Announcing the European VC Awards! 🏆

0:00Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the European VC podcast. I am Andreas and I have with us a very special episode and a very special group of people. Because today we're diving into the founding partners behind the fresh off the press European VC awards. And I have with us today Chris Wade from Isomacabble, Joe Short from Isomacabble and Stephen Lowery from HSBC Innovation. We should have had Superventure's good and great Abby Cooper with us as well. But just as I feel sometimes 40 % of Europe is down with coughing and stuff these days, we thought or she thought podcasting is maybe not what she's made for today.

0:44But let's dive into the vision and the inspiration of the awards before we stay too long at ourselves. And in this part, we'll also talk about the process and the criteria behind them, of course, so you can all better understand exactly what's going to happen over the next months. And of course, the nomination and judging process, as well as, of course, Chris, Wade, and Joe taking us through our thoughts and deliberations behind the judging panel that we've put together. So now let me go into a special intro that you've never heard on the European VC before. Normally we cue our jingle, but instead we will cue a celebratory nice song for the European VC awards.

1:58What do you say, gentlemen? Is it not amazing what you can create today with AI? I just assume you stayed up all night recording that, Andreas. Not true? No. Well, I tried just for you here to do that, but unfortunately it was not of a quality I could do with. So luckily, suno.ai came in and helped us there. It took literally two minutes. And I think that in connection to this, we will be announcing a soundtrack competition soon for the awards. If we manage to get something great, we will definitely make that the soundtrack of the awards. And when we have the Hall of Fame winner coming up on stage, that person will be walking up there to the beats of whoever wrote the best piece for it.

2:49So now I know I speak on behalf. Let's get on to the serious stuff. I know I speak on behalf of all of us in the founding partnership behind the awards. When I say that the mission of our organizations has always been to support and strengthen and champion the European VC industry. So coming together to launch at the Superventure Conference this year, the European VC Awards, on the very first day in the heart of Berlin and inviting all of you to join us in nominating and celebrating our industry's great champions is a dream come true for us. But before we go further and before I rattle on too much, I want to just ask you, all of you, to come in and tell me what was the vision behind this?

3:44What made you so motivated to come together with us to build this? To me, it's a natural extension of what we do every year at Superventure. We get the ecosystem together and you end up talking with friends and colleagues and investment partners. and, hey, did you see that deal? Did you see that new fund? And making proper official awards is a way to really recognize greatness of the year. And we know in venture capital, people work overly hard and more hours than most industries because they have a real passion. It's a passion to change the world, to make great investments, to bring new products to life, a passion for all kinds of things.

4:29So I think the award ceremony is just a nice evolution of Superventure, which is, you know, we get everyone together for lots of talks over several days. But taking an evening where we say, okay, there's a few people who've done something this year really stands out above the rest. And we'd love to make a public recognition of that. That for me just seemed like a no-brainer when I can't claim it was my idea. darn it. But as soon as I heard it, I thought, yeah, exactly. We should be doing that. It makes so much sense, Joe. I mean, at HSBC Innovation Banking, we've been privileged to work with a lot of those funds, the emerging managers, breakout managers, and the established managers over a long period of time.

5:13And as you say, incredibly talented individuals and committed to the space and the ecosystem. And they've really, really kicked it on over the last 20 years. And I know you both have done a lot of work at ICESMAR to further the cause of that. So it's great to see the impact that funds have been making. So it's just a great opportunity to recognize those individuals who've really pushed the boundaries forward. Well, the only thing I would add is that because everybody's heads down doing deals, building companies, working with founders, working with LPs, we don't have time to celebrate. We don't have time to step back and say, wow, this is one of the most exciting asset classes in venture in the world.

6:01And there is an enormous amount of value being created. And there's no real way of understanding that. We hear the number of deals. We hear the number of investments. But we want to get to the people behind that. We want to celebrate the people and the firms that are really making those things happening behind those numbers. Yeah. And of course, from our side at EUBC, we've always just said we're all about connecting Europe and we're all about championing Europe. That's why we started the podcast. We thought that it was such a big issue in Europe that we would have so many great people in Denmark not knowing about all the great people in the rest of Europe, not knowing who are the right people in Paris and London and Berlin and even more so who are the right people in Bucharest.

