Super Angel #222 Renaud Visage, co-founder of Eventbrite and angel with 75+ investments

0:02This is a dream? No, it's not a dream I'm an angel. Why would God send me an angel? Because God knows that everyone needs a little coaching now and then. I'm loving angels. I saw an angel. All angels say. For a long day. Please say it's me an angel. The smile on her face. Be in it together. Don't love me, Johnny. Thanks, let's buy an angel. Girl, girl. Hi, and welcome to the Super Angel Podcast. The go-to podcast for angels backing the next generation of European unicorn founders. If you love our show, do drop us a review, share it with your friends and join our community at eu.bc. Today, we're happy to welcome you to Renaud, co-founder and ex-CTO of Eventbrite, the event management company which IPO'd in 2018.

0:54Renaud left the company in 2021 and is now based in Paris, where he focuses on investing in climate tech startups and on launching a climate fund focused on the growth stage. With more than 75 angel investments to date, Renault leverages his operational experience to help founders solve complex technical problems to realize their global ambitions. He also works closely with seed VC firm Point9 Capital as a venture partner. If you're an angel listening in and wanting to get closer to the European angel scene, do not hesitate to reach out to us. We'd love to connect and see how we can play together.

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2:26welcome everyone welcome to the super angel podcast we are so happy to have you all with us as audience and reno we're so happy to have you with us as our guest today thanks so much for having me really glad to have you on the show reno and what a journey to date so with that let's get started do you want to share your story with the audience and what got you to angel investing in the first place? So I love building. I was a civil engineer by training and I did that for a few years when I started my career. And then when the web came about, I got really interested and started playing with the very basic technologies at the time that allowed you to create a website and put it out and have people from all over the world connect and see what you had created.

3:08So that's what really excited me about the space. And I joined a startup in 2000 in San Francisco where I was working as a civil engineer. switched career, became a software engineer. And then a few years later, I met my co-founders, two of friends, my Eventbrite co-founders, Kevin and Julia. They were embarking on a new adventure of trying to make the event industry more technologically available. So that's what we decided to do together. From a person who has done a lot of events, thank you. You're welcome. No, no, no. My greatest satisfaction is having people tell me that. Because that's exactly why we built this company.

3:50And having an impact in the real world made it not just a software project. These connections that you build when you go to events is really what made us the most proud at the end of the day of having built this particular company. So I spent the last, since 2006, building Eventbrite as the CTO. We were detected, we IPO'd in 2018. And then at the end of 2021, I felt that I had exhausted my value to the company and needed to do something else. So I embarked on more of an investment journey. I had been angel investing for a while since 2014. and did it a bit more aggressively in 2020, 2021, 2022, and then switched to doing more impactful investments over the last 18 months or so.

4:41Very exciting. Very exciting. And I would love to hear a bit more about that. Actually, before that, any specific deals or stories of deals you're happy to share with the audience? Well, maybe I'll share the first deal I made because it was a total accident. I ghosted the founder the first time he reached out. didn't reach out again until a year later. But my first angel investment was in 2014. It was in Algolia, which is a search as a service provider, still one of the few that exists with Elastic. It became a unicorn a few years later, but it's still my best performing investment to date. But it really happened randomly.

5:20I was giving a talk about the Eventbrite story in 2013 at a French incubator. Nicolas, the CEO of Algoria and the founder, was in the audience. A few days later, he reached out to me asking if I wanted to have coffee or lunch with him. I actually didn't reply. My bad. I wasn't ready to invest at the time, I guess. I was really doing this to help founders, but somehow I missed his email or he came at the wrong time. And then a year later, he reached out again. and they were thinking about moving part of the team to the US and was really interested in my experience working from France with the US team, which I was doing at the time.

