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We Surveyed 437 VCs: Here Are The Results...

We Surveyed 437 VCs: Here Are The Results...

According to our exclusive new report Inside The Minds of European VCs, 49% of investors say that a startup's management team is the most important factor when deciding whether or not to invest, and 42% of VCs have made a gut decision after their first meeting with a management team. And that's just scratching the surface of our findings from one of the largest-ever surveys of European investors.

  • 87% feel Europe is a fragmented ecosystem, with regional hubs and differing regulatory processes making investment increasingly complex
  • 76% are seeing more US investors on the ground
  • And 84% believe “unicorns” are overvalued

The report, complete with our Partner Andreas Schwarzenbrunner's key takeaways, is available here.

We also partnered with our friends at NEA, Index, Atomico, and Inventure to find out...

→ What Investors Really Want From A Startup Management Team

→ The Strengths and Challenges of the European Startup Ecosystem, according to NEA

What else is new?

Portfolio updates, job openings, and much more are below ⬇️

Have You Heard?

Our portfolio's latest funding announcements

MindsDB raises $25M to Power The AI Race In The Workplace

MindsDB equips virtually any developer to rapidly ship AI and machine learning applications - effectively transforming them into AI/ML Engineers. They can easily connect virtually any data source, from databases like Postgres, MongoDB, and Snowflake to applications like Salesforce and Gmail, with the latest AI innovations, such as OpenAI, Hugging Face, or LangChain.

Just four months after their $16.5M Series A led by Benchmark, this latest round, led by Mayfield, brings MindsDB's total funding to more than $50M.

Read the full story here

  • Prewave raises €18M Series A+ to become first end-to-end supply chain risk platform (techcrunch.com)

Welcome to the Family

The latest additions to our portfolio

Helping GreenTech SMEs Access Carbon Credit

Riverse is helping GreenTech SMEs in Europe access carbon credits 20x faster and at one-third of the cost. The Paris-based startup’s software digitizes the measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) process, helping industrial-focused SMEs access the voluntary carbon market and issue highly verifiable carbon credits.

Read more from Maddyness (French) and Tech.eu

  • Blocktorch is giving web3 engineering teams the tools they need to scale their dApps to millions of users (tech.eu)

Headlines & Highlights

News and updates from across our portfolio

planqc is awarded a €29 million contract from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to build and install a scalable neutral-atom quantum computer. This is the first sale of a digital quantum computer based on neutral atoms in Europe.

And, 8 of our portfolio companies (Billie, Candis, CELUS, Gitpod, Molecule, Schüttflix, TWAICE, and Upvest) are on Sifted’s list of 100 German startups and scaleups to watch in 2023, while 3 of our Austrian startups (Refurbed, Byrd, and Consola Finance) won EY Austrian Scaleup Awards!

Let's Dive Deeper

Exclusive insights from our sector experts, growth hacks for founders & investors, and in-depth conversations with our partners on the Speedinvest blog

Aspiring marketplace and platform entrepreneurs in emerging markets usually have no VC fund to turn to that has a team or practice specialized in network effects-driven business models.

On our blog, Philip Specht and Irene Gentili break down how our Marketplaces & Consumer investment team plans to help close this gap.

Read more on the blog

In the news

  • Oliver Holle shares insights on the Austrian tech ecosystem (Sifted)
  • Namratha Kothapalli dives into water tech and introduces startups trying to solve water scarcity (Maddyness UK)
  • Andreas Schwarzenbrunner comments on the more than $12.3B climate tech startups received in the last year (Handelsblatt, German)
  • Rick Hao explores the potential of vector databases (VentureBeat)
  • Maximilian Wilhelm discusses Edflex and Byju's recent rounds as well as the latest on GoStudent, CoachHub, Complori & Simbel (Startup Insider, German)
  • Estelle Botbol and Sophia Escheu share their experiences working with our startups and their top tips for landing your first job in VC (Sifted)

Who's Hiring?

There are more than 1,000 vacancies across our portfolio. Browse open jobs below and on our website.

Join the Speedinvest Team

Our team is always on the lookout for top-tier talent! Have a look at our featured roles below.

See you next month!