6:54So for that reason, we started the podcast and this seems like the perfect opportunity to then really make it very, very abundantly clear who really made a dent this year. Maybe I just would say that there was good logic in involving Superventure in this because we're all busy. The last thing we want to go to is another conference specifically on this subject. And to do it at what we think is one of the most important venture capital events of the year just made perfect sense. So we're very grateful to Superventure for being a founding partner. Absolutely, Chris. You're completely right about that.

7:37Now, Chris and Joe, I'd love to ask you to just introduce the five categories to the audience. Tell them a bit about what are they or why did we pick those? And what are the criteria for each of them? If we maybe start with Hall of Fame. You know, venture capital has come alive in the last 20, 25 years. and there have been people that have been instrumental in that. And at some point, they move on to a more plural world or they retire. And we want to celebrate their very significant achievements. So this is someone who has been involved in venture, has done some amazing deals, exits, created funds, all of the above, and that they have been useful in building the ecosystem.

8:36And that's really important because venture is a collective business. It's a humble business and someone that has really contributed to that. Yeah, there's that great old quote, if I've seen further than others, it's because I stood on the shoulders of giants. And the idea of the Hall of Fame Award is to recognize those giants because there's a temptation to think that all of this great European tech happened in the last three, five years. Well, it didn't. It grew over decades. And the Hall of Fame Award is to recognize those people that were there in the early days and who we really owe a debt to, in a way, of how the ecosystem has grown exponentially over the last few years.

9:22If you look back over 20 years ago, the industry has changed remarkably, and there's a number of people who have been right at the forefront of that. So I think to be judged by some of the best LPs around that have been partnering with them and been aware of their progress, I think it's fantastic to have this opportunity. Yeah, so Hall of Fame to recap, we're celebrating a lifetime of achievement in European venture. It's the award for those who really shape the industry through their investments, contributions and thought leadership. They've been around for 20 plus years and they're now stepping back from an active investing role and or entering into a portfolio career of multiple firms.

10:04All of this is, of course, accessible on both EUVC, of course, in connection to this pod. We'll create a special page for it as well, but also on ismercapital.com slash awards. So everything you hear here, that's where you can go to nominate and also to read a bit more about the individual awards. Now, let's go on to Firm of the Year. So this is the second of the five awards. Well, I could talk about Firm of the Year and it's almost the opposite. So Hall of Fame is the lifetime achievement. Firm of the Year is an award for something really great that happened over the past year. and we all, you know, as I said, the kind of water cooler talk when you're at the conference, wow, did you see that new fun debut or did you see that great exit or that great deal or people teamed up and started something new?

11:00So it's sort of a flexible category and it's open for nominations, but it's to recognize something really terrific, some great achievement, which happened last year. Think about the Oscars, you know, film of the year. And there's a moment where it happened and we're going to celebrate that and highlight that. And I think a lot about what you said, Andreas, which is Europe is a big place with lots of different jurisdictions. And you may not be aware from your part of the ecosystem of some really great achievement that happened. And so this is a chance to highlight and people can nominate and the judges will select one great achievement from the year.

11:40But flexible, but focused on a firm. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Let me just restate this accolade recognizes a firm from a fully holistic view. So that means we're not just looking at the pure financials and the performance and the portfolio, but we're also looking at things such as innovation, impact of the ecosystem, diversity, transparency and fairness, as well as team and culture. So we're truly trying here not to just say who had one big thing happen that year, who has stellar track record and stuff, and then go through that list, but rather really look into the individual firm. And for that reason, it is all the more important that we get all of you involved in nominating because, of course, you can, in that nomination process, add some meat to the bone and add some of the stories that we may not know in the judging team.

