EUVC Newsletter - 18.08.2025
Clarity in the fog: conviction, crisis, and the future of European venture.
When clarity is scarce, conviction becomes the compass.
From Mike Maples Jr. unpacking inflection theory to Tony Jamous proving that impact and unicorn-building can scale together, this week’s stories show how founders and investors are rewriting the rules in real time. Carlos Moreira da Silva sharpens the case for Europe to lead in cyber and AI security—not by following others, but by turning fragmentation into force.
At the Summit, Shmuel Chafets reminded us that venture doesn’t exist in a vacuum: leadership is tested when geopolitics reshapes the ground beneath us. And Stephen Lowery challenged us to admit that the financial tools we need for deeptech and AI don’t exist yet—and then to start building them.
All of it points to the same truth: Europe’s venture playbook isn’t just evolving—it’s being written under pressure. In crisis, in fog, in ambiguity. And that’s exactly why the conviction to keep building matters most.
With 💖
David & Andreas
Table of Contents
🎧 Podcasts of The Week
Founder: Mike Maples Jr. on Inflection Theory and Breaking Patterns in European Venture
Impact Highlight series: Reversing Brain Drain: Building an Impact Unicorn with Tony Jamous at Oyster
EUVC Summit 2025: From Crisis to Clarity: Leading Through the Fog with Shmuel Chafets from Target Global
EUVC Summit 2025: Stephen Lowery from HSBC Innovation Banking: Financing the Future: Tools We Don’t Have (Yet)
✍️ Insights Article of The Week
🎧 Podcasts of The Week
Mike Maples Jr. on Inflection Theory and Breaking Patterns in European Venture
In this podcast episode, we’re joined by Tony Jamous, founder and CEO of Oyster. Oyster is on a mission to reverse brain drain and reduce wealth inequality by democratizing access to global job opportunities. Before founding Oyster in 2020, Tony took his previous software API company public on the New York Stock Exchange.
Together, we dive into how Tony built Oyster into an impact unicorn, what it means to lead a mission-driven company, and why he believes impact and financial success are collinear. From hiring across 45 countries to creating a billion-dollar company in just two years, Tony shares the lessons, challenges, and values that guide him.
This is the playbook for building impact unicorns — straight from the founder’s journey.
🎧 Here's what's covered:
02:11 Witnessing the Power of Global Hiring in 45 Countries
05:02 Why Oyster Started: Democratizing Access to Global Jobs
08:27 From Zero to $1B in Two Years — How the Pandemic Accelerated Demand
12:04 Impact Entrepreneurs: Using Technology as a Means, Not an End
15:43 Aligning Financial Success with Impact — The Virtuous Cycle
20:12 The “Inner Rock”: Sticking to Your Values Under Pressure
24:05 Playing the Infinite Game: Building for the Next Generation
27:44 Recruiting for Mission Alignment & Emotional Stability
33:02 Why Impact Businesses Attract the Best Talent and Investors
37:19 The Oyster Framework: Wellbeing as a Core OKR
41:08 Choosing Impact-Driven Investors with Real Frameworks
46:30 Actionable Tip for Generalist VCs: Get Curious and Start Testing
You can watch the episode here, or add it to your queue on Apple or Spotify 🎧 (chapters for easy navigation available on both).
Full lifecycle legal advisory for LPs, GPs, startups & scaleups — get to know Haynes Boone.
Reversing Brain Drain: Building an Impact Unicorn with Tony Jamous of Oyster
Welcome to a new episode of the Impact Highlight Series, powered by EUVC, Impact VC and Impact Supporters.
Today, we’re joined by Tony Jamous, founder and CEO of Oyster. Oyster is on a mission to reverse brain drain and reduce wealth inequality by democratizing access to global job opportunities. Before founding Oyster in 2020, Tony took his previous software API company public on the New York Stock Exchange.
Together, we dive into how Tony built Oyster into an impact unicorn, what it means to lead a mission-driven company, and why he believes impact and financial success are collinear. From hiring across 45 countries to creating a billion-dollar company in just two years, Tony shares the lessons, challenges, and values that guide him.
This is the playbook for building impact unicorns — straight from the founder’s journey.
🎧 Here's what's covered:
02:11 Witnessing the Power of Global Hiring in 45 Countries
05:02 Why Oyster Started: Democratizing Access to Global Jobs
08:27 From Zero to $1B in Two Years — How the Pandemic Accelerated Demand
12:04 Impact Entrepreneurs: Using Technology as a Means, Not an End
15:43 Aligning Financial Success with Impact — The Virtuous Cycle
20:12 The “Inner Rock”: Sticking to Your Values Under Pressure
24:05 Playing the Infinite Game: Building for the Next Generation
27:44 Recruiting for Mission Alignment & Emotional Stability
33:02 Why Impact Businesses Attract the Best Talent and Investors
37:19 The Oyster Framework: Wellbeing as a Core OKR
41:08 Choosing Impact-Driven Investors with Real Frameworks
46:30 Actionable Tip for Generalist VCs: Get Curious and Start Testing
You can watch the episode here, or add it to your queue on Apple or Spotify 🎧 (chapters for easy navigation available on both).
