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Euro venture scouts and their deals

14 April 2022 Euro Lists
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Venture scouting has become so normal in Europe that it's a weekly topic covered by the mainstream media.

We thought it'd be interesting to put some data on top of it and review the scouts activity of some of the high profile VCs that are known to operate venture scout programs in Europe.

This report includes a list of 50+ venture scouts representing four big investors name in Europe, and the deals they were involved in, as of October 2021.

NB: We have used the assumption that all the angel deals that have been invested in post announcement of scouts joining the respective programs, are made on the name of the VC. This may not always be the case as there's instances where scouts act as angels and invest on their behalf as well and/or contribute to a round their own money together with the VC they work for.

For your convenience, we also grouped them by country, which you can find at the end of the report, or by clicking here.
 

 

Accel

Accel's venture scout program is called Accel Starter and is operated by two partners of the company namely Luca Bocchio and Andrei Brasoveanu. Each of the scouts has a budget of $200k to invest in any European startups they like.

Accel Starter has a number of 21 scouts based in 12 cities and 10 countries.

 

 Hanno Renner (CEO at Personio)
Selected deals: Sastrify, Localyze, EqualTo, y42 (all from Germany)

 Tony Jamous (CEO at Oyster)
Selected deals: Claap (France), Woolf (UK), Pento (Denmark), Claap (France)

 David Nothacker (CEO at Sennder)
Selected deals: Resourcify (Germany), Cosuno (Germany), Sdui (Germany), Archlet (Switzerland)

 Julien Lemoine (co founder and CTO at Algolia)
Selected deals: Folk, Leeway (both from France)

 Georgie Smallwood (works for Tier in Germany)
Selected deals: Heyfina, Remi (both from Germany)

 Rika Christanto (co founder at Ontruck)
Selected deals: Veremark (UK)

 Humberto Ayres Pereira (founder and CEO at Rows)
Selected deals: June (France)

 Tristan Thomas (ex-Monzo, cofounder at Packfleet)
Selected deals: Cuckoo Broadband (UK)

Luca Ascani
Selected deals: Midnight Trains (France)

 Rahma Javed (director of engineering at Deliveroo based in London)

 Dan Oros, head of marketing at Google and YouTube in Romania;

 Colm Long, head of sales and marketing at Tines.

 

 

Atomico

Atomico’s Angel program was launched in 2019 and their scouts get $100k each to invest in European startups agaisnt a 25% carry. The 2021 batch is composed of 18 people, to which 8 more are continuing from the year with a fresh $100k.

 

 Srin Madipalli (ex-AirbnB)
Selected deals: Fika, Integrated Finance, Rassa (all from UK)

 Sameer Singh (ex-AppAnnie)
Selected deals: Lapse (UK), Anyone (Sweden), Smitten (Iceland)

 Joe Cross (ex-Transferwise)
Selected deals: Toothfairy (UK), Generation Home (UK), Lightyear (Estonia)

 Josefin Landgård (co founder at Kry)
Selected deals: Ester Care, Lassie, imagiLabs (all Sweden)

 Deepali Nangia (works for Speedinvest, co founder Alma Angels)
Selected deals: Unlock Technologies, Toothfairy, Yhangry (all from the UK)

 Andy Ayim (works for Zilch in London)
Selected deals: Patch, Subly (all from the UK)

Ville Vesterinen (founder at Housecat)
Selected deals: Unlock Technologies, Fronted (both from UK)

 Sarah Drinkwater (ex-Google)
Selected deals: Anyone (Sweden)

Ling Lin (co founder and CPO at Grip in Amsterdam)
Selected deals: Fronted (UK)

 Maikel Lobbezoo (ex-Adyen)
Selected deals: Sentinels (NL)

Jean Nehme (CEO at Digital Surgery)
Selected deals: Walking on Earth (UK)

Stefano Bernardi (partner at Semantic Ventures)
Suvi Haimi (CEO at Sulapac)
Katja Toropainen (founder at Inklusiiv)
 Robert Gaal (co founder at Quest)
Mathieu Flamini co founder at GF Biochemicals
Sarah McBride (marketing for Zenly in Paris)
Mehdi Ghissassi (Deepmind)
 Geraldine McCarthy (CRO for Personio in Dublin)
Deborah Okenla (YSYS)
Vera Baker (Jua Fund)
Katariina Helaniemi ex-Slush)
 Paulina Mazurek (ex-Google, ex-Allegro) 
Joyce Liu (ex-Dawn Capital)
Jenny Saft (founder at Oviavo)
Roland Jais-Nielsen (founder and CEO at Hero)

 

 

Hedosophia

Hedosophia was founded in 2012 by what insiders call “obsessively secretive” Ian Osborne, who built it in a $1.5 billion AUM investment household in a very discreet manner. And so its venture scout program is not official - the data we collected is informally based on our network knowledge and public information and on what we have gathered from public sources. The program is companosed of no more than 20 startup operators and angels across Europe, who are allowed to write £20k-30k cheques on the firm’s behalf.

Some of those include:

 

 Charles Delingpole (founder at ComplyAdvantage)
Selected deals: Nook, BondAval, Plum (all from UK). Charlie did 18 deals this year, btw.

 Max Tayenthal (founder at N26)
Selected deals: Osterus (Germany), Upflow(France), Finmid (Germany)

 Valentin Stalf (founder at N26)
Selected deals: Kitchenful (Germany), Seon (Hungary)

 Alexandre Prot (CEO and founder at Qonto)
Selected deals: Greenly (France)

 Oscar Pierre (cofounder at Glovo)
Selected deals: Spathios (Spain)

Chad West (ex-Revolut)
Noor van Boven (ex-N26)

 

 

Sequoia Capital

Sequoia Capital is one of the more known American investors for setting up venture scouts programs for more than 10 years already. In Europe they set it up right after hiring Lucian Lixandru from Accel, whose job was establish Sequoia's business across Europe.

Sequoia was never public about their scout programs, and is one of the fewer VC houses running such a program and letting their scouts be in their captable, as opposed to most scouts that invest on behalf of the company they represent. In Europe, we know about the following Sequoia scouts:

 

Roxanne Varza (director Station F)
Selected deals: Dance (GermanY), Folk (France), Claap (France)

Roxanne was also a venture scout for Atomico previously.

Marc McCabe (ex-Airbnb, based in Dublin)
Selected deals: Airbank (Germany), Ultimate.ai (Finland)

Guillaume Cabane (ex-Apple, based in San Francisco but focused on the Euro market)
Selected deals: June (France)

Alexandre Berriche (co founder/CEO at Fleet)
Selected deals: Timeleft, Paysika (both in France)

Cristina Berta (works for Picnic in Amsterdam)

Thilo Konzok
Selected deals: Partykit, Bento

 

 

 

 

Country breakdown
 

 UK (14)

 

France (7)

 

Finland (5)

 

Germany (4)

 

Netherlands (3)

 

USA (3)

 

Ireland (2)

 

Romania (2)

 

Other countries (9)

 Georgie Smallwood (Accel)
 Humberto Ayres Pereira (Accel)
 Rahma Javed (Accel)
 Josefin Landgård (Atomico)
Ling Lin (Atomico)
Stefano Bernardi (Atomico)
 Paulina Mazurek (Atomico)
 Valentin Stalf (Hedosophia)
 Oscar Pierre (Hedosophia)

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