12:37Now, let's go to Newcomer of the Year Award, one that I'm sure that you all three love just as much as me. So tell us about the Newcomer of the Year Award. So our business is a lot about emerging managers. And here we want to celebrate somebody that's built a fund and has had a first close and is bringing something new to European venture. And that might be a geography, it might be a sectorial sort of focus, but they're bringing something new and exciting. And that is another sort of brick in the wall of venture capital in Europe. And we'd love to have your nominations for that. I think it's important to emphasize that it is you, the venture community, founders, that can nominate people, and then we will run a process with our judges.

13:38So this is someone who has really built something rather special in the funds business in Europe. When I think about newcomer of the year, I often think about bringing something new to the ecosystem and a new investment thesis, a new method of investing, could be even a new structure or format, which we see from time to time with funds. So something which is new, but also which is high potential and makes us all think, for me, would be a great thing to recognize. I think it's also important to say that we're looking at the innovation, we're looking at the focus and not the amount of capital raised.

14:20It's a really important point. This is not about the biggest and greatest. This is about genuinely a new fund that is bringing something new to European venture. And I think it's something that the founders are going to have a real perspective on because they're out there talking to a lot of the funds. maybe it's the names or the approaches might be a little newer to some of the other people in the ecosystem. So those founders who've engaged with those people, those funds where they've seen something different, something unique, an angle that they perhaps haven't seen from anyone else, I think put those names forward because we'd love to hear from them.

14:56Exactly. Just to wrap it up and just as with the firm of the year, we try and have a holistic view here. So we're honoring emerging managers that have had a first close in the past year, so in this case 2023. And we're recognizing them for having remarkable success in bringing, as we've just heard, something new and innovative to the European venture market, while also building traction around their fund ambition. And we deliberately say that part as a secondary thing, but also as, of course, a meaningful thing. It's good and great if you bring something new, but if you haven't been able to rally people around your vision, maybe that's not enough.

15:34So while we're not looking at is it 150 or 200 or or a 50 million euro fund what we what we do care a lot about is of course that we're seeing seeing a big following or growing following growing momentum around around this this new firm could i just underscore one point you made which is we we do want nominations for funds that had a an official first close so they got launched we do not want nominations for big ideas that are yet to happen. So that's kind of the important distinction. And when we were devising the criteria, you need to pick a metric that you can measure and it's real. And so we all have, you know, lots of funds trying to put something together and have lots of friends in the industry.

16:18There'll be a candidate next year for this award, but that first close is the trigger. So please keep that in mind when you nominate people. Yes, exactly. Now, I want to go to exit of the year. And maybe, Stephen, do you want to go first here? Yeah, this industry is about investing, but it's also about driving exits and driving returns. And this has been something that's incredibly important to LPs, particularly in this time, as people are thinking about raising the next fund. So identifying some of those funds who've really driven returns for their investors and put together something with the founders that is a landmark exit, I think, is really what we're looking for this year.

17:02Yeah. And this one, as you hear, we don't have too many pitching in on. And that's because it's maybe the less soft of the categories. But let me just restate so it's abundantly clear. We are, with this award, we're honoring the firm that has had a company that has exited and created the most value back to the VC and therefore back to the European venture ecosystem in the year of 2023. And this is about venture capital returns as opposed to the biggest exit. So that we're not talking about someone having had a super minor stake in a super big company and didn't really see much of that come up.

17:41It's really about having venture returns for your LPs. It will also encompass strategic aspects of the exit, such as timing and in relation to the market conditions and the exit strategy employed. This is, of course, stuff that the judging panel will dive deep into to really pick the one that excelled on all the different angles. Now, let's go to achievement of the year. This is the dark horse. Chris, will you start us on this? Well, we wanted to have a category where we would be able to look at a lot of the nominations that might not fit into any one of the particular categories. but there's something remarkable about what has happened, what this person or this fund has done.

18:37And we wanted to have the opportunity to have this award as achievement of the year. And now we're talking about 2023. And this could be many different things. I won't enunciate all the possibilities, but send your nominations in for the categories, send your nomination if you think there's somebody that's just done something really, really special and really important for European venture. Yeah. And what we really like about this one is also that it does not necessarily have to be a VC. So it does not have to be a firm. It does not have to be a company. It can just be an individual. It can be a consortium that went together to do something astounding like the European VC Awards or something else.