6:03And then we met, we had coffee. I was very impressed with him. His persistence as well, like tracking down twice and the progress they had made over the last 12 months. So I invested. Their search technology was extremely fast. They perform months. and I thought the project had strong legs. So I put in 18K, I think, in the company. And of course, no regrets. It's still my best investment to date. So I started with a bang, I would say. I wouldn't say that's beginner's luck. I would say that's much more than that. So that's amazing. And now looking back, having done many angel investments and we will talk about that strategy in the next segment, what would you say has angel investing given you personally and professionally?

6:48maybe could be also a nice ramp into turning towards impactful investments as well. I think first and foremost, it's a human connection opportunity. I get to meet every week incredibly talented and passionate people. People are ready to leave everything behind and embark on this crazy journey of entrepreneurship. That's what I love the most, I think, about angel investing. The people you meet are all very smart, very intelligent about why they're starting the new business. And I have the privilege of speaking to them on a daily basis almost. I think most angels back people first. People just have maybe a vague idea of what they actually want to do and how they're going to go about it.

7:40But I get a lot from their passion, from that drive that they have. That is fuel to me. And I think it also gives me a lot of insights into what's happening in very different industries by talking to people who have been in these different industries that have seen the gaps that exist and are trying to exploit these gaps or create something totally new or take technology that they built for research and applied it to something totally different. So I think it keeps me maybe fresh mentally as well, not just reading what TechCrunch produces, but seeing it from people before it gets to TechCrunch, I think is quite a wonderful mental exercise.

8:27And then you have to decide very quickly in maybe 30 minutes or an hour, maybe two hours, if you're pushing it, whether you're going to invest or not. That's another totally different exercise, but one that I enjoyed quite a bit. And on that point, because I know that you are also going to be doing more in the growth stage space, I think that we're going to now go into our investment thesis segment. And that's going to be interesting because doing growth versus doing angel investing are different things.

9:03So tell me first about your investment thesis as an angel. Tell me, how did you think as an angel about investing in startup companies? How did you think about the different verticals that there are? How did you think about the portfolio constructions you wanted to have as an angel and so on? Sure. So I had zero strategy or thesis at the beginning. I think like a lot of angel investors here, a lot of entrepreneurs who are still very busy with their companies, is you take that as a bonus to the community, like giving back. And that's how I started. I was mentoring a lot at different accelerators, incubators, so I was exposed to some interesting companies and got to know a lot of founders this way.

9:49I remember the early days of Seedcamp, for example, where we would all meet with other very talented mentors. There were about, I don't know, 200 people probably mentoring in 10 to 20 companies in the building at Google, I think at the time in London. Good experience, very time-constrained, high-intensity meetings, but a lot of learnings from that, from being exposed to other mentors and to giving our feedback to companies. So that slowly started developing my view of what good angel investment means. And maybe the first thing I did to strategize a bit more was to actually allocate myself a budget.

10:30Before it was totally random, I would get a deck from someone, a VC, a friend, another angel, an operator, make a decision quickly. Didn't keep track of anything in spreadsheets or things like that. So first of all, I think it was 2018 when I started thinking about joining a venture fund. And I became a venture partner at Index to do that. That's when I needed to show them my track records. I started looking into all my folders and documents and recording when I invested in. I only had 20, 25 or 30 investments at that time, but it still was a lot of work to compile it. If you were, quote unquote, so unstructured with, you know, keeping track of it as in terms of keeping a track record and so on, how did you manage the, you know, your value to them?

11:24Was that also more ad hoc? You know, if they emailed, if they called me, that's perfect. If not, then? It's still the case today. I find many founders think they're going to need you, but in the end they don't. and technology is much easier outside today to build than it used to be. So I very rarely get questions about how to build something or how to host it. There's so many solutions with all the cloud providers and so much resources online that this is not a problem usually. My biggest value, I think, for founders is connections with the venture world, opening doors to VCs, is being a gauge of quality when people get your email because they know you're not investing her presently and that you actually think the company has great potential and not just because you're trying to have a multiple on your portfolio.

