What were your biggest learnings as Partner at SURFnCode,Board Member at Hadean,Co Founder of Luminous Ventures and Mentor at Entrepreneur First?
I think the biggest takeaway throughout my tech career is that this sector (no matter whether you are a founder or VC) is not easy. For me, it’s all about the quality of the founder – rather than the idea – to increase the odds of outlier success (or big bang failure).
What were your biggest learnings at Citigroup and DailyInternship?
I would define my Investment Banking and entrepreneurial experiences as complementary. One could expect that the biggest learning from a banking experience would be related to modelling / financial analysis but personally I have learnt how to perform under pressure and prioritise tasks while covering a variety of business models and sub-sectors. On the other hand my experience as entrepreneur was substantially valuable, particularly in the context of my current role as a VC investor, to appreciate that (i) it’s okay to make mistakes: embrace them as a chance to grow and learn and (ii) you can’t be everywhere: the single most important thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to hire the right team and give them space to execute.
What inspired you to become a VC investor and was there a ‘lightbulb’ moment?
Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by the positive impact that tech can have on the world. I was initially more focused on the consumer side (e.g. When I was 13 I remember asking a few restaurants in my city to set up a website to help facilitate online deliveries) but over the years I realised that technology can improve not only our personal lives, but also companies’ performance and have an impact on the whole society. I am an extrovert by nature and when I discovered that there was a job allowing me to speak with ambitious entrepreneurs every day, develop your own thesis on a particular sector and contribute to transforming an industry, I went all-in.
What opportunities, threats and risks does the current economic downturn have for the fintech market?
We’ve come from a market that rewarded pure growth to a market which now values efficient growth, and clearly raising funds is becoming more challenging in the current macro-economic context. That being said, the traditional financial system is still inefficient, slow, often built on obsolete technology. Therefore, I believe there continues to be ample opportunity for founders to provide better products and customer experiences, especially in sectors such as B2B FinTech infrastructure, embedded finance, open insurance, payment analytics, climate fintech and so on.
What advice would you give to Founders looking to raise funds in the current climate and what Terms should they focus upon?
Founders are naturally wary of lower valuations in the current climate, but this market reset should not spook early stage businesses. For SMEs that are hopefully years off an exit, valuations are not the ultimate mark of success and should not be overly embellished. With future financing, valuations will likely increase, and an accurate number will reduce the likelihood of a later down-round.
Attracting financing is crucial for any startup looking to grow, but founders should also take the opportunity to carefully select investors who can help guide their business and realise their vision. It’s a two-way street.
What do you see as the key pitfalls that can sink a startup?
Let’s call out the elephant in the room. We may not officially be in a recession yet, but the market we’re operating in is incredibly different right now.
Over the past few months, we’ve seen hiring freezes and layoffs, as well as VC companies taking caution with where they put their cash and telling portfolio companies to find a “path to profitability”. Gone are the glory days of 2021 when valuations were sky-high, VC investment almost doubled and close to 600 new European unicorns were created (compared to just 167 in 2020).
But whilst some tech companies are making cutbacks, this won’t be the case for all.
It’s just over eight years since Angie, Andy and I set up Faculty.
From a kitchen table in 2014, to a team of over 250 amazing colleagues today – together helping companies use AI to solve their biggest problems. It’s been quite the journey.
How did Faculty start? Well, I was at Harvard when I learned about educational programmes helping people become data scientists.
The programmes are good for companies, for the world, and for PhD students – as it is hard to transition from academia into business.
My co-founder Raffi and I started Passionfruit in recognition of the fact that work isn’t working very well for people and businesses. This problem is felt acutely by the new generation of skilled knowledge workers. With many of them entering the workforce over the last few years, they have felt a misalignment between the needs of workers and organisations, which has worsened since the pandemic. And, while lockdown may be over, these new attitudes towards work/life balance are here to stay. And, combined with the fact that attracting, engaging and retaining the right talent remains as difficult as it has ever been, the companies that will succeed are those able to meet the demands of top talent.
The summer holidays are over and children have returned to school this week. But getting employees back to the office after 30 months of home or hybrid working is not as straightforward. Many bosses are increasingly keen to get employees back, concerned about preserving culture, encouraging collaboration, innovation – so critical to tech businesses – and networking and facilitating learning and development. And despite evidence of increased productivity, with many tech businesses thriving through the Covid-19 pandemic lock-downs, there remain some sceptics who express concerns that employees “pretend to work” from home. So what approach should employers take?
1. What were your biggest learnings at MarketInvoice?
The importance of attracting and retaining the top calibre talent and how the profile of that talent evolves as the company moves through different maturity stages from Seed to Growth. You may have the best and most cohesive founding team, but if you don’t manage to hire a capable team that you feel you can delegate to, your business will never scale, and as a founder, you will get bogged down in day-to-day operations and run a risk of missing the big picture. For some legs of your startup journey, you want fast-moving, fast-learning generalists whose biggest skill is getting sh** done. Eventually, as different functions across the organisation emerge, from sales to account management, customer success, product and engineering, you want to start hiring competent specialists who can take each of the functions to a whole new level of best practice. But if you bring them in too soon, when there’s still a little bit too much chaos, they will slow you down, frustrate your employees and leave quickly. This can undermine your reputation in the job market as other execs check how many senior people had short, unsuccessful stints inside your organisation – LinkedIn makes it very easy to see. A few mis-hires are fine, but it’s a number to keep an eye on.
“How well a system is designed must always be distinguished from how well it is funded; the NHS is quite well designed but under-provisioned. By contrast, the US healthcare system is richly funded but designed so that it maximizes waste, inefficiency, and inequity.”
The above quote is from a paper published back in 2003 by the US National Library of Medicine. Even though it’s almost twenty years old, the words are as true now as they were then.
I will start with a confession – I’m relatively new to the travel industry (with just 3 years under my belt) and whilst being a CEO in Travel, I still have lots to learn about what seems to be a fascinating industry. But I feel incredibly fortunate, as I am in the perfect place to do so – a fast paced and ever-evolving travel start-up, surrounded by a brilliant team of travel and subject matter experts.
