Venture Europe: Entrepreneurship | Technology | Venture Capital | Eu/Acc

Calin Fabri | Entrepreneur | Advisor

personal conversations with the entrepreneurs and investors creating a future worth getting excited about

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20 episodes
Updated July 10

Episodes20

Newest first

July 10 · 59 min
Aleksander Larsen - The asymmetric war with drones, Building a defense-tech company from Norway, Learnings from $620M North-Korea Hack
He co-founded a company that hit a $3B valuation, then watched hackers steal $620M from it. That experience changed how Aleksander Larsen thinks about security, and it sent him somewhere almost no crypto founder goes next: defence. In this episode I sit down with Aleksander Larsen, co-founder and CEO of Stendr, the Oslo company building AI-driven interception systems for a sovereign Europe. Before Stendr he spent seven years as COO of Sky Mavis, scaling Axie Infinity into one of the most-traded games in the world. We get into the full arc: what it takes to run infrastructure serving millions of users, why the Ronin hack became the turning point, and how a gaming founder ends up building hardware for the modern battlefield. We also talk about why Europe can no longer outsource its defence, and what it means to build a Nordic defence prime from a standing start. Norway shares one of NATO's longest borders with Russia. Aleksander thinks that geography is a feature, not a footnote.
June 11 · 50 min
Sebastian Mallaby - How did the AGI war start and who will win?
Sebastian Mallaby is the author of the instant New York Times bestseller: The Infinity Machine - Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence. He negotiated unprecedented access to DeepMind in November 2022 , a week before ChatGPT launched. He spent 30+ hours in a pub with Demis Hassabis. He interviewed Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Mustafa Suleyman and Geoffrey Hinton among 100 people in AI. He's the Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. A two-time Pulitzer finalist. The author of The Power Law and More Money Than God. In this episode we discuss: ⚔️ The moment ChatGPT launched and Demis told him “they parked the tanks on my lawn” 📉 Why OpenAI has a 50% chance of failing by the middle of next year 🇪🇺 Why Bezos is opening an AI office in King's Cross and why the time to bet on Europe is now 💰 The $1 billion offer from Reid Hoffman to spin DeepMind out of Google 🚪 The Elon Musk, LA closet Skype call, that almost stopped the Google sale 🔥 Who we should actually trust with superintelligence
May 7 · 43 min
Chaz Englander - 3x founder looking to build $1T company, FT Partners leading the $75m round, learnings and mistakes that others should learn from
Chaz Englander is the Co-founder of Model ML an agentic AI platform used by 8 of the top 10 European banks, 3 of the big 4 consultancies, and tier-1 asset managers across Europe and the US. He's previously built and exited two companies: Fat Lama (peer-to-peer rental marketplace) and Fancy (sold to goPuff). Model ML has raised $100M+ from Y Combinator, LocalGlobe and QED and the last round was led by by Steve McLaughlin of FT Partners - arguably the most influential dealmaker in fintech. Chaz Englander is the Co-founder of Model ML an agentic AI platform used by 8 of the top 10 European banks, 3 of the big 4 consultancies, and tier-1 asset managers across Europe and the US. He's previously built and exited two companies: Fat Lama (peer-to-peer rental marketplace) and Fancy (sold to goPuff). Model ML has raised $100M+ from Y Combinator, LocalGlobe and QED and the last round was led by by Steve McLaughlin of FT Partners — the most influential dealmaker in fintech. This conversation covers how AI is dismantling the analyst function in investment banking, why escape velocity is the only real moat in 2026 and why ARR is a vanity metric. Enjoy!
April 30 · 38 min
Diyala D'Aveni - Meeting John (Agneli Dynasty behind Fiat, Ferrari, Juventus), Investing in Italian Founders with an Idea, Organizing Wave 2026 with speakers like Dario Amodei and Jony Ive
🇮🇹 Dyiala D'Aveni is the CEO of Vento, the fund backing Italian founders worldwide. Vento is fully backed by Exor, the fund behind legendary companies like Ferrari, Juventus and The Economist. They are also the organisers of Wave, the event bringing world class speakers like Dario Amodei, Jeff Bezos, Jensen Huang and Jony Ive to Italy and transforming the Italian and European ecosystems more broadly.