12:24So it really depends. Some founders need a lot more work, a lot more help, sorry, and get more invested. But it's usually quite cyclical. They need punctual help for doing a specific thing, either fundraising, changing strategy, product roadmaps, things like that, where I match with their needs. And then on the investment scope, do you think about it bottom up in terms of just the best founders that get sourced by people you respect and appreciate? Or do you have any specific focus areas? I didn't used to have any, so I would just be on the receiving end of a lot of intros and taking the opportunities to have a chat and decide to invest.

13:09So that was the extent of my strategy, I would say. Now it's much more outside structure to have a budget for the year. I have a target of a number of companies. I only invest in climate tech now, so I decided to focus 18 months ago. I got a little tired, I would say, of looking at software projects. And I saw the trend of more and more hardware startups being founded by people coming from tech, traditional software tech, I would say, and bringing the same types of values of startup building into the hardware and deep tech space. So I'm quite excited about the potential there. I think it's also good for the planet, which I always have kept in mind in my career.

13:58I want to do something positive for the world. And I thought my money was better spent in projects that have a bigger impact on climate. It's not always an easy transition, right? From going from something like Eventbrite to then going into climate. Because yes, there's climate that's purely software, but most often there's also a hardware component. It's also very often quite regulated, so on. And then the science is typically also very deep. So how have you navigated that transition from doing something as Eventbrite into now investing in the next carbon capturing technology? That's what I love about it.

14:41There's so much to learn. It's anchored in a real world, so it's not just some figment of imagination of someone who's very smart that's created It's something very complicated. It's based in science, so there's a lot of literature available to read about many different aspects of climate technologies. After that, I'll never be an expert in chemical reactions or specific type sort of combination of technologies. So you have to rely on... And it's the same in software. I don't know everything about cybersecurity or AI or things that I've invested in the past. So it all boils down, I think, to what is the product, what is the market, what is the team, why them, why now.

15:25I think that still applies in hardware and I can't be a specialist of that specific technology that they use to solve a specific problem. Is the problem big enough and is the market ready for integrating this solution into their supply chains? And that, I think, doesn't necessarily change. you have to validate the science part. And there, I think you need a network of trust. People have a bit more depth in understanding of what's available, what's been tried, what has succeeded, what's failing. And on the economic side, it's a bit harder because I think it's very innocent still. There's a lot of push from consumers, regulators, corporates, all of that, that I think will make the pricing question less evident than it is today, where you just compare and if the premium for the green solution is too high, then you probably shouldn't invest.

16:18But I think that will change over time as there's more regulatory pressure to support the transition. It's a big one that we need to go through. There's a bunch of questions I want to ask, but before we do that, I do think that we should just invite you to tell us a bit about what you're going to do in growth because that will provide a bit more context for the audience to then understand the conversation that will into? I mean, I always enjoyed the early stage, the product definition, creation, finding the market fit and all that. But I started taking board seats in scale-ups just to see what it would be like and what kind of challenges.

16:56I've seen the ones we've faced at Eventbrite. So I think there's some very relevant learnings there going from a few, three founders to two employees to thousands of employees and an IPO. So I thought I would try joining scale-ups. and see if I can be useful there as well. The problems are very different, but I enjoy the complexity of a very large organization, historical context, a product that's established but needs to transition oftentimes to something different. So it's a lot of different topics, but I find them as enjoyable as getting to product market fit in the early stage. When I talk to a lot of the climate entrepreneurs, the new wave of entrepreneurs who want to do something about climate change, their biggest hurdle is once they get to a certain stage, it's how do they reduce the time to impact of their technologies?

17:51How do they deploy their solutions in the fastest way possible? And that is done later than I think in software where it's usually at series B plus when you start real commercialization and you have to have proven that the technology works already with a few pilots and then the acceleration of it is a challenge still. In a way, you'd say that much of your experience space from being at Eventbrite translates very, very well into the late stages of climate. Because if you were to do pre-stage climate stuff, then it would be three guys in a lab and much more about thinking about what's going to be the pathway of this.