19:30So the whole point is that we want to be able to really celebrate someone who makes a difference. And it's not necessarily easy, of course. So with all of this said, now let's just look at the process and what you all have in store for you or for you from us. If we start with the nominations, first of all, we are open for nominations. now. So that means today is the launch of the awards. Everyone across the ecosystem can go in on isomercapital.com slash awards and nominate to the five categories. The nomination period is open until March 31st and evaluation and deliberation will happen from then and the finalists will be announced as soon as we have them identified.

20:26So that means we might announce the Hall of Fame finalists after just five days, or it might be after 20 days. That's a bit the exciting part here. We will be covering them heavily on the EUVC podcast so that you can all get to know the winners or the finalists across these categories. We'll also be doing live fireside chats with the winners following the final awards. So definitely, hopefully this will allow everyone to get a really, really good feel for who won, who were nominated, who got to be finalists in these awards. We want to make this as accessible as we can be for everyone. We also very much promise to be transparent about the selection criteria.

21:15And they're described on the nomination page for each of the categories. and those who are nominated will also all be notified. So if you go in and nominate, the individual or firm that's nominated will be told that they were nominated. They will not be told that it was you who nominated them. So that is something that you would have to tell them yourself. This whole nomination and evaluation process is run and chaired by Isomer Capital. We, of course, put that with Isomer Capital because Isomer are used to running this type of process with their own ICEs and their own investments. So for that reason, we thought it sit perfectly with that team.

22:03And finally, as we have alluded to throughout, the winners will be announced on day one of Superventure. So on June 4th, if you haven't secured a ticket yet, you should definitely go and do that. You can also, if you have not secured a ticket yet, you can also just go in and nominate super heavily because we will be having a raffle throughout the first month of the nomination period, meaning February, for all who nominate to get a ticket to SuperVenture. So SuperVenture, thanks a million for sponsoring that. Everyone who nominates, thank you so much for partaking. Now, let's get into the judging panel.

22:42Could I just sort of say one important thing? in the design of this process. And that is we respect and have thought a lot about the confidential information that will need to be shared with Isomer in this process. We will not be retransmitting any of that information. It will remain in Isomer. And when we come to do the judging panel, we will be meeting together physically to review the shortlists. And so therefore, there will be no email chains of your confidential information. They will remain in Isomer. And I think that's an important design consideration because clearly some of this stuff is quite confidential.

23:33Yes, incredibly important to emphasize. Thank you, Chris. Now, I'd love to go to the judging panel and ask you, Joe and Chris, because you were very much the designers behind this, to introduce us to the judges and tell us a bit about your deliberations behind that. As Chris was saying, our role in this is to run a process with clear criteria and clear goals in what we're trying to recognize and what metrics we can use to decide that. But of course, super important, there is a lot of judgment around this. And so we thought, wouldn't it be great to assemble a panel of really experienced investment professionals who have been active in the ecosystem for a long time?

24:20They've seen a lot. They've seen good. They've seen bad. But they will be looked up to by the industry. I think that's quite important that when you think about these judges, you think, oh, yeah, yeah, I've seen them active over many years. I know they've done certain great deals and so on. And so to have a panel of people who bring their own knowledge to it is, for us, was quite important. And our role is to kind of ring lead that, if you will. There are a lot of great people in European Ventures. So this was not easy to assemble such a team, but I'm really excited about the group. And it's always a challenge if you assemble too big of a group, then it's an unwieldy process.

25:03If it's too small of a group, then you don't have a diversity of opinions. So we've tried to strike that balance in the middle, almost like an investment committee, if you will, where we'll get all the nominations in, review, get to shortlist, and then sit down together, as Chris mentioned. and try to take a holistic view, bringing the judgment, but also bringing in lots of information and pattern recognition from the market. First of all, Stephen, we've asked you to be a judge. We've known you a long time. You were a VC in ages past. You've been supporting venture capital. You meet almost as many managers as we do.