April 16 · 41 min
Thomas Cuvelier - The Samwer's Brothers, Investing at early-stage, The art of learning, What every VC wants to see, Why mediocrity is dead
Thomas Cuvelier is a Partner at RTP Global, the $1B early-stage fund investing globally across Europe, US, and India. RTP Global was built on the back of one outsized bet: Datadog — a few million dollars turned into a fund-defining outcome. Thomas has invested in Lovable (pre-seed), Next Insurance, Creative Fabrica, and Stoic, among others. In this episode we discuss: Why SaaS is not dead — but mediocrity is Why first-mover advantage is gone and what actually creates a moat in 2026 How to assess founder quality before there's a product The buy vs build equation in the age of AI Where Thomas is placing his bets in the next 5 years: robotics, pharma, industrials Enjoy!
March 8 · 41 min
Paul Murphy - Platform VS Application Layer, Learnings from Microsoft, How to Print Money with AI, The gift for Europe
Paul Murphy - Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. For over twenty years Lightspeed has been the first investor and an early backer of some of the most innovative companies in the world like: Stripe, Anthropic, Neko Health and Mistral among many others. They invest in bold founders with big ideas, from Seed to Series F and beyond. Prior to Lightspeed, Paul was an investor with Northzone, a product lead at Microsoft and a co-founder of the gaming studio Dots - best known for developing popular puzzle games like Dots and Two Dots, which achieved over 100 million downloads worldwide. During this episode we discuss how Europe has woken up and it was never a problem of talent but one of confidence and mindset of dreaming big, we discuss about the differences of building at the plaform layer vs application layer and his learnings from Microsoft looking at the similarities with whats happening right now in the market. At the end we end up by getting slightly philosophical and agree that for founders building nowadays: "The obstacle is the way”!
February 5 · 38 min
Bryan Kim - Davos, Investing in ElevenLabs, Importance of Storytelling, Bryan's Personal Mission
Bryan Kim is a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz which is arguably the most influential venture firm in the world right now, and they are practically defining the 'Application Layer' of AI. Based in San Francisco, Bryan invests invest in Consumer and AI where he led the pivotal rounds in category-defining companies like ElevenLabs, Function Health, and Slinghot AI among others. Bryan is known for his 'Momentum is the Moat' philosophy—the idea that in the age of AI, speed and product velocity is the most important defensibility During this episode we discuss the legendary story of how he boarded a flight to London in under 90 minutes to sign ElevenLabs, the importance of storytelling for founders and the form factor for AI in the near future. Enjoy!
January 29 · 14 min
Technological Adolescence - Dario Amodei
In this essay, Dario Amodei characterizes the current state of artificial intelligence as a "technological adolescence," representing a pivotal rite of passage that will determine humanity's future survival. He outlines a "country of geniuses" scenario to illustrate how autonomous, superintelligent systems could emerge by 2027, bringing both immense benefits and existential threats. The text categorizes these risks into five critical areas: AI autonomy and misalignment, the democratization of destructive tools like bioweapons, the potential for high-tech totalitarianism, massive labor market displacement, and unpredictable indirect societal shifts. Amodei argues that while the path forward is daunting, a combination of rigorous technical safety, legislative transparency, and international cooperation can steer society toward a positive outcome. He emphasizes that the sheer speed of progress makes immediate global preparation essential to ensure that unimaginable power is wielded with maturity and compassion. Despite the gravity of these dangers, the author maintains a realistic optimism, believing that humanity's noble spirit can overcome this civilizational test.
Dec 4, 2025 · 32 min
Sara Rywe - Investing the first check in Lovable, The importance of EQ as a Venture Capitalist, The work behind becoming a Tier 1 fund, Assessing talent and investing before there is proof
Sara Rywe is a General Partner at byFounders. byFounders is one of Europe's best performing venture funds and focused on early-stage across the Nordics and Baltics. Based in Stockholm, she's in the heart of "Silicon Valhalla" and she lead the first round in companies like Lovable, Corti, Digitail, Skye and many more. Sara is known for her human and "all-in" approach to venture capital which is making founders rave about her. During this episode we discuss the first days of GPT Engineer which is today Lovable and how they convinced the team to partner up, we also discuss how she asses founders at the before there is proof, and how byFounders leads through transparency on the term-sheet and full based meritocracy internally, that i think more European VC funds should learn from. Enjoy!
