The EUCVC Summit Wrap up, Embedded Fiance & The Power of Design
Hard truths on CVCs, lessons from Europe’s founders and corporates, plus deep dives on AI, design, and the SPV debate.
The EUCVC Summit brought insights from founders learning to live inside corporates without losing their soul to corporates learning to back founders without slowing them down, and how to build CVCs that last. This week we present you with the first set of talks from the EUCVC Summit ranging from Boozt, Podio and Peakon and Vivino to Fidelity, TDK, Emerald, Inven, and PwC.
But we’ve got more pods for you: From building b2venture with Florian Schweizer to embedded finance with OpenTrade’s David Sutter and Notion’s Itxaso del Palacio to the power of Design at Seedcamp with Andy Budd.
And finally, in this week’s articles, Gökçe Ceylan from Oxx discusses the real pace of agentic AI adoption and Severin Zugmayer of New Renaissance Ventures lays out how AI is entering the Creative Arena. And finally David pitches in on the SPV debate: access only matters if it adds contribution and clarity.
Hope you enjoy.
With 💖 David & Andreas
Table of Contents
🏢 The EUCVC Summit
Hermann Haraldsson, Boozt: Scaling a Nordic E-commerce Powerhouse & Lessons for Corporate Venturing
Kasper Hulthin & Heini Zachariassen: Getting Acquired by a Corporate
Peter Aksel Villadsen, GN Hearing & Helle Hee, PwC: Integrating acquired companies
Petr Mikovec, Inven Capital & Andreas Munk Holm, eu.vc: Building a culture for innovation
Gina Domanig, Emerald Technology Ventures & Nicolas Sauvage, TDK Ventures: Evolving CVC Programs
🎧 Podcasts of The Week
Florian Schweitzer, b2venture: Building Angel-Led VC That Actually Works
Andy Budd, Seedcamp: From CSS to Seedcamp: Why Design Is a Startup Superpower
✍️ Insights of the week
From Invention to Innovation: The Real Pace of Agentic AI Adoption
As AI Enters the Creative Arena, Co-Creation Must Lead the Way
We’re collecting fund modelling headaches. Got 3 minutes? Share yours here 👇🏼
Most VCs nod when fund modelling comes up — but few truly master it. Yet it’s the backbone of every fund.
From our Essential Building Blocks series, the same pain points keep surfacing:
Fund size = strategy. Get it wrong, misalign LPs from day one.
Follow-ons. Everyone models it differently, most regret it later.
Portfolio construction. Too broad = dice roll, too narrow = unworkable.
Waterfalls. Not plumbing — they decide who gets paid.
Liquidity. Until fees and ops are covered, it’s just an expensive hobby.
Behind closed doors, GPs admit to shaky assumptions, LPs to shaky models. Few speak openly.
So here’s our ask: Share your fund modelling challenges so we can shape our future content to fit. It’ll only take 3 minutes.
🏢 EUCVC Summit — The Hard Truths of Corporate-Startup Collaboration & How To Build CVCs that Last
At the EUVC Corporate Venturing Summit at TechBBQ, founders and corporate leaders went unfiltered on acquisitions, company building, integrations, and all the messy dynamics in between. Their message was blunt: money is the easy part. Culture, incentives, and structures decide whether collaboration survives.
Europe has seen hundreds of corporate venture units launch — and just as many quietly shut down. The average lifespan is just 3.7 years (Stanford’s Ilya Strebulaev) — barely a blip in corporate strategy cycles. A new CEO arrives, strategy shifts, budgets tighten — and venturing disappears. The result? Capital wasted, founders burned, and Europe’s innovation edge weakened.
But we also know what works. The corporates that endure start smart — often by learning first as LPs — and then build proper governance, evergreen structures, and strong ecosystem ties. They don’t treat CVC as PR or M&A-lite, but as a discipline: patient capital, independent governance, and cultural embedding. Globally, corporates already account for ~25% of venture flows. In Europe, the challenge is to match that weight with staying power.
This week, we’re releasing the first batch of talks from the stage. Dive in.
Hermann Haraldsson, Boozt: Scaling a Nordic E-commerce Powerhouse & Lessons for Corporate Venturing
Hermann Haraldsson, Co-founder and CEO of Boozt, has taken the Nordic e-commerce platform from scrappy startup to listed company. His biggest fear? Becoming slow.
Lesson: You can’t turn a corporate into a startup, but you can protect startup-like teams inside the mothership. Hermann shared how Boozt works relentlessly to shield small teams from corporate bureaucracy, keep them customer-focused, and empower them to ship fast. But it isn’t easy: corporates naturally layer on processes and politics, so leadership has to constantly fight this gravitational pull.
