wrong reasons. And the wrong reasons might also create for good outcomes. But if we're talking about the really iconic companies that we all want to see built, I think there's something about the founders having an attachment to the problem and then figuring out like, hey, I'm actually happy to go in the trenches for 10 years and I'm gonna get shot at. I'm gonna be shot at the future. And often also having experienced a problem themselves because then they're the best person solving it. Agree. I mean, I think there's multiple ways. Like one, the very classic way is you go and solve your own problem. I think there are other equally valid ways of starting it but that's a very good one. That's how we started it twice. But you know, it's about attachment to the problem and then it's about does that person and team to have the grit because the journey is not easy. Cool. Thanks so much. And maybe Sophia, since you explained a little bit the VC ecosystem, how they work with the angels. I think many founders here don't know that VCs sometimes have very professional programs actually formally engaging with the angels and those programs are very different. So some VCs make it public. I think you built the Atomico Angel program which is basically a public program having a lot of angels involved. Some do it more James Bond MI6 style so they have a secret kind of force of angels that they work with and those angels deploy the capital under their own name but then it's sometimes the money of a fund. Could you maybe explain a little bit those programs that you know and also your experience from building the Atomico program and then I would love to get both of your takes what you think about such programs and what advice you would give a founder if you have one of those angels that wants to invest in your company? Yeah, sure. No, so I think you build a long-term relationship when you're investing in someone's company either if you're an angel or a VC and I think that relationship is gonna thrive if you're honest and transparent with where money is coming from and who you are and what you can offer. And especially today, there's so much money in the market you need to be really clear with sort of what you bring to the table. So if you ask me, I think it makes a lot of sense to be transparent and have a program that is open. Also the purpose with the Atomico Angel program was to unlock the next generation of angel investors and actually sort of inspire people that maybe themselves hadn't thought about starting to angel invest but actually with our program get that sort of little kick in the butt to actually get going and here's the sort of structure and a format and a group of peers that you can discuss with and also professionals at the VC firm that you can bounce ideas with and pick brains on. So for me, that was massively inspiring. I, you know, having been an angel since I did my first investment, 2012 I've been on many cap tables I've done 52 angel investments and 53% are female lead. 52, wow. But I'm most proud of that 53% are female lead but on most of those cap tables there has not been many women. I mean, many times just me. So when I kind of started talking about this it was also coming from a point of frustration. Like I got so much out of angel investing for me it was also an opportunity to learn from the best. So when you back someone you have probably identified that this person is the front runner in this sector, in this field. And if someone is gonna make something great out of this it's this person. So for me, having access to those persons was also a way to sort of learn from the best at the time. Like it was a lot of years that I was building Spotify. I can't just lean on that experience. I wanna learn from the best of the best that are building companies today. So for me it was such a positive experience both from a relationship perspective, from a financial perspective and also kind of a track record perspective. So I think for me building my own portfolio was a way to get into the world of becoming a professional VC. And therefore I just wanted to encourage more people to do it. Obviously it's hard if you don't have money and I normally say you should never invest money that you cannot live without. But as me and Tavett said, today you can invest like a five K ticket and that's doable and you can get access to then a whole ecosystem of founders and employees. So I think it's a great way to educate yourself and have fun and work with people that are about to change the world. Meanwhile, building out your investment portfolio and if you wanna go into VC that is a great sort of starting point. And when it comes to the angel programs I'm a big fan of the sort of transparent version. And I think it is a bit tricky if you're not transparent with where the money is coming from because it can generate problems further down the road. So better to sort of manage the expectations and be fully transparent and honest with how things are. But that's amazing to hear. If I should allow me an interpretation you really found your sweet spot where you wake up on a Monday morning you love what you do because you can, with being a partner at Cherry, back teams from really pre-seed, to series A and actually act a little bit like an angel, right? And with some of the investments that you do. Yeah, no, I think I have the best job in the world. It's a ton of fun doing what we do. And mainly because you get to meet the people that are building the next generation global winners. Tave, what's your take on those angel programs that are kind of formalized by venture capital funds? Because something that I often hear from founders is, you know, I mean, whether it's a Sequoia Scout or Excel Scout or whether it's public, non-public. Is there a signaling risk associated to it? Because once you have one of those angel scouts in your seed round and if the fund behind