Nov 26, 2025 · 37 min
Jan Goetz - From quantum physicist to deep-tech founder, Raising $600M, First application around the corner, From academia to startup
Today, we step into the quantum frontier with Jan Goetz — co-founder and CEO of IQM Quantum Computers. From quantum physicist to deep-tech founder, Jan has built one of Europe’s most ambitious hardware companies — raising nearly $600 million to turn quantum theory into reality. We talk about what it takes to scale science into business, how IQM is the leading company selling quantum computers, and the first use probable uses case to be deploy first in only a couple of years. Enjoy!
Oct 30, 2025 · 44 min
Max Kufner - Bioreactors that capture harmful CO2, Moving from VC to the co-founder role, Why attitude is sometimes more important than skill
Maximilian Kufner - co-founder and CEO of Again.Bio. At Again they are using a millennia-old bacteria to turn CO2 emissions into clean sustainable products. Last year they’ve raised ~ Eur 40m led by HV Capital and Google Ventures bringing the total raise to ~Eur 100m. They are building bioreactors that capture harmful CO2 emissions at the point source, thus producing carbon negative chemicals in an energetically efficient process. During this episode we discuss about his journey from being a venture capitalist investing in Again to joining as a co-founder, The differences between chemocatalysis and biocatalysys and why optimism and attitude is sometimes more important than skills. Enjoy!
Oct 17, 2025 · 37 min
Mati Staniszewski - Building ElevenLabs into a $6.6B Voice AI Powerhouse, The Importance of small teams, The Future of Human-AI Conversations, Real-Time Dubbing & Emotional Speech
Mati Staniszewski, is the co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs. He shares how a pre-seed idea turned into a $6.6B AI company powering the future of voice. We talk about how they cracked adding emotion to speech, real-time dubbing, watermarking for trust, and building one of the most influential startups in AI. He also gives some info on behind the scenes of Lex Fridman’s interview with India’s PM and how ElevenLabs is giving thousands their voices back. We recorded this exceptional episode at the Italian Tech Week in Torino. Sponsored by ⁠ValueAdd⁠ - AI enrichment and search on your professional network.
Sep 25, 2025 · 47 min
Tom Wilson - Learnings from a decade investing at seed-stage, The importance of Universities in innovation, Fixing Spin-offs, The common traits of successful founders
Tom Wilson is a Partner at Seedcamp - the legendary seed fund, started in 2007 in Europe that has backed companies like Revolut, UiPath, Wise and wefox to name a few. During this episode we discuss about the common traits of founders that have created multibillion eur in value, his learnings as he matured as an investor over the last 10 years, and the value proposition of Seedcamp to early stage founders. Enjoy!
Sep 18, 2025 · 37 min
Dan Ariely - Why We’re Predictably Irrational, The Hidden Psychology Behind Everyday Choices and Decision-Making, How to think about Pricing, The decoy effect, How to reframe a decision
Dan Ariely is the bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and one of the world’s leading behavioral economists. We explore why humans consistently make irrational choices, the hidden forces that shape our decisions, and what entrepreneurs can learn about pricing, perception, and context. From his personal story of resilience after a life-changing accident to powerful experiments like the decoy effect and anchoring, Dan reveals why we’re “prisoners of our past choices” — and how to escape them. If you’ve ever wondered why smart people make irrational decisions, or how psychology can transform business strategy, this conversation is for you. Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe for more inspiring conversations!
Sep 9, 2025 · 55 min
Des Traynor - The AI wake up call, From pricing per seats to pricing per outcome, Difference between European and American entrepreneurs
Des Traynor, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Intercom, one of the most iconic SaaS companies to come out of Europe. If you've ever messaged a company through a chat widget that actually worked, chances are you've used Intercom. Des co-founded Intercom in 2011 in Dublin, and since then, the company has helped redefine how businesses talk to customers. Today he leads Intercom's R&D team based in Dublin and London, but he's led many teams within the company including Product, Marketing, Customer Support, and Content. He is also a prolific investor in companies like Stripe, Miro, Notion and Hopin. In this conversation, we dive into the moment when they realised the impact of AI on their business, the decision to build a new AI product even in the face of product Cannibalization and the importance of honest communication to the organization in face of high productivity gains, automations and potential job displacements. Enjoy!
