At Beta-i, we are counting down the days until our flagship event the Lisbon Investment Summit takes place. Personally, I am particularly excited about the wealth of knowledge and expertise that will be present at the event. We have an exciting guest list of investors and entrepreneurs, visionaries and tech experts, all coming together in our slightly informal and unexpected, two-day event. Our goal is to bring people from various backgrounds together, creating a unique arena for establishing new relations and partnerships within our global, entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The list of venture capitalists attending the event is nothing short of impressive. Here’s a sneak peak into a couple of the notable VCs you can expect to see at #LIS17. Before you reach out to the investors, be sure to learn more about their previous investments and the areas they focus on to be sure you align with their investment strategy, all of which is provided below. Happy networking!
1. Accel Partners
The Accel team
Accel is an American, early and growth-stage, venture capital firm with over three decades of experience in building world-class companies. It is based in Palo Alto, California, to afford close access to its main target: tech startups. As one of the most active VCs in Silicon Valley, Accel might be most known from its early backing of Facebook, which made them one of the largest shareholders in the social network. The VC has backed several champions, funding more than 300 companies, with most investments made in early stage startups. The team manages to raise new funds every two to three years. Just last year, they announced a $500 million seed fund, a $1.5 billion growth fund, and a $500 million London Accel fund.
Not only do they showcase a remarkable portfolio of companies, the team boasts of impressive partners and investors (it seems attending an ivy league school is a minimum requirement for working there). One of these investors is Laura Grimmelmann, who will be representing Accel at #LIS17. She combines an academic background from London School of Economics and Harvard Business School, with a varied work experience from Bain & company, Team Launch and she also co-founded an e-commerce startup.
Accel has invested in the following companies:: Atlassian, Braintree, Cloudera, DJI, Dropbox, Dropcam, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, Lookout Security, Qualtrics, Slack, Spotify, Supercell, and Vox Media.
Accel specialises in: Computing & Storage Infrastructure, Consumer Internet & Media, Energy, Enterprise Software & Services, Mobile, Networking Systems, Retail Consumer, Security, Semiconductors, and Technology Enabled Services
2. Index Ventures
Renaud Visage, founder of Eventbrite, who has recently joined Index
Index Ventures is a multi-stage international venture capital fund. It was founded in Geneva with offices in London and San Francisco. The team invests in companies across verticals, in both technology and healthcare. They have funded over 160 companies with past investments favoring a broad range of areas, such as infrastructure, business services, FinTech, and entertainment. According to a former Dropbox employee, Ilya Fushman, now a current member of the team, the Index partners were available ‘around the clock’, offering advice, expertise and critical feedback to the team when needed.
Just last month, Index announced a new addition to their team, Renaud Visage, the co-founder of Eventbrite. As an entrepreneur who established the world’s largest event technology platform, he can offer unique know-how to help founders scale their technology and operations. Renaud will also be present at #LIS17 as one of our speakers, representing the unique perspective of being an entrepreneur and an investor.
Index Ventureshas invested in the following companies:: Dropbox, Etsy, Sonos, SoundCloud, Flipboard, King, BlaBlaCar, Squarespace, Just Eat, Lookout, Nasty Gal, Pure Storage, Supercell, and Criteo.
Index Ventures specialises in: technology and life sciences.
3. Notion Capital
The founders of Unbabel, a startup from Lisbon who closed a Series A with Notion Capital
Notion Capital is a British venture capital firm specialising in enterprise software entrepreneurs who aim to transform global markets. They invest narrowly, in SaaS and cloud service solutions, at seed and series A stages. The team can offer extensive support to their entrepreneurs, due to this specialisation with accumulated knowledge and expertise. Notion capital is not only concerned with funding, their strategy is to be value-adding investors. Thus, they have built Notion Platform so that everyone within the Notion ecosystem can access information about their portfolio of companies, partners, experts, ambassadors, future execs, NEDs, chairs and the team itself. Notion Capital also lead the funding round of Unbabel, a Portuguese startup from our accelerator, Lisbon challenge, raising $5 million alongside Caixa Capital. Unbabel were also present at the Lisbon Investment Summit last year.
Notion Capital is sending Alexandre Flamant to represent them at #LIS17. He focuses on machine learning and is looking for solutions in enterprise software.
Notion Capital has invested in the following companies: Trustev, Currencycloud, Dealflo, Duedil, Glow, Shutl, Smartpipe, Scoota, Triptease, and Unbabel.
Notion Capital specialises in: B2B Saas specifically in FinTech, Digital marketing and AdTech, Customer management, Human capital management, Commerce enablement, Dev tools, BI, Big data, Cybersecurity, Productivity, and collaboration.
4. Balderton Capital
The Balderton Capital office in London
The London-based VC started as the European extension of the Silicon Valley Tech fund, Benchmark Capital in 2000, before going independent in 2007. Balderton Capital focuses on early stage, European tech companies, with each investment ranging from $775,000 to $15 million. It is the largest fund in Europe, totaling $2.3 billion, with most of the capital coming from university endowments, charitable foundations, and pension funds. Balderton is recognized for its deep operational experience and international scope. They look for entrepreneurs with direct experience from the problem they are trying to solve, as well as passion, conviction, and a vision of the world that is different to most people. As a result, they only focus on a few deals each year, which they believe to be of huge, global potential.