Why it matters: Without entrepreneurial subcultures, corporates ossify. Innovation labs turn into theatre, decisions get bogged down, and competitors move faster. Hermann’s warning was clear: if you don’t build systems that preserve startup DNA, scale will kill you.
Getting Acquired by a Corporate with Kasper Hulthin & Heini Zachariassen
Kasper Hulthin, who co-founded Podio and Peakon before launching Future Five and Kost Capital, and Heini Zachariassen, the founder of Vivino ,have both lived the reality of M&A.
Lesson: Acquisitions fail less on price and more on culture. Once the champagne is gone, the founder’s world changes overnight: decision-making slows, autonomy disappears, and innovation becomes hostage to quarterly reviews. Kasper warned that founders underestimate how draining it is to fight corporate inertia after the deal closes. Heini added that you quickly realize you’re running a “department,” not a startup.
Why it matters: If Europe can’t make acquisitions work, our best startups will keep selling to U.S. giants. The U.S. has built muscle in letting acquired companies run semi-independently. Europe hasn’t. If corporates here don’t learn how to integrate without suffocating, we’ll never build lasting scale-ups.
Integrating acquired companies with Peter Aksel Villadsen, GN Hearing & Helle Hee, PwC
Peter Aksel Villadsen (GN Hearing) and Helle Hee (PwC) have both seen what happens when corporates try to “absorb” a startup.
Lesson: Integration is a two-way street. Corporates must adapt to startups just as much as startups adapt to corporates. That means letting founders keep real decision-making power, defining early what must stay independent, and resisting the urge to bury ventures under reporting lines. Peter stressed: if you treat startups as assets to be absorbed, the talent will be gone within 18 months.
Why it matters: Most acquisitions become expensive talent drains. Europe already underperforms in M&A compared to the U.S. If the integrations we do manage only destroy value, corporates will burn money and founders will avoid European buyers altogether.
Building a Culture for Innovation – Petr Mikovec (Inven Capital)
In this episode, Andreas Munk Holm speaks with Petr Míkovec, Managing Director of Inven Capital, the CVC arm of ČEZ, one of Central Europe’s most conservative utilities. From nuclear power plants to climate tech bets, Petr shares how Inven Capital was born inside a 30,000-person corporate giant—and why culture by design, not default, is the only way to make innovation stick.
Lesson: You can buy tech, you can hire talent. But if your culture kills new ideas, it’s game over. Petr described how Inven had to design its own culture from scratch: swapping ties for T-shirts, embracing founder-like rituals, and recruiting internal “innovators” to spread the change. Crucially, he didn’t waste time convincing skeptics — instead, he empowered early adopters inside CEZ and let momentum build.
Why it matters: Culture is the one thing money can’t shortcut. Yet it’s the first thing corporates ignore. Without cultural transformation, even the best strategy will collapse under the weight of internal resistance.
LP Investing as a Smart Starting Point – Florian Noell (PwC) & Gina Domanig (Emerald Technology Ventures)
Florian Noell, Partner at PwC, and Gina Domanig, Managing Partner at Emerald Technology Ventures made the case that the safest way for corporates to enter venture isn’t by jumping straight into direct investing — but by starting as LPs.
Lesson: Starting as an LP is a low-risk way for corporates to learn the venture game. By backing experienced VCs, corporates gain exposure to deal flow, governance mechanics, and ecosystem access before running their own checkbook. Florian noted that this approach avoids costly “tourist mistakes,” while Gina added that it builds much-needed credibility with founders and co-investors.
Why it matters: Most failed CVCs collapse because they underestimate the craft of venture. LP investing is like cheap tuition: it lets corporates learn how the game is played without risking their reputation with startups or burning internal political capital too soon.
Built to Last: Long-Term CVC Strategy – Alokik Advani (Fidelity) & Nicolas Sauvage (TDK Ventures)
Alokik Advani, Managing Partner at Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, and Nicolas Sauvage, President of TDK Ventures, both run CVCs that have already outlived multiple corporate leadership changes.
Lesson: CVCs that last balance VC discipline with corporate alignment. Alokik explained how Fidelity structures governance with independent advisors and clear IC processes to keep discipline. Nicolas emphasized his “King of the Hill” philosophy: always back the company most likely to become the market leader, because only true winners deliver both financial and strategic returns.
Why it matters: Short-termism kills CVCs. Too many are set up to “learn” or deliver quick wins. But when results don’t show up in 18 months, budgets get pulled. Embedding patient VC logic and aligning to corporate megatrends makes a CVC robust enough to survive both hype cycles and new CEOs
Evolving CVC Programs – Gina Domanig (Emerald) & Nicolas Sauvage (TDK Ventures)
Having run programs across multiple cycles, Gina Domanig, Managing Partner at Emerald Technology Ventures, and Nicolas Sauvage, President of TDK Ventures, know survival is about evolution.