Brought to you by Affinity – Exclusive dealmaking benchmarks
Discover dealmaking trends from nearly 3,000 VCs across 68 countries — get the Affinity Investment Benchmark Report.
From PhD to VC: Tanuja Rajah on Cracking Southeast Asia’s Health Tech Boom
This week, David from EUVC and Ambika from Circle Capital sit down with Tanuja Rajah, Partner at M Venture Partners (MVP) in Singapore — an early-stage fund backing founders from day zero across Southeast Asia and India.
Tanuja’s path is not your typical VC story: a PhD in immunology, a startup built on trial and error, and a mission now to fund the region’s next generation of founders tackling healthcare, trust, access, and affordability — without the science risk.
Here’s what’s covered:
01:30 | How a PhD in immunology landed Tanuja in venture
03:00 | Starting a company with no playbook: lessons from Malaysia to Singapore
05:00 | Why MVP backs healthcare — but avoids the science risk
07:00 | 25% of the world’s population: why India & Southeast Asia are consumer goldmines
10:00 | Biggest VC lesson: ownership matters (and why it’s so hard for new funds)
12:30 | How MVP balanced brand building with early fund modeling
15:00 | Why angels and micro-funds make Southeast Asia so competitive
17:00 | Healthcare’s future: physical + digital or nothing
19:00 | AI: hype, scribe startups, and the real wedge that matters
22:00 | Portfolio spotlight: how HD used real-world data to build a regional moat
25:00 | Can Southeast Asia’s healthtech scale into Europe?
28:00 | Where follow-on capital is (and isn’t) coming from
30:00 | Exits done right: why secondaries and &A trump IPO dreams
35:00 | Strong beliefs overturned: why the best teams still need the best markets
39:00 | Advice for emerging fund managers: pick your people and sharpen your USP
42:00 | Book of the Week: how Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “Emperor of All Maladies” shaped Tanuja’s mission
You can watch it here or add it to your episodes on Apple or Spotify 🎧 chapters for easy navigation are available on the Spotify/Apple episode.
Join ImpactVC, a global community of 900+ VCs driving change and using venture capital to tackle the world’s biggest challenges—explore their community, resources, and training at impactvc.co.
From Fragmentation to Force: How Europe Can Lead in Cyber and AI Security
Carlos Moreira da Silva brings a rare blend of insight: a deep B2B operator, a specialist investor at 33N, and a leading force behind Europe’s cybersecurity coordination efforts through ECSO. Together, we explore why cybersecurity is Europe’s opportunity to lead, not follow, in the new geopolitical tech stack.
Here’s what’s covered:
01:15 What is ECSO and Why It Matters for European Cyber
03:30 Mapping the Cybersecurity Investment Gap: US vs Israel vs Europe
05:20 The Tech Stack Power Shift: From Cloud to AI, and Why Security Must Catch Up
07:30 Europe’s Fragmentation Problem—Or Its Untapped Advantage?
09:45 The Role of ECSO in Building a Unified European Cyber Strategy
11:45 Why Europe Needs Specialist Cybersecurity VCs
15:30 What Other Movements Can Learn from the ECSO Playbook
20:00 Cybercrime vs Cyber Spending: The 10 Trillion Dollar Wake-Up Call
21:30 Building Global Champions in Cyber (Not Just Regional Winners)
25:00 What Startups Should Look for in a Cyber VC (Beyond the Check)
26:30 Invest for Cyber @ SuperVenture: Why the LP Community Should Pay Attention
28:00 Where Cyber Ends and Defense Begins—Drawing Ethical Boundaries at 33N
📺 Watch the episode here or stream it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts—now with chapters for easy navigation 🎧
Where operational expertise and innovation work for you.
EUVC Summit 2025 | From Crisis to Clarity: Leading Through the Fog with Shmuel Chafets
At this year’s EUVC Summit, Shmuel Chafets (Target Global) stood on stage and chose honesty.
Despite knowing the cameras were rolling, he didn’t dodge complexity—he met it head-on.
His message?
Venture doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
And leadership is most real when things go off script.
A New Reality: From Russia to Restructuring
Referencing the now well-known video intro, Shmuel didn’t shy away from acknowledging the past:
“It wasn’t that long ago that everything changed. Our relationship to Russia, to the global landscape—it was a full reset.”
Unlike the U.S., Europe had no longstanding sanction regime in place. So when the invasion of Ukraine happened, the rules changed overnight. Target Global had to adapt in real time.
That meant:
Bringing in strong advisors
Making painful but necessary decisions, including founders and partners stepping back
Restructuring the entire business to fit a new geopolitical reality
All while navigating intense public scrutiny.
“We acted with transparency. We made difficult choices. Not everyone appreciated it—but we understood the responsibility.”
