Scaling Europe
00:06:30 · Sebastian Johnson, Raffi Kamber
[00:06:30] S0: Interesting. Okay. Did you think... You know, I've I've heard other people talk about the ecosystem that we have here in Europe. It's in some ways not being quite good enough at taking our incredible academic talent, you know, the universities that we have, and then helping them become companies. Do you think we still do you think there's an opportunity or a problem there? Or do you think we are we are doing a good job, creating that pathway from academia and research into entrepreneurialism? [00:06:58] S1: I think we're doing a great job right now. Maybe five, ten years ago, it was not exactly the same. Right now, think the investments industry or the broader ecosystem has learned how to work, with people that have quite a unique IP or know how. I help them think about how to transform it, how to make it evolve into becoming a company quite well from incubators, accelerators to early stage investors. I think Europe has has made phenomenal progress on that. And and on our end, we're... We've been doing this for a few years now, And I say that with with as much humility as possible. I think we've been doing a good job with the few founders with... That have picked us as partners to to help them basically design their companies. Again, we can't help them reinvent the science. They're too strong on that for us. We try to understand, first of all, which is a pretty good step. But we try to help them make this a company. [00:08:03] S0: And does that mean that you've become more hands on, do you think, with company building?
00:08:03 · Sebastian Johnson, Raffi Kamber
[00:08:03] S0: And does that mean that you've become more hands on, do you think, with company building? [00:08:08] S1: I wouldn't say hands on, but, I think we have, deeper conversations, as to their roles as CEOs and leaders, because it's not the the culture they have in academia. You know, they kind of understand scientific leadership, the way they can build on science, the the way they can prove their science to the rest of the world. And and they're very intrigued and interested in how to become leaders of a company. And many of the founders we work with need their... Need some help or some echo chamber at least to find the right narrative for for for broader audience, find the right sequence of execution, for making it make sense at the scale of a company, in the timeline of a company. So that's where we can be helpful. Obviously, not not putting the answers in front of them, but helping them think about this is is probably somewhere we can help. [00:09:11] S0: And how... Has this changed about, you know, the sort of way that you're sourcing and looking for start ups? So, you know, recently you announced, Laura, a new partner joining in London. It seems like the the firm's sort of betting big on London as a firm. Is that linked, you know, to maybe, like, the great academic institutions, the fact that there's a lot of great researchers here in London? Are those two things linked?
00:09:11 · Sebastian Johnson, Raffi Kamber
[00:09:11] S0: And how... Has this changed about, you know, the sort of way that you're sourcing and looking for start ups? So, you know, recently you announced, Laura, a new partner joining in London. It seems like the the firm's sort of betting big on London as a firm. Is that linked, you know, to maybe, like, the great academic institutions, the fact that there's a lot of great researchers here in London? Are those two things linked? [00:09:33] S1: Yes. Obviously, so first of all, I think you you can see that there's academic centers across Europe. It's true that Paris and London have been slightly, ahead of the curve when it came to, spinning off, science from academia. But it... It's happening all over Europe. So Europe as a whole is very exciting for this. Laura joined us because she she she she fits completely in the picture of how we work. I don't think there's a top down approach, to filtering all the research in academia just to find the right thing to do. We have a very organic way of doing. We explore our networks, we understand who who's working on something interesting, who who people think highly of, but science makes sense, and so on and so on. And and Laura is is a is a great addition to the team because she has a perfect understanding of of this way of working and investing.
00:09:33 · Raffi Kamber, Sebastian Johnson
[00:09:33] S1: Yes. Obviously, so first of all, I think you you can see that there's academic centers across Europe. It's true that Paris and London have been slightly, ahead of the curve when it came to, spinning off, science from academia. But it... It's happening all over Europe. So Europe as a whole is very exciting for this. Laura joined us because she she she she fits completely in the picture of how we work. I don't think there's a top down approach, to filtering all the research in academia just to find the right thing to do. We have a very organic way of doing. We explore our networks, we understand who who's working on something interesting, who who people think highly of, but science makes sense, and so on and so on. And and Laura is is a is a great addition to the team because she has a perfect understanding of of this way of working and investing. [00:10:29] S0: And what what does it say about, you know, having presence in London? Is that just... You know, it doesn't matter too much. You could have been in Stockholm. You could have been in Milan. You could have been in Munich. It wouldn't have mattered so much. Or are you making a strategic bet on The UK as an important market for Singular?
00:10:29 · Sebastian Johnson, Raffi Kamber
[00:10:29] S0: And what what does it say about, you know, having presence in London? Is that just... You know, it doesn't matter too much. You could have been in Stockholm. You could have been in Milan. You could have been in Munich. It wouldn't have mattered so much. Or are you making a strategic bet on The UK as an important market for Singular? [00:10:44] S1: UK The UK is definitely the important market. It's the largest market for venture, first of all. The talent density is is amazing. And it's also a natural bridge to The US because, of the cultural proximity. Right? Yeah. So between Paris and London, think you would find a pretty large chunk of the networks we want to explore, of the the science we want to explore. But it's it's also Basecamp for being able to explore the rest of Europe. It's a it's a natural connection to the rest of the ecosystem. So we are going big on London for sure, but I wouldn't see see this as exclusive as an approach. It's it's a great base camp with no working, to be able to explore the rest of Europe very naturally. [00:11:31] S0: Yeah. Okay. That that makes sense. And I guess, like, the other big bit of music that's coming to Singular this year, it was a Vibe. Right? An amazing exit. It seemed like an an incredibly low capitalized or like very capital efficient company. They ended up having like a really big exit like rumored or reported like a billion, billion and 0.5, something like that. A great result, great return for the firm. Can you tell me a bit of that story?
00:11:55 · Raffi Kamber
[00:11:55] S1: Yeah. So I think if you if you look at the types of investments we we've been making in the in the past, like, fifteen years even before, Singular, we we like this idea of being non consensus. It's the way the industry has worked for a very long time and we we we want to keep that. And and Vibe is ad tech. Not not a lot of investors were looking at ad tech two, three years ago. And we led the A at what we thought was a tipping point for being able to to serve video advertising at scale on the networks in The US especially. We've known the founders for over ten years actually. It it helps a bit for for for building the relationship. The the the thing is that it's become the dominant player very quickly. It's phenomenal unit economics for such a business. That's why you see the capital efficiency as well. And it's it's it's been noticed. There's been quite a few approaches for what they do. Ended up being acquired by Walmart during the summer for a billion 4, which is obviously a great adventure, first of all, for the founders and and everyone around the table. And for us, Singular, you know, we're we're five, six years into the Singular adventure, being able to have a large exit, allows us to to repay half of the fund in year four. It's just, one of one of the strong signals of what we're doing to our investors and to to the ecosystem. So it's it's it's just, it's just an amazing event, actually.