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Interviews

Insights and updates from across the team
Interviews June 30, 2021

Sonia Nagar (Pritzker Group Venture Capital): Start building relationships with investors as soon as possible and build those relationships over the long term.

Sonia Nagar is Partner and VP at Pritzker Group Venture Capital. She founded a mobile shopping app called Pickie. After much success, the app was acquired by Retail Me Not, where she became the vice president of product and head of mobile apps for the coupon shopping site — and earned a Webby Award for Best Shopping App! Upon relocating to Chicago she was preemptively meeting with VCs about future potential investments when one thing led to another and she was offered a position that was too good to refuse. Today, she is the Vice President at Pritzker Group Venture Capital and is responsible for sourcing the firm's investments in consumer enterprise and emerging technology.

Interviews June 28, 2021

Christian Lassonde (Impression Ventures): We’re looking for businesses that have built version 1 of their technology, which works, and they had acquired their first customer.

Interviews June 22, 2021

Bilal Mekkaoui (JOBI Capital): To be a good VC you need the mindset that you have to help the business you're investing in, to help founders to achieve their goals.

Interviews June 10, 2021

Amy Coveny (Quake Capital Partners): The founder needs to have the right kind of emotional intelligence to sustain being a founder and getting through all of the trials and tribulations.

Interviews June 1, 2021

Bengt Walerud (Walerud Ventures): We like a startup to have technology that can create barriers to entry and superior skills among the founders, so they can do something unique that is hard to copy immediately.

Interviews May 25, 2021

Vikas Malhotra (StartUp Hub Poland): My first advice to the founders: Don't raise investment too early.

Interviews May 24, 2021

Stephan Morais (Indico Capital Partners): Entrepreneurs may not realize that this is a “Winner takes it all” game: you're either going to win the lottery or you're busted.

Interviews May 20, 2021

Don Rainey (Grotech Ventures ): The storytelling component is very important in the VC world, that’s how you identify what it is you seek to create.

Interviews May 14, 2021

Massimiliano Sulpizi (HSMI Corporate Advisory): I will never invest in a person from a rich family because entrepreneurs should have this hunger, a need to succeed.

Interviews May 12, 2021

Bas Rieter (Dutch Founders Fund): We are not always only sunshine and rainbow, because we are founders ourselves, we know how things are done, and we have walked that road.

Interviews April 30, 2021

Arnaud van der Wyck (Concrete Venture Capital): You can have 10 companies addressing a similar problem in the same competitive landscape, but ultimately you're making a bet on people.

Interviews April 28, 2021

John Frankel (ff Venture Capital): I would tell anyone who is thinking of starting a company: Think about this from the customer side.

Interviews April 26, 2021

David Lau-Kee (London Venture Partners): We want founders to be as well informed as they can about what matters to us and what matters to them in order to build a strong partnership.

Interviews April 9, 2021

Kate Batz (Longevity Capital): We are interested in 4 industries. The first 2 are Biology of Aging and Precision Medicine and Preventive Medicine. We are also interested in AgeTech and Longevity Related FinTech.

Interviews April 5, 2021

Guillaume Kloof (CreateStartupsHere): I would always prefer B2B model, but I may consider B2C startups if they already have a product-market fit.

Interviews March 25, 2021

Ulyana Shtybel (HighCastle Investments): We provide an all-in-one solution for private companies to raise capital, close a deal, and manage communication with shareholders.

Interviews March 23, 2021

Rob Kniaz (Hoxton Ventures): We are looking for companies that can be winners in the whole world.

Interviews March 10, 2021

Stuart Chapman (Draper Esprit): As a venture capitalist you're working with your entrepreneurs to help them to get into as many different positions to get lucky as you can.

Interviews March 1, 2021

Claudine Emeott (Salesforce Ventures): We invest with the same core strategy as other Salesforce Ventures funds, meaning that we're looking for enterprise software companies that can integrate their technologies with our platform

Interviews February 26, 2021

Greg Rice (Activate Media): We’re kind of unique since we run a startup studio, or incubator whenever you want to call it.

Interviews February 23, 2021

Nick Kingsbury (Amadeus Capital Partners): We are a DeepTech investor, so we do like things with solid IP and outstanding technical teams behind the product.

Interviews February 12, 2021

Kjetil Holmefjord (StartupLab Oslo): There are rules, but there are too many exceptions because working with startups is more about finding exceptions than following rules.

Interviews February 8, 2021

Andreas Goeldi (btov Partners): We believe that being a great salesperson is a great skill to have for the founder, but it’s not the only qualification we’re looking for.

Interviews January 22, 2021

Hanns-Peter Wiese (former GP at GLSV and owner of VIRETUM CONSULT): Now I advise Hi-Tech grown-ups and help them in refining their business plans, investor decks and fund raising.

Interviews January 21, 2021

Daniel Saunders (L Marks): Programs that we run are very much about identifying challenges and themes within organizations that are open to disruption