Can Europe's family offices re-ignite the spirit of the Renaissance?

0:00Mike Butcher:Welcome to Path Founders with me, Mike Butcher. We like to talk about the code the entrepreneurs produce to make the startups, the capital that backs those startups and the consequences.

0:13Mike Butcher:Speaking of capital, Europe is not short of it and it's not short of talent either, as we know. What it is short of and what Mario Draghi's report for the EU made painfully clear a couple of years ago is coordination. nation. He highlighted an 800 billion euro annual innovation gap or eight times less venture capital invested into technology and startups than the US. And he also highlighted a continent still struggling to turn its industrial strength into technological dominance. So the question is, can Europe actually act at the speed this moment requires? That's the motivation behind a new event called the Renaissance Summit, a deliberately small invitation-only gathering bringing together family capital, venture investors, founders and policy makers to not just talk about Europe's future but to try and actually coordinate it as Draghi implied.

1:10Mike Butcher:Joining me now is Ludov von Schöning, the founder of the event. Welcome to Path Founders, Ludov. Thank you Mike, thank you for having me. great perfect introduction to what we do. Well I really want you to expand on this idea because it sounds really quite exciting. People actually getting together to actually do something. So what's the kind of you know zooming out what's the kind of themes that you're looking at? Well zooming out I think you know at the umbrella is the renaissance. Could Europe experience another renaissance and what was the renaissance in the 15th century maybe starting there going back to 15th century florence where you had families like the medices you know technically a family banking business um that you know a lot of people may know about the stories how they funded the arts but in the end they were fintech innovators they created the first pan-european bank and then used that wealth to fund uh emerging sort of scientists artists and merchants who ended up exploring the rest of the world and you know we think that that is a sort of turning point that went and let Europe go from Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

2:17And you know, first form of technically first form of venture capitalism. And so we think we can learn a lot from that and sort of redesign that and create an institution that we kind of you could call the Medici institution for the 21st century by bringing together family businesses, venture capitalists, as well as the founders and the creators of of what we identify as sort of solutions to some of the systemic challenges that Europe is facing. and yeah so you know you were there in davos we launched that the renson summit in davos during the world economic forum with you know uniting some of the biggest capital allocators in europe and as you said in your introduction we realized you know we actually have the wealth

2:57Mike Butcher:we just don't coordinate capital very well and you know sure so i mean there are lots of initiatives that try and coordinate europe it's a little bit like herding cats isn't it but do you think that what your event will do is more about actually having real impact. Yeah, and it's because we don't really think of it as a single event, right? It's a movement that is sparked by convenings, such as the one we host in Germany at our family home, as well as Davos. And, you know, we've started a community around this at Cambridge, actually five years ago, all about uniting the next generation of leaders across Europe.

3:36And I think our members probably collectively hosted more than 50 events, small, literally convenings within their homes or larger summits such as the one in Davos. And it's, yeah, we really think of it as a movement at its core and a community. But how do we create, you know, tangible outcomes on top of this? That is the challenge. That is what sort of most also networks try to crack. And that is what we will bring together at the summit in June. it's all around looking at the Draghi reports. You know, as you mentioned, there's an 800 billion innovation gap, but like how do we make sure capital can go into the specific sectors that are needed?

4:15And of course, there's a huge inflow of capital into defense security. So that will be a major topic. Well, defense, energy transition, how do we, you know, renew the industrial sectors of Europe while also generating clean energy for that? I think specifically Germany obviously messed up massively over the last decade and getting rid of of nuclear and all these things where we don't need to get into is is it's just like okay how do we um spotlight solutions that could get us out of this mess right and it's like we just think it's it's really more up to the entrepreneurs to solve the challenges and it's amazing to have the sort of guideline of Mario Draghi put out this this report that I think is aligning a lot of stakeholders across Europe and we just want to be part of that, you know, coordinate the stakeholders across Europe to work on these solutions together.

5:03Mike Butcher:Is there a danger that it becomes a kind of a private talking shop for, you know, the elite? I mean, how do you engage politicians, policymakers, democracies? Absolutely. I think there's always a danger and we try hard to figure out how do we make this tangible, right? minutes. And that's why also we actually transitioned Poloneo from thinking it becomes a sort of think tank to actually becoming more of a venture launch pad, right? Like, okay, we actually think that the policy agendas are really important to have on a higher level. But in the end, it comes down to the execution of some of the things that are outlined in these reports.

5:40So can we create an institution that actually executes with entrepreneurs and partnership with entrepreneurs? We really believe Europe should just be empowering more entrepreneurs, have less. And to be fair, we we want to engage more with the european union and we are like we had the president of the european animation council as a speaker and they're all very supportive but in the end when i'm like you know i was in silicon valley a month ago and people were like oh you should meet this this this person and like that person meets you the next day and introduced me to their friends they're like amazing what you do you do it moves so fast when i talk to the people in brussels they're like okay great like i'm meeting this person in six weeks and i will let them know what what you're doing and maybe that person cannot like nothing happens it's like very frustrating and to me it's It's not an environment that I'm used to.

6:23So, but like, of course, we do want to engage the policy side, which is kind of a struggle because I think there's a cultural clash when it comes to entrepreneurs working with policymakers.