25:42So we're very grateful for you. We have Thomas Christensen from a partner at LGT Capital Partners. I looked on LinkedIn this morning. He's been at LGT for 21 years. So he knows a thing or two about venture. And what's exciting about Thomas is he also invests around the world. So there's kind of a benchmarking going on as well, which I think is a useful component as we find the best of the best of Europe. We then have Jonathan Sibilla, who many of you know, who's partner and head of fund of funds at Moulton. He's invested in many funds in the last five or six years. whenever Joe and I talk to him about who he's seeing and what he likes, it's always a very informed process.

26:36Joe, would you like to introduce the final member? As you say, Chris, those are terrific judges and people we enjoy sharing ideas with. But you also notice that it's quite a lot of commercial investors, so fund-to-fund investors who do this as a business, and it's a lot of men. And so we thought it was also very important to bring in the family office point of view. Family offices are responsible for a large component of the capital base of European venture. And so we're really lucky to have Julia von Weyenberg from Sofina. Regular listeners to EUVC and people who've invested around the system will know Sofina.

27:16it's not a highly public or visible group but it's a it's a great group that's been investing in european venture for many many years on the fund side on the company side julia herself did a great panel last year if i can say so myself with me and a few others at super because you were on it it was great because julia was on it let's let's be very clear about that but I think that the family office point of view, it's a different type of investing, a different motivation, and we wanted to have that on the team as well having people who are very experienced, and as you said, referring to Stephen, you know, with different points of view, having been a company investor, having been a fund investor, having helped different parts of the ecosystem.

28:06So I won't unpack Julia's varied background, but she's a terrific member of the team as well. And again with Julia, it's invested in storied firms in the US as well as Europe. So that ability to benchmark and some of the most experienced names in the US as we look at the things that have been created over here in Europe, they've got a real depth of track record to be able to call on. So we're excited to have Julia along. And then Andreas, do you want to say what iSummer is going to be doing in this? It seems a bit cheerless for Joe and I to do so. Yes, well, we decided to go with Joe and Chris because they are...

28:51No, I think it's clear to everyone why, of course, Joe and Chris are part of this judging panel. Joe and Chris and the whole iSummer team chairs this process. So as Chris said before, Joe and Chris are the chairs of the panel, but they're also the ones taking us from a long list down to a short list of firms, because obviously we'll have hundreds and hundreds of nominations. and the process of going from that long list down to a short list that's bearable for the judging panel to work with is one we've placed with team Isomer. Joe and Chris, I don't think I want to, I think everyone who is a regular or even maybe even just the drop-ins on the UBC podcast will have heard us tout your credentials on the podcast many times.

29:48I think what I would say is Maybe Stephen can Yeah, why don't I say a couple of things because I think everyone knows the name Isma such an important part of the ecosystem now but I think when we're looking at funds and fund managers that have been created over the last 20 years one of the things that everyone focuses on the entrepreneurs and the founders I think it's really important to recognise that that the funds themselves and the funder funds they're created by founders And I think that Joe and Chris created the firm that they're part of, I think, gives a unique perspective to some of those managers who are coming through.

30:23So I think, you know, fantastic contribution day to day, but also in starting their firm. And I'm sure that will resonate with a lot of those nominations out there. Yeah, just to go back to something Joe said earlier, he said, I didn't come up with the idea, but I wish I did. That is not true. That is not true. Because I think everyone in this founding partnership have all had the idea throughout time. This time around, it was a young, bald guy coming and saying, why shouldn't we do the awards for European venture? So maybe I did come and say, let's do this. And we actually have the capacity and the positioning, and it made good sense for UVC to be making sure that this would be done now.

31:15But the idea has been within Isomer. I guess you guys, I think you said that we've kicked this around for five, seven years or so, but we just haven't gotten around to it. We didn't have smart people to do it. So thank you for coming to do it, Andres. They didn't have a hamster to run the wheel. That's what they're saying. That's exactly right. Well, you know, we have a lot of big ideas, but you can't execute everything. So I feel like we have to give a shout out to our absent partner, SuperVenture, as well. Because whilst we may have thought about doing such a great thing, SuperVenture has become a really important annual moment where a big part of the ecosystem gets together.