Lesson: CVCs must continuously adapt their structures and KPIs as markets and strategies change. Gina described Emerald’s move from single-LP models to multi-LP funds, which spreads risk and embeds corporates in broader ecosystems. Nicolas explained how TDK’s closed-end fund structures works and the importance of deliberately holding reserves for follow-ons, something many corporates forget.
Why it matters: Standing still is death. Both corporates and venture markets evolve fast. If your CVC doesn’t, it gets sidelined, shut down, or worse — turned into an empty PR shell. Survival requires reinvention.
Where operational expertise and innovation work for you.
🎧 Podcasts of The Week
Florian Schweitzer, b2venture: Building Angel-Led VC That Actually Works
This week, Andreas is joined by Florian Schweitzer, Founding Partner at b2venture, one of Europe’s longest-running VC funds — and one of the only firms to scale a structured angel investing model alongside institutional capital.
They unpack how Florian built an active, deeply interlinked community of 350 angels, the philosophy behind their 90/10 investment model, and why chasing unicorns is the wrong game. The conversation also dives into trust-building with LPs, culture as a strategy, and what it takes to build trillion-euro thinking into Europe’s founder psyche.
Whether you’re an emerging manager trying to scale responsibly, or an LP wondering what durable early-stage outperformance actually looks like — this one’s for you.
🎧 Listen on Apple or Spotify — timestamps are live so you can jump right to the good stuff.
Make an impact with the bank made for the innovation economy
Andy Budd, Seedcamp: From CSS to Seedcamp: Why Design Is a Startup Superpower
This week, Andreas sits down with Andy Budd, Venture Partner at Seedcamp, founder-turned-investor, and one of the earliest pioneers of UX design in Europe.
Andy’s journey spans two decades of building and scaling—from creating one of the UK’s first CSS-based websites to founding Clearleft, Europe’s first UX agency, to now advising founders at Seedcamp. He’s used that knowledge to write a new book all about startup growth. Something we’re sure your portfolio companies will find super useful.
In this episode, Andy unpacks why design is central—not cosmetic—to early-stage success, how product-market fit often hides behind poor UX, and what AI might (and might not) automate in a founder’s journey.
Here’s what’s covered:
02:00 UX Before It Was Cool: Launching Europe’s first UX agency
04:00 Mentor to Partner: The Seedcamp connection and how it evolved
07:30 Design in Venture: Why UX is essential to product-market fit
11:00 AI & UX: Johnny Ive, ChatGPT, and designing for mass adoption
15:00 Super Users vs. Everyone Else: Where AI tools fail the average user
18:00 Operator Value: What Andy brings to the Seedcamp portfolio
22:00 The Growth Equation: Seven factors every founder needs to master
30:00 Fundraising Is Also UX: Using growth principles to pitch better
33:00 Small Is Smart: The rise of leaner, faster, better startups
39:00 Can Seed-Strapping Work? Why not all winners need to be unicorns
43:30 Product-Led Growth: When it works—and when it doesn’t
Watch it here or add it to your episodes on Apple or Spotify 🎧. Chapters for easy navigation are available on the Spotify/Apple episode.
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David Sutter, OpenTrade & Itxaso del Palacio, Notion: Stablecoin Yield, Real-World Assets & the Future of Embedded Finance
Today we dive into the mainstreaming of stablecoin yield with David Sutter, CEO & Co-founder of OpenTrade, and Itxaso del Palacio, GP at Notion Capital. With $11M raised in just six months, transaction volumes already topping $200M, and growth at 20% month-on-month, OpenTrade is one of the fastest-scaling fintech infrastructure plays in Europe. But this is about much more than another fintech: it’s about embedding yield into the financial internet, bridging stablecoins with real-world assets, and building institutional-grade trust for millions of users across Latin America and Europe.
🎧 Here’s what’s covered:
00:15 The Rise of Stablecoin Yield
04:27 Investing in the Future of Finance
09:40 AI and the Future of Financial Transactions
12:41 Institutional Infrastructure for Retail Users
14:35 B2B2C Model in Fintech
18:59 Validation of Stablecoin Solutions
20:42 Real World Asset Yield and Regulatory Challenges
23:43 Investment Strategies and Partnerships
25:08 Growth Metrics and Future Projections
25:40 Market Positioning and Business Model
26:57 Yield Products and Risk Management
30:09 Diligence and Team Evaluation
33:06 Choosing the Right Investors
35:11 Scaling Challenges and Strategies
41:25 Interacting with Incumbents
43:29 Opportunities for B2B Investors in Crypto
You can watch the episode here, or add it to your queue on Apple or Spotify 🎧 (chapters for easy navigation available on both).