18:38Whereas what you're really good at in your experience set is actually doing those interests to the larger investors, larger customers, and also thinking about scaling a team, scaling international markets and so on. And not just my even bad experience, but all the investments I've made in startups that have gone through all the different growth stages. And I mean, some problems are the same, like which team do you need at what point in time? When do you raise money? Why? What are you going to do with this money? How are you going to deploy it? where are you going to deploy it? Do you need an office in Bangalore?

19:12Are you going to launch your first plant in Kenya because it's cheaper? I don't know, making things up. But these are strategic problems. And I think strategy is definitely something that's very hard for a lot of organizations to do properly. There's a nice learning for all the generalists, VCs that want to go into both growth stage and also climate. Well, here's the perfect argument, right? So a lot of general agencies will be happy to hear this tip. I think climate in particular is so broad, like it touches all segments of the industry. And you have to know so much that I think generalists will be doing well in software, where it's exactly the same playbook as for other types of software, but for the more complex solutions that require the big companies to be a part of it, to be successful, because they are the ones who own the end product that is needed, then it's a much different ballgame and we need different skills, I think, even on your investment team and operational team to be truly helpful.

20:17How do you lean on software versus hardware? Because that's the talk I always have with fund managers when they do climate. So where do you lean on that? Just for me to understand, because it's kind of consequentially different whether you are primarily software or primarily hardware? No, I think we'll be primarily hardware with a big component of software and AI. I call them the enablers across different segments of the industry. We've seen a lot of AI deployed in, I would say, the software tech worlds, but not so much in industrial settings, for example, where there's a ton of data, but it's just, I don't know why, but I think the talent doesn't migrate to these type of industries because they're older, more established, they're not as exciting.

21:09But this has much to do with the data from a cement factory than with consumer data for an e-commerce site that could be much more impactful to climate change. Yeah, I think this is super exciting and it is the hard problems, no pun intended, and it is, I think, the impactful ones in climate. And what makes it so difficult for a software investor to do really investments that move the needle today, at least on the climate side. And so from the learnings you've had from angel investing in some respects, right? And the network you've had, like collaborating with other angels and VCs, how do you think about that in the context of the new world or of your new focus, right?

21:49You know, the types of angel investors, the types of VCs you'd be collaborating on, the network you're building. Well, there's a new ecosystem almost. Many of the climate funds that are currently active in climate tech are new funds, started from either experienced VCs or just people who want to get involved or have had enough of standing by the sideline and cheering to whatever someone else take the lead there. So I found the climate investing world much more collaborative than the traditional VC world. even angels like we share a lot of deals there's not too many of us maybe yet and i hope you will grow because i think the demands for the transition is huge but yeah i've had many vc firms offer to make introductions to their rps just to get the fund started so there's a lot of missionary aspects to the field that are quite attractive to me who have had that mission for a while.

22:54And it's still to be defined. Like we were looking at how many exits have happened in climate tech, especially in the hardware space where it's much more complicated to invest. And the reality is that there hasn't been that many. There's been a series of SPACs that have performed quite poorly actually, because they were mostly in 2021 when the height of the hype and have come down to much lower levels. So I think we're seeing a little bit on the curve of hype. We're in a bit in the low, but I can see a bright future personally for climate tech. That's why it excites me. I think we need to be a bit contrarian sometimes and think that the impossible is possible.

23:43I'm curious to ask you because we have had, like, in climate, we do have a position in Europe, especially when we talk hardware. Venture has always been behind the US, it still is, it probably will be for quite a while. And there's always the question, once you get to the growth stage, should you start practically just going to the US, right? How do you see Europe being positioned when it comes to climate? Because it's a bit different from when we talk about the more software. Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's definitely a gap in European funding for early growth stages for climate tech. So that's the gap we would love to take advantage of.