At this years’ Lisbon Investment Summit, Anna Boffetta will be speaking on behalf of Balderton. Prior to joining Balderton Capital, Anna worked with a business angel investing and advising early-stage UK startups. She is particularly enthusiastic about SaaS, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Business Intelligence, Media, DigitalHealth, AgTech, and New Space.
Balderton Capital has invested in the following companies: BetFair, Kobalt, Lovefilm, Bebo, Citymapper, Wonga, Yoox, Talend, Sketchfab, MySQL, Sunrise, Big Fish Games, Magic Pony Technology and Tictail.
Balderton specialises in: technology, media, and e-commerce.
5. Atomico
Carolina Brochado from Atomico is joining us in Lisbon this June
Atomico invests in disruptive technology startups from Series A to later stages. It was launched by Skype co-founder, Niklas Zennström, in 2006 with the intention to focus exclusively on tech. Although the main focus is on European entrepreneurs, with its headquarter in London, they also have offices in Beijing, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, and Istanbul. Atomico focuses on scaling companies, consisting of a team of experienced entrepreneurs and executives of successful tech firms who have managed to scale companies before. Atomico’s manifesto is based on the belief that entrepreneurs are the ultimate agents of positive change in our society and economy. Furthermore, they believe that many of the next transformative companies will come from Europe, and that is where their focus lies. Over the last decade, they have made a total of 89 investments in 60 companies, including Uniplaces (a startup from Lisbon Challenge who attended the Lisbon Investment Summit last year) who raised one of the biggest Series A in Europe.
Carolina Brochado is a Partner at Atomico and will be speaking at #LIS17. She works directly with Atomico portfolio companies including Lendinvest, Farmdrop, and Uniplaces, and sits on the boards of Gympass, Chemist Direct and Bebestore. When scouting for new opportunities she is focused on solutions in Fintech, consumer/retail, and marketplaces.
Atomico has invested in the following companies: Supercell, Klarna, Farmdrop, Pipedrive, LendInvest, Uniplaces, Knewton, Wunderlist, Fab, and Jawbone.
Atomico specialises in: European technology firm, in sectors such as curated web, e-commerce and mobile.
6. Cherry VC
The founders and partners of Cherry Ventures
Cherry Ventures is a newly founded (2012) Berlin-based VC built for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. The team has substantial experience in building fast-scaling companies, which potential entrepreneurs can leverage in their pursuit of building sustainable businesses. They focus on seed stage companies across Europe, with 32 companies invested in so far. Cherry ventures provide support for their founders along the evolution of the company, offering advice, supporting the build-up of functional units, provide access to networks, coach the founder and connect them to others.
Filip Dames, the founding partner, founded his first company in 2008, before joining Zalando. He is looking for product-centric companies that disrupt the way consumers behave today. This June, he will be coming to #LIS17 to speak at the summit, along with Ricardo Sequerra, who has recently moved from Lisbon to Berlin to join Cherry Ventures.
Cherry Ventures has invested in the following companies: Flixbus, Smacc, Amorelie, Move24, Quandoo, and Aloha.
Cherry specialises in: Consumer internet, mobile, sales-driven marketplace models, SaaS, AI, retail-enabling technology.
7. Kima Ventures
The Formlabs team, a startup which was invested by Kima Ventures
Kima Ventures is a unique venture capital firm, headquartered in Paris with an additional office in London. They move with startup speed, investing in 2 to 3 startups each week, globally, making them one of the world’s most active early-stage investors. They provide founders with funding, network, and support, investing in all stages, from seed to series A, totaling over 330 companies invested in. Their ultimate goal is to make the fundraising process as smooth as possible so that the founders can focus on building their business and not get distracted with the problems of obtaining investments. The investment firm has several initiatives that differentiate them from the traditional investor firms. Although recently closed, Kima ventures offered Kima15, an investment structured as a fixed offer of $150,000 of funding for 15% of the company, where startups could apply directly from AngelList, to increase the speed of investment decisions, which were made within 5 days. Now, they typically invest $100,000 to $200,000 per company in the early stages, still with the priority of speed and reducing complications around obtaining the investment. For the startup to track their position in the funding pipeline, real-time, they have launched Kima Status. In addition, they have also launched a portfolio platform, Kima Forward, to further enhance the value to their entrepreneurs.
Jacob Vincent joined Kima Ventures in 2013. Before joining, he worked for Smarkets (an early-stage startup) and Seedcamp (seed stage acceleration fund). Kima ventures have some specific characteristics they are looking for. Thus, at #LIS17 he will probably be looking for seed stage companies, with a complete and cohesive team with stellar execution curves, typically with some initial product or prototype.
Kima Ventures has invested in the following companies: Bluevine, Formlabs, Leanplum, Transferwise, ZooZ, Zenly, Spendesk, PromisePay, Front, Aircall and Payfit.
Kima Ventures invest in all sectors, but mainly considers companies in the internet industry and avoids capital intensive and heavily regulated industries.
The Lisbon Investment Summit offers a unique opportunity to meet these top VCs in an informal and relaxed setting to create unique networking opportunities. You have been quickly introduced to some of the exciting VCs coming to Lisbon, but this is only the cherry on top. We’ve got heaps of other investors and angels lined up for #LIS17.
If you’re an entrepreneur, it’s time to get those pitch decks ready. If you’re an investor, it’s time to brush up on those much-needed networking skills, because #LIS17 is just around the corner.