Aug 26, 2025 · 52 min
Maxime Barbier - From 300M+ monthly video views to founding an anti social media startup, The loneliness epidemic, Connecting 25,000+ people every week across 320+ cities in 65 countries
Our guest today is Maxime Barbier, co-founder and CEO of Timeleft. They are organizing dinners for strangers. Imagine a sort of blind date with 5 other people while eating good food. Spicy! Timeleft is now live in 320+ cities across 65 countries. Every Wednesday, more than 25,000 people gather in restaurants worldwide to share a meal and experience the joy of genuine human connection and they went from 0 to 16m Eur run rate in 18 months. During this episode we discuss the return to "irl", the effects of social media and why you should go on a Timeleft experience. Enjoy!
Jun 20, 2025 · 19 min
Deep Dive - Have I been Pwned?, The recent password leaks, Protecting Yourself from Mass Password Leaks
A comprehensive guide to personal cybersecurity, emphasizing the evolving threat landscape from mid-2024 to mid-2025, marked by unprecedented data exposures like the 16-billion credential "GOAT" leak. We highlight the shift in risk from corporate servers to individual user devices, largely due to infostealer malware. The document details major data breaches across various sectors, identifying common attack vectors such as supply chain vulnerabilities, insider threats, and the sophisticated evolution of ransomware. Crucially, we outlines a modern password and authentication strategy, advocating for long, unique passphrases, the ubiquitous adoption of multi-factor authentication (MFA)—prioritizing hardware keys and authenticator apps—and the essential role of password managers as a "digital vault" for secure credential management. Finally, we underline the importance of proactive breach monitoring through services like "Have I Been Pwned?", cultivating phishing awareness, diligent software updates, and securing home and public Wi-Fi networks to build robust digital resilience.
Jun 19, 2025 · 34 min
Supercharging Portfolio Value-Add - Platform 2.0, Creating engaging communities, The importance of playbooks, Business Development , Talent, Branding
Two weeks ago, I was in New York for the Venture Intelligence day (organised by Vestberry) moderating a panel with some pretty savvy VCs — among them Left Lane Capital a spinoff from Insight Partners with $2B AuM, Galaxy Ventures with $1.5B AuM, and Angelini Ventures with $300M AuM. The topic? Platform 2.0 — how VCs are going beyond capital to actually support founders. We talked talent, playbooks, community, business development, growth — and what it really means to be ‘value-add’ in 2025. This episode is the result of that trip. A deep dive into how the smartest firms are supercharging portfolio support — and what the future of venture capital looks like. Curious how your VC firm can provide more valueadd? Visit valueadd.network and let's have a chat.
Jun 12, 2025 · 22 min
Musk VS Trump: Helping Trump win, Twitter/X VS Truth Social, High stakes politics
An in-depth look at the complex and often turbulent relationship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, focusing on its historical context and a significant public dispute in June 2025. We chart the evolution from initial skepticism and pragmatic advisory roles to periods of strong public support and financial contributions, culminating in a dramatic falling out over a legislative bill. We analyze the strategic use of their respective social media platforms, X and Truth Social, as battlegrounds for influence, highlighting their differing reaches and implications. Ultimately, we explore the underlying motivations of ego, business interests, and political ambition that drive their interactions, along with the financial and broader political ramifications of their highly public conflicts.
Jun 5, 2025 · 29 min
Salar al Khafaji - Autonomous on-site construction robots, Construction ~10-15% of GDP but low productivity, How affordability affects fertility rates, Learnings from selling his startup to Palantir
Salar al Khafaji - founder and CEO of Monumental. At Monumental they are developing a suite of autonomous, electric robots which can work around the clock so everyone can afford a high-quality house or apartment in a beautiful city or village. Last year they’ve raise a 23M Eur round from Hummingbird, Northzone, Plural and other investors with the mission to make construction primarily software-defined and work towards a future where beautiful, bespoke buildings are built within a single day with minimal labor. Prior to Monumental, Salar built and sold the data company Silk to Palantir. During this episode we discuss about the construction market and how it is the only industry the productivity has decreased, his mistakes from his first business Silk, and the biggest current bottleneck at Monumental. Enjoy!