00:14:17 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:14:17] S0: Amazing. The bar is just that high. Wherever you are will take you. Interesting. I want to talk about the two rounds that you raised last year, right? So you went from... You kind of became a unicorn, like, summertime. [00:14:29] S1: I'll correct that. We actually raised around 24. That was just announced on '25. [00:14:33] S0: Oh, interesting. Okay. Fine. And then... Well, yeah. Very quickly after it was announced... Yes.... You then raised the $5,000,000,000 valuation. Yeah. What happened in between those two? Was that... Was the second round already ongoing when you announced the first No. Or it came off the back of that and preempted? How did that come about? [00:14:53] S1: It was... Yeah. It was led by our existing investor, Lower Carbon Yep. And Bulletin. So, I mean, yeah, they they were investors in us from from day one. Mhmm. So I guess they like what they saw, so they they they They [00:15:10] S0: wanted to get ahead of it. Yeah. And how did you find that process of raising that money then? Because I assume it was very easy, but were there negotiations around valuation? How did that play out? [00:15:18] S1: Fundraising is very, you know, time draining, as I'm sure a lot of entrepreneurs will say the same thing. They are trying to manage multiple stakeholders and make everyone happy. It's painful.: [00:15:34] S0: You don't enjoy it? No. You much prefer running the the business itself? [00:15:37] S1: 100%, yeah.
00:15:37 · Alan Chang, Sebastian Johnson
[00:15:37] S1: 100%, yeah. [00:15:40] S0: It seems like you've been actually... You you raised relatively low... A a low amount of capital for the business that you're building, which is both a combination of, like, hardware, software, the full stack. Have you invested a lot of your own money into this? Like, how have you managed to stay relatively capital constrained? [00:15:55] S1: By building a profitable business. So as of December last year, we've been profitable ever since. So we're generating single digit millions in profit a month. [00:16:10] S0: Amazing. And is that going to be a priority for you going forward? Is it important for you to maintain that profitability level? [00:16:17] S1: I think for us, it's actually not that important. We're happy to take a three year, five year, seven year view on return on investment. So if it means you know, going back to on profitability, we will do we will do it. Yeah. That being said, as I said, talent is a constraint, not capital. I I wish we were capital constrained. Right? If... I wish I could be like, okay. Let's raise a billion dollars, and we'll go 10 times faster. Right? Yeah. Reality is if there's a billion dollars in the bank account, like, our speed would not change. [00:16:53] S0: Yep. [00:16:56] S1: So... Yeah. So whilst in theory that's true, I don't think it will happen. [00:17:00] S0: Yeah, interesting. Mean, your ARR per FTE must be crazy. Right? Like, what is it, 2,000,000? Two and a half? Something like that. [00:17:08] S1: Something like that, yeah.
00:17:08 · Alan Chang, Sebastian Johnson
[00:17:08] S1: Something like that, yeah. [00:17:09] S0: That's insane. Mean, yeah. Have you tried to take a capital constrained view of everything outside of talent? You know, if you've been frugal in the way that you've... I mean, it sounds like marketing hadn't been a big expenditure. [00:17:19] S1: I'll say, like, we we are very, very cost conscious. Alright? Like, we have very, very rigorous cost controls. [00:17:30] S0: And [00:17:32] S1: I would say our cost discipline is much higher than the average start up. [00:17:36] S0: Interesting. One of the quick five questions I wanted to ask you is throughout your journey as a founder, what has been the biggest waste of money you've ever spent?: [00:17:45] S1: I'm trying to trace back the last few years, what mistakes did I make? I don't think I made any costly mistakes.: Interesting.: Not super costly. There's obviously like... I can probably find... I think there's a couple of examples where it's like $10.20 grand that is stupid.: Yeah.: For sure. But, like, I don't think we made any, like, very, like, super costly mistakes. [00:18:11] S0: Interesting. So it'd probably be talent. Right? Like, bad talent has probably been [00:18:14] S1: Yeah. But even bad talent, like, you realize pretty quickly. [00:18:17] S0: True. Yes. That is expensive. [00:18:17] S1: So I would say it's, like, more like a time cost than a financial cost. [00:18:20] S0: Yeah. Interesting. Has there been a standout decision that you've made that has been the biggest driver of ROI?