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✍️ Insights of the week
From Invention to Innovation: The Real Pace of Agentic AI Adoption
In a world that constantly talks about things changing faster than ever, I’ll take a slightly controversial approach and focus on what doesn’t change overnight—or even over a few years.
I’m drawn to things that move slowly, that take time, and that endure despite rapid tech cycles. Why? Often, ‘invention’ and ‘innovation’ are conflated, whereas there is a subtle but very important distinction between the two.
An invention (can we build it?) is tied to the speed of tech cycles, whereas an innovation (will people adopt it?) is tied to human behaviour.
For context, a study of how 15 major technologies spread across 166 countries over 200 years showed adoption lags (time between invention and adoption) of on average 45 years! Cell phones were invented in 1973 and took on average 15 years to be adopted; the internet was invented in 1983 and took on average 8 years to be adopted. Newer technologies are getting adopted faster than old ones, but it’s not to say the lag has diminished to zero.
The breakthrough invention of today is AI agents - a new capability with the potential to completely change workplace dynamics. These systems combine autonomy, adaptability, and reasoning to automate complex workflows, enhance decision-making, and redefine collaboration models. They will quite literally define the next generation of work.
But the question isn’t if agents will complete tasks on behalf of humans - they will. It’s when. A few months? A year? A decade?
As AI Enters the Creative Arena, Co-Creation Must Lead the Way
As generative AI floods the creative space, it’s no longer just accelerating production but also reshaping the meaning of creativity itself. Severin from New Renaissance Ventures argues that the future of creative AI isn't about automation, but co-creation: humans steering, provoking, and collaborating with AI to unlock transformational creativity, not just remix existing styles.
The key insight: AI is very good at "exploratory creativity" (remixing and stylizing within known genres) but struggles at "transformational creativity" (the rule-breaking innovations that define true artistic leaps). Without human intention, AI produces uniform, forgettable output.
The author introduces a powerful three-layer pyramid of the creative AI market:
Democratization Layer: High-speed, low-depth meme culture.
Productivity Layer: AI-augmented brand content and marketing.
Experimentation Layer: Artists pushing aesthetic and conceptual boundaries.
The thesis: Different layers need different AI tools. Treating creative AI as one-size-fits-all leads to generic results. To raise the ceiling, startups, platforms, and creators must prioritize intentional design, control, and friction over speed and automation.
The next generation of creative infrastructure must go beyond "prompt-in, image-out." It must embrace iterative co-creation, multi-modal interfaces, contextual memory, and provenance to preserve authorship and originality.
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SPVs in the Spotlight
Two of the world’s most valuable AI companies took a stand:
OpenAI formally warned investors against “unauthorized” investment vehicles, stressing that any SPV, forward contract, or tokenized structure without its written consent may be void.
Anthropic went further, telling even Menlo Ventures that it must invest directly from its own balance sheet - no SPVs allowed.
At first glance, this looks like a crackdown on secondary trading. But I see something bigger:
The Access Paradox
We’ve entered a strange moment in venture:
Demand for breakout companies has never been higher.
Access has never been more tightly controlled.
The syndicate/SPV model sits right in the middle of this tension.
For founders, SPVs can feel like a loophole - a way for unknown names to sneak onto the cap table without consent. They complicate shareholder dynamics, blur transparency, and often exist to extract fees. No wonder companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are pushing back.
But if we stop here, we miss the real story.
Not All Syndicates Are Equal
Lumping every SPV or syndicate into the same bucket is lazy thinking.
Some are “grey-market wrappers” built to ride hype and scarcity. They add nothing but noise and opacity. Those deserve to die.
But others - when done right - are a form of infrastructure. They:
Walk through the front door invited, not through side deals.
Strengthen GPs and founders by bringing strategic angels, operators and families around the table.
Add trust, transparency, and contribution - not just capital.
The EUVC Model
This is the model we’ve been building at EUVC. Our pledge is explicit:
No backdoors. No ghosting.
GP-first, always. We only invest when we’re invited in.
Contribution over capital. Our members commit not just money, but deal flow, diligence, and ecosystem support.
Because Europe doesn’t need extractive access plays. It needs trusted syndicate infrastructure that expands access while respecting founders and GPs.
This is why I believe the crackdown from OpenAI and Anthropic isn’t the death of SPVs. It’s a wake-up call. Only the right kind of syndicates - the ones companies want at their table - will endure.
And that’s exactly the bet we’ve made at EUVC.
Join the Debate
I unpacked more of these thoughts on LinkedIn and launched a quick poll:
👉 Are SPVs the future of access, or already a relic?
You can cast your vote here - and more importantly, add your perspective. Because this debate isn’t just about AI giants. It’s about the future of access in venture capital, in Europe and beyond.
If this sparks thoughts or you’d like to debate the future of SPVs and syndicates, I’d love to chat.
📩 Reach me directly at david@eu.vc.