In this episode, Andreas Munk Holm sits down with Etienne, co-founder and GP at Intuition—a new €10M fund focused on pre-seed and seed investments in consumer, prosumer, and B2B2C startups across Europe and the US. From chasing the NBA dream to raising a fund for overlooked sectors, Etienne shares the founder's journey behind the fund, his obsession with AI-native products, and why consumer investing needs a new generation of believers.
Here’s what’s covered:
02:20 From Pro Basketball to Founding Intuition
05:11 Discipline, Resilience & Pain Tolerance: The Athlete’s Edge
08:30 Why Obsession Beats Talent Every Time
13:13 Recalibrating After Burnout: Life Beyond the Grind
19:13 Why Building a Fund Is Just Another Startup
24:41 Building a Portfolio to Survive Volatility
36:46 The Return of the Capital-Efficient, Profitable Company
41:14 Why Intuition Plans to Stay Small (on Purpose)
46:00 Create Like a God, Connect Like a Human: The New Founder Paradigm
50:11 Multitask or Die: Surviving in the Agentic Age of AI
📺 Watch the episode here or stream it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts—now with chapters for easy navigation 🎧
✍️ Show Notes
From the Court to the Cap Table
Etienne’s journey started not in venture, but on the basketball court. A self-described overactive kid, he chased the dream of the NBA before a torn ACL and a deeper introspection led him toward entrepreneurship. But it was that same obsession—the 4am workouts, the mental resilience, the drive to outwork more talented players—that became the foundation for everything that followed.
Heex Technologies: A Founder’s Crash Course
After bouncing between early startup experiments and a stint in VC, Etienne co-founded Heex Technologies—a company born from the belief that automakers couldn’t build the software layer for autonomous driving on their own. From being laughed out of rooms to partnering with a robotics PhD from Polytechnique, joining Techstars in Tel Aviv, and raising from Google’s investment vehicle, Heex was a five-year startup bootcamp filled with pivots, pain, and real traction.
The founder DNA? Forever embedded in Intuition.
Why Consumer Now—When Everyone Else Walked Away
Etienne and co-GP Hugo launched Intuition with a clear bet: consumer was massively overlooked. As most investors fled to enterprise SaaS, they saw opportunity in the gap. Less competition, more founder-friendly pricing, and a market ripe for creative reimagination. But they knew it needed a different fund model:
40+ investments to offset volatility
€100–€300K checks for breadth and agility
A thesis that includes consumer, prosumer, and B2B2C
Fundraising: Building a Product for Founders and LPs
Balancing LP expectations with founder authenticity was a core challenge. Etienne is blunt: fundraising a fund is building a startup. Intuition’s positioning had to appeal to LPs without losing the clarity founders need to choose them.
The result? A portfolio that includes cash-flowing, AI-enabled media tools and long-term bets across content creation, automation, and personal productivity—all wrapped in a brand that’s unapologetically consumer-led.
AI as the Catalyst for the Next Consumer Wave
Forget “just wrappers.” Etienne believes the real innovation in AI will come from consumer-first applications. Whether it’s LLM-enhanced assistants, deepfake APIs, or content workflows that look nothing like enterprise tools, the new age of creation is here, and Europe is behind if it doesn’t catch up.
Why the Fund Will Stay Small—and That’s the Point
Unlike the mega-funds chasing billion-dollar exits, Intuition is happy staying lean. The sweet spot, Etienne says, is under €30 million. Why? Because it gives them speed, brand coherence, and a much greater chance of exiting the fund via secondary markets or founder buybacks, even without IPOs.
Closing Thoughts
Intuition isn’t chasing consensus. It’s betting on conviction. With a €10M debut fund and a strategy born from founder scars and investor edge, Etienne and Hugo are out to prove that consumer tech isn’t dead—it’s just waiting for its next generation of believers.
As the AI wave builds and the tools of creation go mainstream, Intuition is poised to back the weird, the scrappy, and the culture-shaping founders others overlook.
Because the best founders aren’t always the loudest.
They’re just the ones still in the gym at 4 am.
Want to learn how a top LP navigates the industry? Join us on June 12th at 12 PM WEST for an exclusive AMA session with Daniel Keiper-Knorr.
Daniel is a founding partner at Speedinvest, where he leads limited partner relations and fundraising at both the fund and portfolio levels. With a career spanning investment banking, entrepreneurship, and venture capital, he started as a stockbroker and private banker at Erste Bank in Vienna and Credit Suisse in Zurich before transitioning into the startup world.
As a co-founder of 3united, he played a key role in its growth and eventual acquisition by VeriSign.
Since 2007, Daniel has been an active angel investor, bringing hands-on expertise in sales and business development to early-stage ventures. In 2011, he co-founded Speedinvest, leveraging his extensive experience to support founders and drive investment success.
↓ Register below to attend ↓
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