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On raising €400M for a next gen VC with Carina Namih and Sten Tamkivi from Plural

Join us for a new inspiring discussion with Carina Namih and Sten Tamkivi from Plural who builds what they think is the prototype for a next gen VC.

Patricia Borlovan

Apr 30, 2024

Transcript

Today, we have Carina Namih and Sten Tamkivi with us.

Carina and Sten are Partners at Plural, a 400M EUR early-stage venture fund to back ambitious European founders on massive missions with hands-on help from experienced operators.

Plural launched in June 2022 with the aim to give serious founders in Europe investors with company-building experience to match their ambition. Plural’s mission is to have a GDP-level impact on Europe, address systemic risks, and reduce the opportunity gap worldwide through the companies it backs.

Plural has just announced its second fund with a total of 650M AUM and an established portfolio of 25 companies and notable investments, including Ready Player Me, Robin AI, and Unitary. Plural’s team is split between Tallinn, Estonia (where Sten is from) and London (where Carina is from).

Table of Contents | Scroll ⏬ for all guest show notes ✍️

Episode chapters.
Carina’s journey into venture.
Sten’s journey into venture.
From “Old School VC” to Next Gen VC
Shout-out.
Advice for 10 years younger self.
Top tips for emerging VCs who are fundraising.
Most counterintuitive learning.
Uncommon belief.

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Up for a party? Cue the music and listen to this episode’s soundtrack while reading the key learnings below 👇

This episode is brought to you in partnership with Zero One Hundred Conferences, which organizes LP-GP networking events for PE & VC players in various European regions with a global outreach. In the last 8 years, they have hosted 49 events with 1700+ speakers, 6500+ investors, and 12000+ attendees.

Join the upcoming 0100 Conference CEE to meet 350+ LPs and GPs like 500 Global, CVC Capital Partners, EBRD, EIC, EIF, Erste Group, INVL Asset Management, LGT Capital Partners, MidEuropa, Molten Ventures, PFR Ventures, Schroders, and World Fund, to mention a few.

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Chapters:

01:37 Karina's Journey from Biotech Founder to Venture Capitalist
03:14 Stan's Path: From Entrepreneur to Plural Partner
04:57 Raising a Fund in a Challenging Market
07:02 Plural's Investment Strategy and Focus
15:52 Plural's Unique Approach to Adding Value for Founders
23:03 Scaling the Impact: Plural's Vision for Europe's Tech Ecosystem
25:21 Addressing the Critiques: A Candid Look at the VC Landscape
29:25 Challenging the Status Quo in VC Practices
30:20 The Philosophy Behind Investment Decisions
30:47 Strategic Follow-On Investment Approach
31:55 Innovative Decision-Making in Investment Committees
34:02 The Unique Approach to Follow-On Investments
42:14 Building the Plural Platform: Insights and Strategies
58:13 Uncommon Beliefs and the Future of European Tech

✍️ 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.

Carina’s journey in VC.

My journey into venture started as a founder
Built HelixNano.
Could see the transformation coming in Europe and enjoyed taking all those lessons to help next gen here.
Lucky enough to back great founders, realised how much I enjoyed it.

Sten’s journey in VC.

My journey to venture is about hands-on building companies
think of myself as entrepreneur first and foremost
angel investing since early stage of Skype
Stanford & EIR at a16z - still decided to build full time (Teleport)
since 2020 full time portfolio mode (Taavet+Sten → Plural)

Deep dive on getting Europe from “Old School VC” to Next Gen VC.

Sten — Europe is ripe with ambition, but underserved.
have lived in US for 10% of my life, can compare
culture of giving back, generational entrepreneurship
top30 tech companies globally: just 2 in Europe
only 8% of European VCs have built a company before
we have founders with scar tissue exiting, who can help - but VC structures today are not exciting for them
Carina — I felt I had to move to US to do my crazy sci fi biz. No longer true.
As much about the evolution of the founder base, as it is the VCs. Founders here have matured and demand better at home. Seeing how attitude of technical/sci founders has changed in Europe in a decade - Turing and phasec, Proxima, Sano and Unitary
Checklist feeling w other VCs but incentives facing them are tough, gotta respect that. But we try to build from first principles - time with founders so 2 a year, big missions we really want to go through the grind.

Building the prototype for a next gen VC.

Decision making: balancing peer feedback with individual latitude. no fuzzy thinking, no playing it safe.
Skin in the game: co-investing; carry elements for collective and individual performance.
Strong platform team: anything you can offload from either side will improve founders-backing-founders unique value prop.

Shout-out.

Shout-out from Sten to Seedcamp.
first movers in making early stage systemic and structured in Europe
bothered to get out of London, recognize that pre-seed happens from Balkans to Baltics
fantastic performance + fantastic humans
I’ve seen them on both sides (Teleport investors + have been an LP myself)
Shout-out from Carina to Srin Madipalli.
Huge amount of respect for him - not a big talker but a real builder. Built accomable sold it to Airbnb. Constantly playing with building and experimenting - building stuff with LLMs before they were cool
Seen him advise founders that I’m working with and give pragmatic advice that's the special balance of pushing them but with real empathy.

Advice for 10 years younger self.

Sten:
Yes, early stage is about founders, but still matters their mission is worthwhile. A little bit better ecommerce can be a waste of talent even when successful.
The technical hassle of joining Ethereum ICO will be worth it 🙂. E.g if you’re curious and ahead, don’t coast.
Carina
Feels tough seeing your e-commerce peers getting quick wins, but it's worth the slog so keep at it.
Stick the highest possible standards on the people you work with - Working with A players is always worth it and Don't put up with a toxic culture for 1 minute longer than absolutely necessary.

Top tips for emerging European VCs.

Sten:
Only makes sense to raise today if you are super-differentiated, and blatantly, unfairly, near-illegally advantaged about something.
What’s the secret? What do you know? Who do you know? What can you help with?
Not a great time for first-time generalists.
Carina:
A lot of emerging managers don't think carefully enough about the interplay of strategy/positioning vs fund size vs type of LP and their incentives etc
Takes time to build those LP relationships - and they all talk so your rep is critical

Counterintuitive thing learned in VC.

Sten:
Ownership matters more than price.
Those fixed round letters are a public charade: best founders treat capital needs much more dynamically, as a gradient
Carina:
Used to doubt if I was extroverted enough for this gig.
But you don't have to go to all the events and shake all the hands - sometimes keeping your own counsel is a superpower, carve a different path from the crowd.
Less noise, see things others aren't. But read a ton.

Uncommon belief.

The world needs European techno-humanism.
As with everything in public discourse, we are seeing deep polarizations in global tech today: would it be between acceleration or deceleration of progress.
Or the US <> China opposites of liberal markets or centralised authorities calling the shots.
I think these are false dichotomies, and that there is a real market pull for a third way: rapid technological progress that puts the human users/builders in the center and has societal checks and balances.

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