10.000 founders & investors meet up at TechBBQ, europe's leading startup event for entrepreneurs - use this exclusive link to get 20% off for 100 limited investor tickets.
Discover EU-backed startups, raise capital & connect with innovation leaders — explore Dealflow.eu, the EU-backed platform bridging founders, VCs & corporates.
EUVC Summit 2025 | Stephen Lowery | HSBC Innovation Banking: Financing the Future: Tools We Don’t Have (Yet)
At the EUVC Summit 2025, Stephen Lowery of HSBC Innovation Banking laid out a vision that wasn’t just about capital—it was about building the infrastructure to unlock the next wave of innovation.
“The future is not going to finance itself.”
And the tools we need? Most of them don’t exist yet.
The Problem: Our Financial Stack Is Outdated
We’re entering a new era—one where emerging categories like robotics, deeptech, AI hardware, and compute-intensive models demand new forms of financial support.
But most of our current instruments were built for a different generation of tech.
Stephen reminded us of the pre-SaaS era, when software businesses lived and died by upfront license fees. It wasn’t until financing models evolved that subscription software (and eventually SaaS) could flourish.
“Just like we innovated in software 20 years ago, we need to do the same now—in hardware, robotics, and beyond.”
What We Need: Purpose-Based Financing for a New Age
Stephen called for three key building blocks:
Blended Capital
→ Mix long-term venture equity with creative debt structures
→ Pair revenue-based financing with contract support
→ Add credit insurance into the mixCategory-Specific Models
→ Think robot-as-a-service, compute-as-a-service
→ Let hardware businesses monetize more like software onesCollaboration
→ VCs, banks, LPs, and operators need to co-build
→ “Let’s do more than finance innovation—let’s finance the infrastructure that enables it.”
📺 Watch the episode here or stream it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts—now with chapters for easy navigation 🎧
Make an impact with the bank made for the innovation economy
Insights of the week
Can a UK-based consumer healthtech conquer the globe?
By Dominick Kennerson, Head of HealthTech and Medical Devices at HSBC Innovation Banking
Key Insights
Exceptional product design and deep user trust are foundational to scaling globally.
A strong narrative—especially to investors—is nearly as important as product-market fit.
Multiple financial paths exist: while venture capital boosts network and scale, bootstrapping or non-dilutive funding remain viable.
Narrative
The UK is well-positioned to produce global consumer healthtech leaders. Dominick Kennerson highlights how building around consumer trust—via data privacy and genuinely impactful product experiences—lays the groundwork for market leadership.
But vision isn't enough. Founders must craft compelling stories that resonate with investors and consumers alike. R&D success begins with listening to user feedback and using it to iterate product features and messaging.
Financial routes diverge, too. While VC investment brings scale and expertise, other founders succeed via bootstrapping or pursuing grants and non-dilutive options. Each path influences strategy—from hiring to timeline to investor alignment.
Kennerson cites a bold industry sentiment from late 2022: Andreessen Horowitz posited that “the biggest company in the world will be a consumer healthtech company,” underscoring both opportunity and competition. As global incumbents like Apple move deeper into healthcare tech, UK startups must double down on product quality, timing and storytelling.
Get trusted legal advice for investors & entrepreneurs — from start-up to scale. We know tech — get to know Goodwin here.
Free and exclusively available for community members.
Jonathan is a Partner at Bullhound Capital. He joined Bullhound Capital from Molten Ventures (formerly DFJ/Draper Esprit), where he was a Partner for 16 years, focused on direct investments and successful exits, including RavenPack, Ledger, M-Files, and PodPoint. At Molten, he also led the Fund of Funds and Secondary practices, investing in over 80 early-stage VC funds and managing multiple secondary portfolio transactions. These initiatives provided exposure to standout companies such as UiPath, Revolut, TransferWise, Peak Games, and Typeform.
Jonathan’s career began in investment banking, advising on equity offerings and mergers & acquisitions at leading firms including Apax Partners Corporate Finance, Rothschild & Cie, and Jefferies.
Jonathan holds a master's degree in Management from EM-Lyon and the University of St. Gallen, and a postgraduate degree in advanced corporate finance from the University of Paris IX Dauphine.
🤗 Join the EUVC Community
Looking for niche, high-quality experiences that prioritize depth over breadth? Consider joining our community focused on delivering content tailored to the experienced VC. Here’s what you can look forward to as a member:
Exclusive Access & Discounts: Priority access to masterclasses with leading GPs & LPs, available on a first-come, first-served basis.
On-Demand Content: A platform with sessions you can access anytime, anywhere, complete with presentations, templates, and other resources.
Interactive AMAs: Engage directly with top GPs and LPs in exclusive small group sessions — entirely free for community members.
Connect with Europe’s leading LPs, Family Offices & Fund of Funds this September at Château de Beloeil.
Where Europe’s venture capital LPs & GPs connect — curated, high-impact networking | Buy tickets now!