it doesn't pre-empt the A round, does it already signal to the other funds, hmm, maybe can't be such a great deal or is this too detailed looking into this? What would be your advice to a founder? So I'm actually really inspired by the angles that we're doing is to grow more angels in Europe. I'm very long on Europe and there are not enough angel investors in Europe. So we need to think about what are the ways that we can kind of grow the next generation of angels. So I think that's great. And I know that Nicholas is a huge believer in Europe and he thinks a lot about how do we build the ecosystem because it actually helps him and helps everyone else equally well. But when it comes to the angel programs, I'm a bit more skeptical in general, the angel or scout programs, you know, essentially we have three parties to a typical angel program. There is a company that's investing, there is the angel and there's the VC. The VC obviously wins, you know, they get in early, they get more information, no-brainer. The angel, also getting a good deal, depending on the terms of the deal, they may get free money from the VC as they can invest and they keep the upside, you know, they're a different way of structuring. I'm not so sure that the company wins in the end because that angel, if the angel wanted to invest, they could invest their own money. Why does it need to be either undercover or publicly with a venture firm flag? So non-public ones, I think are really bad, you know. There is the question of transparency. So we were, of the James Bond angels, or always ask if it's their own money or whose money it is. I think that is super important and I would actually love to see it in the round documentation that everybody has to vouch for the sorts of funds in that sense. But like, there's a whole question of signalling and value add and not like, I prefer it in a much more clean way. Like, if you're fundraising, you wanna pick people who are appropriate for this round. So if it's an angel round, then you get into a bunch of angel. It doesn't make sense to take one VC into an angel round full stop. Whether that's through an angel program or not, you know, if you're building a great company, some investors outside will come looking for you. And if you're building a not great company, then having an angel in you isn't having an angel, having a scout program angel doesn't help you either. So I'm much more for a kind of clean approach and that's avoids the signalling questions. Make sure you get people who are appropriate for the sage of the business, you know, including with VC. If you have a VC with a mega fund wants to invest in a seed stage, there's no benefit for you in it. You know, what you should do as a founder is, you should tell the VC, sorry, I'm not taking your money now, but if you're nice to me over the next 12 months, we talk to you then and you're gonna get much more value out of them this way because then they're dying to prove their worth because they're all have huge value add programs. So they should be directing these value add programs towards the companies who wanna invest in the next round and you can squeeze much more out of them if you don't take them with a small ticket. That's super insightful and maybe we go down on the angel layer only again. Since you've both been incredibly experienced angels, done more than 200 deals, I think if I take your aggregate portfolio, how do you get access to those deals and what happens behind the scenes because a lot of founders I speak to are surprised that so many people see the pitch deck that they don't know about because everyone speaks about everyone behind the scenes. So I would be super curious, what people do you trust your network with to get access to deals? And once you look into deals, how do you share them maybe with angel syndicates or other people or don't you share deals or what's your kind of approach there? I mean, I think it's a combination but what I didn't realize before coming into venture was that it's such a relationship driven industry or business. So for me, it's been, you back one founder and they're happy with you, then that person spread the word in his or hers network and then there's a sort of a flywheel happening and same thing with angels. Like if you find angels that you share interests with then maybe sector, you look at the same sectors in geography and stage, it's very, it's fun and great to the deals with people that you respect and know have the relevant background, et cetera. So I think it's a mix of getting a WhatsApp with like, oh, you should look at this company and then someone pinging you on Twitter, sort of totally foreign, but they do something and they have sort of read up upon what I'm interested in and then creates a little snippet on why I should be interested in looking at this company. So I think- What's the fastest decision you ever made into backing a founder? Oh, good question. I think it's probably like in 24 hours. 24 hours, wow, that's fast. So I don't know how long Slash is going but I think there's still tomorrow. So you're free to pitch this over here. Tav, what's your behind the scenes networking? How do you find those deals? Do you just have a full inbox of people that share buy now, pay later and all those kinds of deals with you or do you have people that you trust to get this access? I mean, I think it is, a lot of this is about recommendations. So it's about the best founders that end up networking with each other and it's a question of like, hey, I'm raising around who should I speak to? So I think, as was said, like it's a recommendation network-based which makes it hard for new founders to get in which is something we should consciously think about. Like how do we find people who maybe don't have an into the classic founder network? So I think that's something which is actually quite important from a diversity point of