00:15:05 · Andre Degler, Uwe Horstmann
[00:15:05] S0: No. Yeah. That that that is true. And just to finish off with this question, when you talk about explosion, how do you actually envision it? Do you envision it as more startups being launched or more funding being raised or more exits being, well, publicized, announced? [00:15:23] S1: I think all of that. So I think all of the combination, because that that just defines the attractiveness of an ecosystem. And then I think the core is that we see more good talent also tackling new tough challenges. Yes, capital is important. Yes, exits are important. But the best thing that we can... That can happen, of course, is new smart minds saying, I want to do something entrepreneurial. And either if I'm a founder or a contributor, it doesn't even matter that much in the beginning, but I want to get into that ecosystem. As opposed to taking the easy route in a large established company, I wanna do something entrepreneurial. That's that's the core, I think, that's driving all of this. [00:16:02] S0: Alright. Right. I understand. K. So, usually, it's a it's a popular question, I think, when talking to VCs, but I still wanted to ask. What about your portfolio and anti portfolio? So, like, the best investment decisions, the worst investment decisions over the ten years?
00:16:18 · Uwe Horstmann
[00:16:18] S1: We are fortunate to have had, like, a couple of real big successes in the portfolio that are already very prominent. Trade Republic is one, which just announced this this massive round. We are investors in Crew, in Sender, in Casavo, in Spryker Systems, so a bunch of really big successful companies. And, you know, that is... When I'm always asked this question about your portfolio, anti portfolio, I always want to make sure that I avoid the impression of I am this investor, I'm laid back in my armchair, and there is a company coming by, you know, the future... Let's say, sender or somebody, and we are just like a Roman imperator saying, Hey, you guys are pretty smart. Here's some money, and then that is my investment decision. The reality is very different. We need to beg those people to take our money, right? So we need to be thankful that we are allowed to call them members of our portfolio. It's not the other way around. Like, if you watch too much Shark Tank or Höhle der Löwen or however you want to call it, a different impression might arise that the startups come begging, and then we are so nice to them by giving them money. That's not the case. We need to really work hard to convince them to take our money. And when I talk about portfolio and other portfolio, it's important for me that people understand this. So those are companies where we are very lucky to have unfortunate lucky is maybe a bad word because it implies a lot of luck, but let's say where the situation was so great that we came to the conviction that this is a great business to invest in, and also we had that we got the chance to invest. So those two things need to come together to build a portfolio. Now in anti portfolio, there's companies that we passed on, and they went on to become really, really successful. You know, we can talk about a few examples, but again, also the same here applies not only because we said, Hey, let's not invest. It doesn't mean we would have been able to invest if we had decided differently, right? So it's a long way from us saying, Hey, we want to invest, all the way to, Yes, we actually get the investment done. And TechsFix, for example, is such a example, a fantastic company that we wanted to take... That we looked at, you know, really closely.
00:18:35 · Uwe Horstmann, Andre Degler
Ultimately, we didn't do it, and, you know, I wish those guys obviously the best of luck, and they have proven us wrong already. Not to say that we would have been able to invest again, but they are doing a fantastic job, we would love, of course, to put some money in now in hindsight. Or another example is Sorare. We really tried get that deal done. Unfortunately, couldn't get there, but yeah, in hindsight, of course, that would have been fantastic. Also, you know, a great team, awesome set of investors, such a great success story so far for everyone involved. So we are very happy that this works out. Obviously, we would be a bit happier if we would be part of it, but that's the way that that game goes sometimes. [00:19:18] S0: Generally speaking, does the whole crypto industry and NFTs, does it fit into your thesis? [00:19:25] S1: We are... So we haven't traditionally done a lot there, to be honest. We are looking at it always a bit from the outside, and we are regularly checking, basically, if we should get more involved. And it seems like there's a new wave happening, and we are at the moment evaluating how should we get involved. So, you know, if people listen to this and they really think we should, we'd be very interested in having that discussion even though we haven't done a lot in the past just yet. It is something that is obviously high on our agenda that we wanna reevaluate on an ongoing basis, and right now is one of those reevaluation points. [00:20:01] S0: I'm still very skeptical, but then I'm not a VC. So... I mean, that's why.
00:20:01 · Andre Degler, Uwe Horstmann
[00:20:01] S0: I'm still very skeptical, but then I'm not a VC. So... I mean, that's why. [00:20:07] S1: Lots to like, lots to dislike. Right? So definitely, it's about it's about the right model. I mean, the new fancy coin, you know, two years ago, that probably wouldn't have been our right business. When it comes to enabling infrastructure, probably a bit more so. So let's see. [00:20:21] S0: Yeah. Yeah. And, so you mentioned already that, you have quite a few people, working, for Project A, and, like, much more people than you would normally expect, from a VC firm of your size, and most of them operators available for your startups if they want them. So... How does it actually feel and how it works when you scale a VC firm pretty much the same way as you would scale a startup? So how was it for you?
00:20:51 · Uwe Horstmann
[00:20:51] S1: I mean, it's it's very interesting. Right? Because I I think what you're saying... What you're stressing is a really, really good point. I think you need to you need to start thinking about a VC firm like about any other company in that space, which means we are in a fierce competition for talent with everybody else. That's something that becomes clear, whether it's on the investing side or whether it's on the operational side. The same holds true. So we are thankful that we have great leaders in those teams that are taking over, like, a lot of the management and development and leadership roles, as the name says. We are focusing a lot on internal feedback, on constant development of the organization. So we work with software that measures basically the satisfaction of that organization on a biweekly basis. And through that, we've been able to improve our net promoter score, our employee net promoter score from an okay value to a fantastic value. It's not me who does that, so I can't claim that this was Uwe who did that, but we have great people in the organization who work on that, and they've been doing a fantastic job. And, a, we do this because it makes it a better environment for ourselves to be in. It's just more fun to work in such an environment. But on the other hand, we also need to do that. We need to provide a great atmosphere, lots of degrees of freedom, but also like a clear path to leadership in that industry, because that's something where I think the VC industry is not really good at, and that's also a problem, and that leads to a situation that more and more of the same people become VCs because I think we need to become better as an industry to show the inroads into the industry, and then also to make sure and make transparent, make it objective who makes progress in that industry. Because if I'm just hiring in my own network, and then I'm just promoting the people who are like me, that just basically leads to a situation that more people like me will be in decision making positions in the venture capital industry, and that needs to be more diverse. Because that's the key factor to making to making sure that capital flows also to more diverse entrepreneurs.
00:22:54 · Andre Degler, Uwe Horstmann
[00:22:54] S0: So Yeah. [00:22:54] S1: We can't solve the one issue without solving the other, and through that, we can only achieve that, I think, by making it transparent how to get into the industry and make it transparent and predictable and plannable how to make progress in that industry and make it objective. And that's what we're trying to do. And that kinda governs our thinking when it comes to building a VC firm as well. [00:23:14] S0: And you already mentioned all these tools, all these software tools that you're using. So on the side of the actual investment business, what what is it that you're using? All the data analysis, tracking, AI decision making sort of things. What what have you seen over these years, and what have you ended up using?