On Raising Pale Blue Dot Fund II without traveling a single mile with Founding GP Hampus Jakobsson

To be completely honest, I tried to write a core insights section for this one, but Hampus blew me away and I couldn't do it justice. So you'll have to listen. But I promise it's worth it 💖

EUVC

Dec 21, 2023

Transcript

Today we have Hampus Jakobsson, founding GP of Pale Blue Dot with us for a very special episode dedicated wholly to raising a fund virtually. It came about because Hampus casually mentioned that he hadn’t traveled a single mile in the raise of Fund 2, which of course had us thinking:

Wow, we need to share this story! So strap in.

Hampus is a GP at Pale Blue Dot, an early stage venture fund in Sweden to back European Climate Tech companies. PBD are investing out of Fund 2 with a total 200M$ AUM and an established portfolio of 32 companies and notable investments including Monta, Patch, OverStory, ClimateX and Opna.

Prior to co-founding Pale Blue Dot, Hampus was a Venture Partner at science fund Blue Yard and a prolific angel investor with more than 100 angel investments. He is a software engineer turned founder, turned angel investor, turned VC. When not working with ambitious climate people Hampus cooks, reads and thinks.

We’ve had Hampus on before (episode #115 → spotify/apple🎧) and we whole-heartedly recommend you go check it out if you haven’t yet, ‘cos Hampus is hands-down one of our best guests on the pod. Smart, candid, top performing, and a rapid talker like none other!

Scroll on ⏬ for the time stamps & core learnings

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Chapters:

00:02:45 - The Motivation Behind Saying No to Traveling for Fundraising
00:04:56 - Building a Deck for Fundraising
00:06:47 - Defining Your Fundraising Strategy
00:14:28 - Effective Meetings and Learning Opportunities
00:16:16 - Building Trust Virtually
00:20:06 - Being a Real Person
00:22:07 - Working with What You're Good At
00:28:09 - Dealing with Different Investment Perspectives
00:32:01 - Importance of Handcrafted Relationships
00:35:47 - The Quick Fire Round
00:37:54 - The Dangers of Coming Into Wealth
00:42:26 - Parenthood and the Love for Kids

Q: What advice would you give your 10 year younger self?

… it isn’t cool to sleep less
… keep reading fiction, even when you “don’t have time.” Don’t read fancy books, but books you enjoy reading.
… be less anxious what other people think of you, try enjoying being you.