views that we need to go and look for these people who don't fit into these circles but a lot of this goes through recommendations and if a founder says, hey, like, David's been a fantastic, fantastic supporter you should speak to him then that's how the information moves. But I think then, you know, when it comes to, you know, how do you get around together and who do you share it with? You know, you should really be starting this from an entrepreneur and company viewpoint. Like what's the best deal for this company? Sometimes the best deal for a company is money in the bank very quickly. Say no, what they need to build. They're just lacking financial resources to continue executing. That's fine. In that case, it's about get this done very quickly. In other case, it's about, hey, like, we're still kind of zigzagging, looking for product market fit. Let's add someone who's great at operations. Like we're doing some kind of a delivery service. So like, okay, let's go get the vault guys involved. It's really should start with like, what's best for the founder and company? What kind of support they need? And I think, you know, as a founder, you should think of this as, you are building a network around you. You know, when we raised the first round for WISE in 2011, like, I kind of had like a 360 degree map in front of me. Like, I want someone who knows a lot about banking. You know, for that, you know, we took Mickey Malka, who's built the couple banks in South America, who's now become with Rubik Capitola, one of the best FinTech investors in the world. Back then, he was still an angel. Like, really, okay, who knows about marketing? We kind of built this map. And I knew that I don't know which of these people I will need at what point, because I don't know which problems I will run into. And there were some people in that list who we probably never really interacted with. That's fine. But there are some people who were incredibly helpful. And you don't quite know when it's going to happen. And actually in the same way, we kept on adding people pretty much every round. When we raised a series C from Andreessen Horowitz, then we added Vikram Pandit, who was XC of Citibank Citigroup, and XC of Thomson Reuters. We added them as angels at series C. But again, like, these people can be helpful, so why not let them put their own money in the game so you can reach out to them? So I do think you should be adding angels continuously, but you should, like, think about it with a company viewpoint. Like, what does this founder need? That's super exciting, because I think takeaway for you as founders is you don't just get the angel and the personal experience, but you get the whole network around this angel, which can be at different stages, very different in impact, but I think something super important. I'd like to make a bold move and basically go away from angels as a feeder for VC fans, but basically comparing them a little bit. So I think one tricky thing about European VC, and I consider myself to be in the same camp, is that we're a little linear and boring in the way we invest. And maybe a little mathematical, because we're going into B2B SaaS models, we look into numbers, we look into scale-ups, but if we look at the really, let's say, more frontier technology topics like BioNTech, where the Stringman Brothers did a 130 million seed round in 2008 at the top of the financial crisis, or we look into Helsing, where Daniel just did a 100 million series A round. What I would love to discuss with you on the one-hand side, Time Horizon, so venture capital funds typically have a 10-year time horizon. And is this really long enough today to bring out those amazing companies? So it took you 10 years, 11 years to go public, but if we look at some of the frontier tech companies, it takes 15, 20 years. So is it really enough to have a 10-year horizon and would love to get your thought because you're investing out of an evergreen structure where you say, hey, whether it's 15, 20 years, you give the founders the time to just thrive the way they want to thrive. And the second thing is, will there be maybe more angels as better partners for founders when it's about those really bold, technology-driven investments where not many European VC funds are really that active? So, sorry, long question, but what do you think about timeline to invest and also the match of angels versus VCs for those very different topics? Cool, yeah. Maybe I can just start two cents on the angels versus VCs. I think it's all about the mix. So depending on what phase you're in, you're gonna need different type of people and advisors. And if you go with founders that are actively building their own company, they're gonna have very little time. If you go with the angel that have been a founder that now have freed up time, you're gonna get access to someone much more. So I think it's good to make sure that you have a variety of people that can actively engage so that you don't have the big names but no one can actually sit down an hour and meet up. And I think a combination of angels and funds are still the best setup. I think it's super interesting what's going on with the sort of timeframe of things. And I think a lot will happen there. I think for some of the family offices that we work with, that is one of the sort of upsides for them. They can pitch themselves as the sort of long-term investor without compromising the health of the company and their timeline because of their fund cycles. I mean, in a way, the founder should be set up to build his company in his pace and in his way rather than optimizing for fund-raising or cycles coming with that. So I think in the end of the day it's the entrepreneur's market. He or she is the one building the company and I think the investor should be able to be more flexible. And I think that's what we're seeing now in the market with more growth