20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar

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

🗓️ 27 November 2024

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Klaus Hommels is one of Europe’s leading start investors of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Spotify, Airbnb, Facebook, Coinbase, Revolut and more. Among his many responsibilities, Klaus is the Founder of Lakestar, his own venture fund and chairs the board of directors of the NATO Innovation Fund.

In Today’s Episode with Klaus Hommels We Discuss:

1. The Investing Rules that are BS:

Why does Klaus totally reject the idea of price sensitivity?
Why does Klaus hate the idea of “building portfolios”?
Why does Klaus believe the best investments are made when there is not a fundraising round in motion?
Why does Klaus believe that capital concentration limits on a per company basis are BS? How concentrated is Klaus happy to be?

2. Europe: What The F*** is Going On:

Why is Europe underfinancing innovation by a factor of eight?
Why is Europe unable to send satellites into space for six years?
What should Europe do to become a global superpower once again? What needs to change?
Why should European pension funds be forced to invest in venture capital?

3. The Stories Behind the $BN Returns:

How did a dinner with Klaus’ son lead to his investing in Revolut?
How did Klaus analysis of Friendster and MySpace lead to his buying Matt Cohler @ Benchmark’s Facebook shares?
How did a small investment in a Swedish company, Stardoll, lead to Klaus investing in the seed round of Spotify?
How did a conversation with Madonna’s manager lead to Klaus investing in Airbnb?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Venture is not sitting in a nice office with borrowed power of LPs and playing like in old
0:08.1	Caesar's times, thumbs up, thumbs down.
0:10.8	I'm not so keen of building portfolios.
0:13.5	If I find cool companies that make a difference, that is where the beef is.
0:17.9	If you have one or two of them, every portfolio looks great. I do believe that
0:22.2	if you see the right company, you should take a lot of risk and over proportional risk in those.
0:27.3	Are you price sensitive, Klaus? Absolutely not. This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings. And listen,
0:32.9	I grew up in Europe as one of the biggest venture nerds. And that meant this guest today is one of my
0:38.4	OG investing idols that I really looked up to for a long time. He is one of Europe's leading
0:43.5	investors with a portfolio including Spotify, Airbnb, Facebook, Coinbase, Revolut and more. He also
0:50.5	founded Lakesdaar and chairs the board of directors of the NATO Innovation Fund.
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