#98 John Frankel & Maciej Skarul, ffVC

Today we're happy to welcome John Frankel and Maciej Skarul.

John founded ffVC back in 2008. ffVC is a leading New York City-based VC firm which has demonstrated success scaling global tech business. And you might be asking: “A US based fund in The European VC pod?!”. Listen to this episode and you’ll understand why.

Maciej, our other guest, is a partner at ffVC and has over 12 years of experience in investment banking and M&A. Based in Poland, he is one of the two partners leading ffVC’s European arm in Warsaw. ffVC Warsaw works in conjunction with the rest of the ffVC network to bring to Poland everything that ffVC has done over the past twelve years in the US.

In this episode you’ll learn:

– Why a US focused VC decided to invest in Poland and the ecosystem challenges they are facing with more conservative investors

– How the European culture can grow from million to billion-dollar exits

– How their early investments are turning into a global seed stage footprint

– The attraction of building US focused businesses using European tools and teams, since CE startups are 3x more cost efficient than their western pears