investments happening and people want to double down on the winners longer, et cetera. It's interesting that funds also change. If we look at Sikoria, they've just introduced this holding structure on top of the funds where they can say, okay, we can basically stay in as long as we want and maybe build like a, I don't want to call it Berkschei. I have a way 2.0, but it's an incredible idea if we look at NASDAQ, Tech Index, how they've performed over the last 20 years, having maybe a more long-term thinking in our tech ecosystem also on the investment side. But what's your take, Tavit? First of all, a reflection on what we said before and if we're getting the angels involved and getting the mix involved, I think as a founder, what you should do is think about what is the SLA with all of the angels. Like figure out that, hey, if someone says, I'm investing because I'm going to help you, then I agree that, hey, we're going to do a call one hour a month because we're actually going through these things. Or with other people, be clear that, hey, there's no expectation today, but I might want to reach out to you for this or this. But I think the SLA part is really important because too often you see these super party rounds of 25 angels and sending, you know, everyone does 25 deals on every six months and then they have no time for anything. I've tried to take a global angel model when you just have a playbook, take a look. I've tried to be clear on that like when I was head over heels running transfer-wise. And like pretty much what I told angel deals I did, I said, hey, I'm building my company, I'm busy so we shouldn't be having coffee. But I give you the license to call me if there's something I can help you because I'm a couple years ahead of you. Now when I'm doing certain deals, I'm agreeing a very different SLA, again, depending on what's the company needs. But switching to the kind of the duration question, it seems to me there's something that very much resonates with entrepreneurs that even tells them, hey, my capital has no time limits. That seems to be something that people really like because it does take a long time to build companies, especially if we go to more frontier deep tech areas. It does take a long time. It may take more capital than we think so. That seems to be one important thing. But I think there's probably one other side to this coin as well, which is really about having skin in the game. I think angel investing is their own money. There is very much the skin in the game element. Versus, if we look at the venture funds, the investment decisions sometimes get taken by people who have no skin in the game. I think that's also one pretty big difference and it's great to have a question of aligning yourself very closely with the founders. Hey, this is my personal money. I was an entrepreneur just like you. I was lucky and now I'm putting skin in the game or even probably even more important is if you look at someone who hasn't been a founder but has been an employee, has made some money through stock options and they probably have less money. But for them to say, hey, I'm actually, 10,000 is a lot of money for me. I'm gonna invest that as an entrepreneur. You should be stupid not to take that because that is so much skin in the game from that person. So I think like skin in the game and duration seem to be quite important. Speaking about skin in the game, maybe one last disruptive question. What idea that you saw maybe in the last 12 months is an idea where you wish you had it yourself that you fell in love with if there is one? I mean, many probably. My sort of a little sense check thing is when I meet a team, the energy and the vibe and the culture that they have created, if I feel like, wow, this is amazing energy in this office, I could definitely see myself go to work here. That for me is a little, you know, a good test question. And I met a lot of teams that are on fire and are having so much fun and you can almost touch the energy. Like that's a good sign. Cool, so you're a cool entrepreneur there again. As a founder, you have always a tendency to think like, hey, I want to do this, but you need to remember about the grass is always greener on the other side. You know, if you're a founder, you're like, oh, this is so hard. If you're not like, I wish I was running a company again. So I think I've made the mental shift of not trying to think about that anymore. But I think the area which is exciting and makes me think I want to do something is anything around kind of climate and energy. I think that the energy transition that we're going to see in the next 10, 20 years, I think it's going to be a huge market for so many companies. So, you know, it's a great way where you can kind of combine doing investing with having a real impact and combining these two in one go. And I think there's going to be so many exciting companies built in this area over the next decade. I love this because I think when we look at all those energy and carbon topics, it's something where I think in Europe, we're in such an amazing position to build global category leaders and to be a front mover where I think a lot of tech topics, you know, we've always said we're behind, we're slower than Silicon Valley and we kind of lost a lot of traction. But I think when it's about climate tech, if you look at politics, regulatory environment, it's something where we can really be a front runner globally. And I think things start to happen. So I would love to continue for another two, three, four, five hours. But thank you so much. Those were amazing insights. I hope you guys got a little sneak peek behind the scenes of Europe's Angel Mafia. And thanks so much for listening and, yeah, wrong roll. Hopefully we can, maybe VC fans are not needed anymore in five or 10 years because angels are covering this even full-time. Thanks so much. Thank you so much.