6:34Mike Butcher:I see. Yeah. Okay. So it sounds to me like what you're saying is you're trying to get a more Silicon Valley mindset, especially amongst some of the, you know, the old money and the family offices in Europe together to actually sort of re-industrialize and actually do the work themselves and not just sit around waiting for the politicians. That sounds like a very laudable idea. There's also another aspect of this. It's about bridging that late-stage capital gap that Europe's tech founders and late-stage entrepreneurs often find that they're going to move to the US, aren't they? Is there anything that you think you can do with your initiative to sort of bridge that gap?

7:16Well, yeah, I think we're currently quite at the early stage phase. However, we work with family businesses offices. So we're actually creating, because you also asked what tangible things we do, is a fellowship for family business entrepreneurs to figure out how can we take their family business into the intelligence age, the new age, and take some of the legacy assets and build something here on top. And very often that actually results in sort of a venture capital fund within the family business office. this. And what's, what's great about family businesses, they can be, they can be quite flexible in terms and permanent with the capital.

7:51So it can go into growth stage. It can grow into early stage, but it can also go into opportunities that maybe a venture capital fund would overlook because maybe it doesn't produce the sort of unicorn results they, they would want to see, but we still think there's importance and returns to be achieved. So on the The growth side, 100%, of course, Davos is a great platform for that. The type of capital you'd find there is definitely more on the growth stage side, less on the early stage side. But what we focus on right now is really how do we bring early stage seed funding actually to university ecosystems.

8:27So we started in Cambridge where we founded Paloneo five years ago, and we're now launching a sort of more seed funding initiative to find brilliant talents. And this is another thing that Draghi put out in the report is, is, is there is a lot of talent and we're brilliant at research, but we really fail at the commercialization of that research. And, and, you know, I specifically saw that in Cambridge where people love to talk about the papers and the knowledge they produce, but in the end, it's only as valuable as the customers who end up paying for that, the solution that you're building. And so we want to bring that mindset and say, okay, maybe, you know, start a company with that.

9:03And we want to see, see you. So that is one initiative we're creating as well. And all of these initiatives come together at the Renaissance Summit.

9:12Mike Butcher:I see. But after the Renaissance Summit, what happens? Can you create some sort of rolling effect that builds momentum moving from Davos and then doing it again and just keeping going? 100%. It's a movement. We're structuring this into an alliance, right? So it's technically we're building a stakeholder model where different organizations who are committed to Europe's next renaissance coming together bi-annually, Germany at the more retreat style countryside, getting deep into the topics and then Davos where of course it's a more hectic environment, but in a really important platform, I think to bring out just to also show European leadership on the global stage.

9:52And that will recurrently, you know, happen over the next couple of years. So we're driving different policy initiatives within that, but mostly, you know, focusing on really actually supporting entrepreneurs and trying to translate some of the policies into action.

10:09Mike Butcher:How do you feel that you can get people singing from the same song sheet? For instance, you mentioned energy. Nuclear is a big issue. Obviously, Europe's quite behind on developing nuclear and clean nuclear. How can you get everyone talking the same issues over and over again so that the policy initiatives move and that Europe does improve? Yeah, well, nuclear is a really tough topic. I'm sure if you talk about that in Germany, lots of opinions. But in the end, one of our entrepreneurs, they're creating a bio-methane um development platform out of Italy right now um we we think a huge potential to to become a new and a new energy source totally renewable uh and so we're just looking at different solutions we're not really focused on nuclear whatever it's just like is this a solution a clean energy solution for example can we do we believe in the entrepreneurs can they execute on this in this case like we're very sure they can so we're bringing them to the summit and we want to bring you know the right stakeholders around that okay how do we increase this kind of platform by 10 times size and and and potentially also bring in some eu capital into this like bridging the public in the private sector by really finding entrepreneurs who are working on solutions and supporting them with the platform we're building and i know that um you're doing this in june now europe is full of events in the summer and in june um but i know particularly that this is going to be happening just after super return in Berlin, which is a big meeting of venture capital funds and LPs.

11:47Mike Butcher:Are you deliberately timing it in that way so that you can, people can maybe sort of jump from that event to yours? Spot on. Exactly. We've always had a lot of, you know, people also come from Silicon Valley and even Africa, Asia, and some of them also attend super return in in Berlin, so we're putting in the same week so that people can join both. And we obviously a lot more with smaller, more curated on the countryside. So we're not in a big hotel room with one on one back to back meetings. We're really looking to get people together on the countryside, be part of the same solution and then and then engage in what we call impact circles.

12:25So which will be about energy defense, even Africa circle. it's all about enabling the new generation of family business entrepreneurs to explore and engage in the new frontiers and highlighting some of these solutions.

12:42Mike Butcher:Well I think what's exciting about it is that you're really trying to coordinate something which is traditionally quite hard to coordinate and you're also getting people to commit to sort of actionable outcomes and also producing something in Davos. So I think that it's going to be very interesting to see what comes out of it. But for now, let's leave it there. Ludolf von Schöning from the Renaissance Summit. Thanks very much for joining Path Founders.