20VC: Why Large Seed Rounds Increase the Chances of Success | When to Sell in Venture | Why Multi-Stage Firms Do Not Do The Work | Is Europe Totally F****** and Why AI Means London Can Compete with the US with Hussein Kanji

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

The Twenty Minute VC

Business, Investing, Tech News, News

4.4 • 693 Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2025

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hussein Kanji is the Founder and Managing Partner of Hoxton Ventures, one of Europe's leading early-stage firms with mega wins in the form of Darktrace and Deliveroo. Hussein cut his teeth in venture at Accel Partners in his early years.

In Today's Episode with Hussein Kanji We Discuss:

1. How to Raise a Fund:

What are Hussein's biggest lessons from his first fund taking 39 months to raise?
Why does Hussein believe you should fundraise for a set amount of time and not to achieve a certain amount of capital?
Does Hussein believe governments should be investing in venture funds?
What are the biggest mistakes Hussein sees emerging managers make when raising?

2. How to 10x a Fund:

What is Hussein's formula for knowing when to sell an investment?
How did Hussein miss out on making $400M in Darktrace? What did he learn from it?
How much money did Hoxton make from Deliveroo? How did doing 37x on Deliveroo impact how Hussein invests today?

3. How to Build a Team in Venture:

Why does Hussein believe the incentive mechanism for young VCs is broken? Why do they just want to get cash out the door and not worry about quality?
Why is it hard to hire female partners today? What needs to happen for this to change?
What are the single biggest ways that venture partnerships break down? What went wrong between Hussein and his partner, Rob?

4. Is Europe Totally F*******:

Why does Hussein believe small seed rounds are a massive problem in the UK?
Why does Hussein believe the dire state of the London Stock Exchange is not a problem?
Why does Hussein advise companies that the best way to scale is in the US?
What advice would Hussein give to Keir Starmer on how to stimulate growth in the UK?
Why does AI mean that the UK can now compete with the US?

Transcript

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0:00.0	There is a correlation between how much money goes in to a company and what the probability
0:04.5	of success is.
0:05.5	The average is about like 300 million to get to unicorn status.
0:09.7	Your best path to scale from a financing perspective is America.
0:13.5	The rounds are bigger.
0:14.7	Do not do a fundraise for a size of the fund.
0:17.9	Do a fundraise for time of the fund.
0:20.0	Give yourself 90 days. Whatever you get,
0:22.5	go start investing. This is 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings. Now, today's show is a venture nerds dream.
0:28.2	I love this guest because, well, he's willing to be unpopular. He's very opinionated, and he's a very
0:34.8	good picker of both companies and founders. I have a lot of respect for his
0:39.5	investment style. And so with that, I'm thrilled to welcome Hussain Kanji, found and managing
0:44.5	partner of Hoxton Ventures, one of Europe's leading early stage seed firms with mega wins in the
0:49.9	form of dark trace and deliveroo. Hussein cut his teeth in venture at Excel partners in his early
0:55.5	years. And as I said, this was a really deep and granular discussion on so many of the incredible
1:01.3	intricacies of the venture business. But before we dive in today, it can be difficult to build a team
1:06.6	that's aligned on everything from values to workflow. But that's exactly what Coda was made to do.
1:12.2	Coda is an all-in-one collaborative workspace that started as a napkin sketch.
1:17.7	Now, just five years since launching in beta, Coda has helped 50,000 teams all over the world get on the same page.
1:25.6	With Coda, you get the flexibility of docs, the structure of spreadsheets,
1:30.1	the power of applications, and the intelligence of AI, all built for your organization. Coda's seamless
1:36.3	workspace facilitates deeper collaboration and quicker creativity, giving you more time to build
	...

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