00:18:20 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:18:20] S0: Yeah. Interesting. Has there been a standout decision that you've made that has been the biggest driver of ROI? [00:18:27] S1: Yeah. I can't think of a... Apart from top team, I can't think of another answer. [00:18:32] S0: That's it, top team. Interesting. Alright, yeah. I guess you haven't invested in marketing the same as other companies have, where I guess the risk is that you kind of burn a lot of cash or making a huge ROI on it. Back to the razors, Is this something that you looked for very early on in a VC partner? Were there like... Because I know Bolton were obviously a big Revolut backer. Was that good for you? Or was there certain things that you were looking for? Or is your view that VCs are probably not that value add, whatever? [00:19:02] S1: I think I've actually changed my mind on that. Like if you asked me two years ago, I'd probably give you an answer like VCs are not that value add, like money's money. But if you ask me today, I think beyond money, it's important to find an investor that is, you know, that have high EQ and that is willing to unassign your business. Yeah, because... Yeah, like, what's worse than no value add is, like, negative value add. Yeah. And, yeah, I've just seen more and more bad examples of VCs. So basically, beyond the money, work with people you like. [00:19:54] S0: Interesting. That's the most important thing. Yeah. You think you've got good investors like that that you get on with you like? [00:19:59] S1: I would say so, yeah.
00:19:59 · Alan Chang, Sebastian Johnson
[00:19:59] S1: I would say so, yeah. [00:20:00] S0: Yeah. Okay. And I saw that Quantum Light came in in the last round as well. What was that like raising from kind of Nick's fund? Was that like a nice full circle moment? Was he... You know, was it a tough negotiation? What kind of investment process was that like? [00:20:12] S1: I've said it publicly many times. I've a lot of respect for Nick. But yeah, I took him a while, but yeah, I'm glad they're on the cuttable. [00:20:25] S0: Amazing. I want talk about Europe more generally and European tech. How well positioned do you think Europe is, the European ecosystem, is currently to build tech giants? [00:20:36] S1: I'm cautiously optimistic. [00:20:37] S0: Yeah? Okay. Interesting. Why cautiously, and then why optimistic?
00:20:37 · Sebastian Johnson, Alan Chang
[00:20:37] S0: Yeah? Okay. Interesting. Why cautiously, and then why optimistic? [00:20:41] S1: The biggest talent competitor of Europe is is obviously The US. And if you look at all the top founders from The US, a lot of them are Europeans. So in The US, you have much larger talent markets, much larger and wealthier consumer market. There's less and less strong reasons to build in Europe. At the same time, Europe still has a lot of great talent. I think it's a no brainer to always build an office in Europe and hire high grade engineers. But Europe is making it very hard to build. There's so many bureaucracy policies that don't make sense. And if you just like... If you're an entrepreneur, just weigh out like, okay. What are pros and cons? Like, the cons are growing. And I mean, would say pros are still, like, larger than cons today. Yeah. But, you know, it's it's very, very close to to go the other way. [00:21:52] S0: Mhmm. Interesting. And when you talk about bureaucracy and policy, is there a specific bit of policy that may be specifically for Fuse or the ecosystem more broadly that you'd either implement or rip up tomorrow? [00:22:05] S1: Yeah. Wouldn't implement any more policies. But I would delete a lot of policies. So what I would do is I go line by line on every existing policy and delete anyone that anyone that makes sense. Doesn't make sense. [00:22:19] S0: Outside policy bureaucracy, what do you think we as an ecosystem, founders, investors, operators, what can that level of ecosystem do to try and take tech to the next level?