24:28But also, like, sovereignty of technology is important. Like, we need Europe to be strong, to have a strong tech ecosystem of solutions that we can implement for ourselves, but also for the rest of the world. And there's a lot of money available. So it's just not being directed to venture growth. and that's too bad I think because the governments have pledged billions and billions, hundreds of billions probably by now. It's just not trickling down necessarily to the right funds who can enable these promising technologies to be deployed. That's really what motivates us. It's not necessarily about European sovereignty but yeah it's too bad we have to give away 20, 30, 40 % of the best companies to I would say mostly the US investors or sovereign funds across the world.

25:20You're learning more about them angels, are you?

25:27If you had to share with the listeners three core learnings from your time angel investing and investing more broadly, what would those be? I think no matter what the stage, you still have to bet on the team. This is the core of the company. They define the culture, the way of doing business. maybe they are not there eventually in later stages but you've got to believe that the team no matter what market, what technology they promote when it's the time to invest you have to believe that they will find a path out or that it will quickly fold I think the two paths are probably the preferable ones to surviving for a very long time and I have a few companies like that in my portfolio of course that's the key I think to the success eventually so it's hard to gauge the team components very quickly so there I think there's a lot of gut feeling pattern recognition of different profiles that do well in entrepreneurial settings and testing the that they have the right motivations and that they come in at the right time for the venture to be successful that did the first advice Maybe a second one that I've learned maybe too late is to follow on in the winners if you can.

26:48The companies that aren't doing well keep some reserves because you want to try to maintain your position or even increase it. That's how the biggest returns are made in venture. I've learned that by working at funds. That's how most funds work and keep or even increase their allocations over time. And then maybe the last one is understanding your true motivation and what excites you about angel investing. I think the first 20 deals you do, because you can, you have access, you have a specific aura or following your fans out there and satisfy your craving for being useful and giving back. But after that, think about what your strategy is, how you're going to be in the best deals.

27:32because by being maybe passive, I've missed on the best companies out there. The best companies have choice. If you don't talk about your hobby, like don't promote yourself as an angel investor, then probably people won't think about you when the time comes. And the best companies have choice. They already have networks. They have PCs that are very influential, that have their own networks of angels. so think about how you position yourself to be exposed to the best deals and invest be given the opportunity to be part of these unicorn journeys because there's not that many after all, when you look at most angel records, you're lucky to have one, two, three maybe over a 10 year period some people are luckier, my co-founder given a very short amount of time but these are few and far between I think for most angels, especially in New York, we haven't had many exits.

28:30The unicorn phenomenon is quite recent. Yeah, totally. I love that last point in that kind of being intentional and starting to focus after you've gone through, like realizing what your passion is and then being more intentional on how you want to position yourself. I do think also like being top of mind, which is kind of also partly what you're suggesting here. There's so many different ways of doing it, right? As in, you can just brand yourself a lot or you can focus on a specialization so people think about you like that. Or the way you position yourself to different types of stakeholders on the value add you bring.

29:04Or just networks, like specific networks. It's just about being intentional, so I couldn't agree more. I think every angel investor will have its own channels to get the deal flow. We can't be watching all the companies that are being started. This is not scalable. We're usually one percentage. Maybe we have a small group that we collaborate with, but our time is limited. Usually you're still active in your own company. So think about what other few channels that give you the quality that you need to be proud of your track record at the end of the day. Yeah, totally. One more area I'll double click on, and that's more my fund management hat on and geekiness for that, which is, you said, following on in your winners if you can, right?

29:49I totally agree with that. in retrospect, is very easy. In reality, I think it's more challenging, right? I would love to unpack that a bit more if you're happy to share. How do you think about the ability to really, I don't know, discover those and see those. In 2020, 2021 maybe was the extreme example of rounds happening four months later at 5X valuation uplift and having zero signals on whether that's an indicator to success. I don't know if you have any firm views on that. Just wanted to unpack it a bit more, because I do agree 100 % with your just challenging in practice. Well, I'm not saying you should blindly follow on.