On family offices as investors in VCs & startups with Jan Voss, Head of Family Office at BLN Capital
A discussion with one of the most active Linkedin authors on all things related to wealth management and family offices in Europe. Make sure to read Jan' show notes for a wealth of insights ✍️
Today, we have Jan Voss with us. Jan is the Head of Family Office at BLN Capital, a Berlin-based Single Family Office. BLN invests across almost all asset classes but has historically been most active in early-stage ventures in Germany as well as the VC and PE fund space.
AT BLN, Jan leads a three-person investment team focused on long-term investments across almost all asset classes. Jan is also a very active author on LinkedIn with over 15,000 followers, regularly sharing insights into family offices, venture capital, and asset allocation with his readers.
BLN manages over 100M€ in assets and has an established portfolio of 30+ companies and notable investments, including Kittl, PowerUs, and Meine Erde.
Jan is also the Managing Director of Cape May Wealth. Cape May Wealth is a Berlin-based wealth management firm. They aim to make family office investment knowledge available to everyone to help entrepreneurs make better decisions regarding their wealth.
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Table of Contents | Scroll ⏬ for all guest show notes ✍️
Episode chapters.
Jan’s journey into venture.
A pivotal moment in Jan’s career.
Take a stance.
Shout-out.
Advice to 10-year younger self.
Top tips for emerging VCs who are fundraising.
Most counterintuitive learning.
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Chapters:
00:05:18 - Balancing Moonshots and Profitability
00:07:54 - The Mistake of Family Offices in VC Investments
00:13:00 - The Value of European VCs
00:20:29 - Secondaries and Venture Debt
00:23:03 - The Versatility of Growth Funds in the German Market
00:25:36 - Investments in Private Equity and Venture Capital
00:30:39 - The Pros and Cons of Large Funds and Small Market Investments
00:33:06 - Direct VC Investments and Portfolio Strategy
00:35:41 - Different approaches to investing
00:38:17 - The Importance of Tracking Companies' Progress
00:40:55 - VC Fund Behavior and Courage
00:45:57 - Three Biggest Learnings from the Past 10 Years
00:48:19 - Being proactive and driving personal traction
00:53:11 - Tips for Emerging VCs
00:58:22 - Contradictory Communication Styles
✍️ Show notes
We always ask our guests to write tweet-style notes for the conversation so we can share them with you all afterward. These are the words of the guest, no alterations made. Feast.
Jan’s journey into venture.
My Journey into venture began at my second job
Originally from south of Germany, studied there, studied in the US
Began my career with Goldman’s Private Wealth Management Team
Decided to explore other opportunities and found my way into the FO space - worked for Lukasz Gadowski, one of the founders of Delivery Hero
Was hired to work on “bank products”, i.e. liquid assets, but that was a small share
First touchpoint w/ VC was with carsharer MILES Mobility. Lukasz wanted to lead the Series A and told me “hey I want to invest 5M€, take care of it”
And that’s how I got started - learned all of VC w/ MILES - financing rounds, management transition, strategy, fundraising
At Team Europe, worked on a lot of VC deals, such as Enpal, Volocopter, Circ (which Lukasz founded), Choco
After switching to BLN, more of a focus on early-stage venture - build up a portfolio of 30+ companies mostly focused on early-stage consumer companies
A pivotal moment in Jan’s career.
Working on scooter start-up Circ at Team Europe
Experienced blitzscaling first hand - raised 100M+, grew from 0 to 1000 employees
Saw how blitzscaling can work, but also how it can not work
Working insane hours, too many people, no profitability whatsoever
As a “Swabian”, was always wondering how start-ups could burn through so much money, not focus on their financials
Understand it a little bit better today, but have made it key in my investment decisions to see a clear path to profitability and focus on financials - no revenue-less hypergrowth cases
Can clearly see that it in the big winners that I had the chance to work with throughout my career, i.e. Enpal, MILES, Kittl, PowerUs
3 biggest learnings from 10 years of life.
Think about what you want to do - stage, strategy, value-add, etc.
Be reactive, not proactive.
Compounding takes time - in investing and in your career.
Take a stance.
“VCs add way less value than they think.” - SabinaWizander, CREANDUM”
Especially European VCs tend to be very trend-driven and not very focused on providing actual value to portfolio companies
Same VCs that chased crypto two years ago are now chasing AI
Specific value-add: If you are just chasing trends all the time, how can you become expert enough in an industry to really add value to founders? Only exception are the few non-generalist, super-specialized VCs - i.e. in our portfolio, Apollo for biotech, Vsquared for deeptech, etc.
General value-add: Helped a portfolio company for 30 minutes with their financial plan without much prep and apparently we provided more in-depth feedback than some of their VC investors - maybe it’s a positive thing to say about me but mostly just a sad thing about VCs - if they can’t help with topics with that, what is really their value-add?
As VC becomes much more competitive again given less funding in the market, I think we will continue to see a decline in generalist “hype” VCs and will see more and more VCs specialized in providing actual value-add to portfolio companies
“Playing different games” about Tiger Global still applies even if Tiger has left venture: You need to differentiate yourself as a VC firm - and if you can’t do it with brand or capital, you need to add significant value for deal access, deal success, and for your fundraising
Really like Simon for his way of investing - him and Chris at Possible are one of the few “German” VCs that I think fit the name - invest in groundbreaking technologies, i.e. biotech, crypto, nuclear fusion, not just yet another B2B SaaS company
Also really good at fund math - to this day, one of my main sparring partners when it comes to questions around portfolio optimization
i.e. recently had some great insights on whether you should take the chance to do secondaries at cost for the non-winners in your VC portfolio
Investing out of a undisclosed microfund - keep your eyes open for it
Q: What advice would you give your 10 year younger self?
Don’t waste your time on programming classes
So many business students ask me that today - realized for myself that while fun, I’ll never be in a role where my very superficial programming skills are of any use
Either learn VBA or just to be better in excel or just spend it on more practical skills
Q: What are your top tips for emerging VCs across Europe who are fundraising?
Really think about what you bring to the table - how can you differentiate yourself in a very crowded VC landscape - why should an LP invest with you, why should a founder take your money?
Really consider if you need a proper fund for Fund 1 - often much better to start with a small pool of money to build a track record rather than trying to raise money
Q: What’s the most counterintuitive thing you’ve learned in venture?
Profitability can be a bad thing
Great if you can become profitable and grow - but if you need to cut costs (and growth) massively to become profitable it’s a death sentence
Had a company where founders cut a lot of costs to become profitable - grew like ~3% month-over-month on a very low revenue base - no way they can reach a valuation where investors get their money back and thus where their equity is in the money
Aggressive cost-cutting can make sense but in venture it can be fatal
Q: Your uncommon belief.
Despite the small minimum tickets for funds and angel investments, VC is actually an asset class that most investors should probably stay away from.
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On family offices as investors in VCs & startups with Jan Voss, Head of Family Office at BLN Capital