20 VC 067: Scaling Startups Into Unicorns with Atomico's Mattias Ljungman and Carolina Brochado
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2015
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mattias launched Atomico in 2006 alongside Niklas Zennström. In that time, Mattias has been involved with exits including Supercell (sold a majority stake to SoftBank), 6Wunderkinder (acquired by Microsoft in 2015), The Climate Corporation (acquired by Monsanto for $1.1B in 2013), Xobni (acquired by Yahoo! in 2013). Mattias works closely with a number of portfolio companies on their expansion, including Truecaller, Klarna, Hailo, and ChemistDirect.
Carolina is Vice President @ Atomico, working on sourcing, evaluation and due diligence of investments. Carolina is based in London, however she travels frequently to Latin America to evaluate opportunities for Atomico to help companies in the region to scale. Prior to Atomico, Carolina started her career at Merrill Lynch's investment banking division before moving to private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners.
Did you like the double guest show today? If so click here!
If you prefer a single guest click here!
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Mattias and Carolina made their way into the VC industry with Atomico?
2.) How important is it for VCs to have entrepreneurial backgrounds?
3.) What advice would Mattias and Carolina give to anyone looking to enter the VC industry?
4.) What is Atomico's selection criteria? Average cheque size? Round preference? Sector preference?
5.) Why is now the best time to be a European entrepreneur? What has changed?
6.) What does it take for a tech ecosystem to thrive and grow?
7.) What is required for startups to scale from small markets to mass market adoption?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Mattias' Fave Book: The Girl Who Saved The King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson
Carolina's Fave Book: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Mattias' Fave Blog or Newsletter: Benedict Evans
Carolina's Fave Newsletter: The Skim, Dan Primack: TermSheet
Atomics's Most Used Productivity Tools: Wunderlist, Evernote, Pocket, SmartNews
Atomics's Most Recent Investments: TrueCaller, GymPass
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC, Carolina and Mattias on Twitter here!
For a more colourful image of Harry and maybe some mojito sessions, follow Harry on Instagram here!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You're listening to the 20 minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings. Now, you may have heard me say before that today we have a special show for you, but today we really do have an incredibly special show as we welcome our first dual interview. Yes, that means we have two incredible VCs on the show today. They are both from Atomico, one of London's leading venture funds. |
| 0:22.6 | Kicking us off, we have Matthias Lungman. |
| 0:25.0 | Matthias launched Atomico in 2006 alongside Nicholas Zendstrom. |
| 0:30.0 | In that time, Matthius has been involved with exits including Supercell, sold to Softbank, |
| 0:35.7 | six Wonderkinda acquired by Microsoft, the Climate Corporation acquired by Monsanto, |
| 0:41.3 | and Mattius works closely with a number of these portfolio companies on their expansion, including True Caller, Clana, Halo. |
| 0:49.3 | And prior to launching Atomico, Matias was the head of investments at CLS Holdings, where he was responsible for the |
| 0:56.0 | sale of Sit Up TV for 360 million. And joining Matthias in the hot seat today, we have Carolina |
| 1:02.8 | Bracardo. Carolina is vice president at Atomico, working on sourcing, evaluation and due |
| 1:09.2 | diligence to investments. |
| 1:14.8 | Caroline is based in London, however, she travels frequently to Latin America to evaluate opportunities for Atomico to help companies in the region to scale. |
| 1:19.9 | Prior to Atomico, Carolina started her career at Merrill Lynch's investment banking division |
| 1:24.7 | before moving to private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners. |
| 1:29.2 | But before we delve into today's interview, the other day, someone asked me, what do I love |
| 1:33.6 | about hiring screen? I said it's simple. It's so quick and it's so easy to use. It analyzed all |
| 1:39.9 | the candidates that applied for my job, filtered them and then displayed them based on my metrics. |
| 1:45.0 | It then provided an interactive graphics chart to display the cams that strengths and weaknesses, |
| 1:50.0 | and let's face it, we all love a good graph. |
| 1:53.0 | Check it out at www.hiringscreen.com. |
| 1:57.0 | So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, may I welcome Matias and Carolina, the 20-Minute V-C's first dual interview. |
| 2:08.7 | You have now arrived at your destination. |
| 2:13.4 | Matthias, Carolina, welcome to the 20-minute VC. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Twenty Minute VC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Twenty Minute VC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.