20VC: Europe's Youngest Series A Venture Partner, James Wise @ Balderton Capital on How To Get Into Venture & What The Future Of The VC Industry Looks Like

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2016

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

James Wise is a partner at Balderton Capital, one of Europe's leading early stage venture funds with $2.5B in funds. The youngest partner at a Series A fund in Europe, at 29 James has already led on deals including the likes of Crowdcube, SketchFab, 3D Hubs, Sunrise and Workable amongst others. He discusses his unusual background, coming into VC after previously setting up and running a charity, why he thinks geography matters less than every and why he continues to focus on areas in healthtech and edutech as well as many other emerging sectors.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) As Europe’s youngest venture partner, is venture capital a viable career going forward? What makes James say this? Has there been a time when you doubted this thesis and why?

2.) So it is a viable career, where do we go from here? Why should we choose venture in Europe over venture in the US? What are the inherent pros and cons? Does James get the itch to head to the Valley?

3.) So VC in Europe is the place to be, so why did James choose Balderton? There are a plethora of great and emerging funds in Europe, what attracted James to Balderton?

4.) What does the next 10 years of VC look like? Where we are heading? Although a viable career now, will this continue to be with increasing power of crowd sourced financing and decreasing startup costs?

5.) What advice would James give a young individual looking to get into the industry? How can an individual show their passion and inherent interest for VC and startups in a tangible way?

Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:

James' Fave Blog: The Morning Paper by Adrian Colyer, Nathan Benaich Newsletter

James' Fave Book: Score Takes Care Of Itself: Bill Walsh, Nick Bostrum: Superintelligence

James' Most Recent Investment: Magic Pony

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and James on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the 20 minute VC with your host, Harry Stebbings, and you can follow me on Snapchat at H. Stebbings to see life inside the 20 minute VC.
0:08.6	But to today's show and joining me today is a very special guest for me, a true friend and mentor in the industry, who really showed me what it takes to be a great VC when I was his intern not so long ago.
0:19.8	The man in question, James Wise, partner at Balderton Capital, one of Europe's leading
0:24.9	early stage venture funds with two and a half billion in funds.
0:29.3	The youngest partner at a Series A fund in Europe, James at 29 has already led on deals including
0:34.7	the likes of CrowdCube, Sketchfab, 3D hubs, sunrise, and workable, amongst
0:40.8	others. And in the show with James today, we discuss whether Venture is still a viable career,
0:45.3	why he believes geography matters less than ever, and what he would advise someone looking to
0:49.8	make their way into my favourite saying here, the wonderful world of VC. But before we dive into the show
0:55.6	with James today, the 20-minute VC is brought to you by Lisa, the magicians of the mattress world,
1:01.5	who've created not just the perfect mattress, crafted with three unique layers, including two
1:06.4	inches of memory foam and two inches of latex light foam designed to keep you cool. But they've also
1:11.7	perfected the user experience, having made the entire experience online, so there's no awkward showroom
1:17.1	visits and the mattress itself is delivered in only a matter of days right to your door
1:22.0	if you live in the UK, US or Canada. It's also important to say that for every 10 mattresses,
1:27.1	Lisa's sell, they give one to a
1:28.8	shelter. So don't miss out on your perfect night's sleep and head over to Lisa.com forward slash
1:34.1	VC and enter the promo code VC75 at checkout for a wicked $75 off. Finally, if you haven't signed up
1:41.9	to the Mattermark Daily by my good friend at Thinker on Twitter,
1:45.2	it really is a must with all the best VC and startup articles. But now it's time for the show today,
1:50.9	and I'm delighted to welcome James Wise partner at Balderson Capital.
2:00.2	You have now arrived at your destination.
	...

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